Have you ever heard of a club for people who have been saved by an ejection seat? It’s true! Pilots who have used their Martin-Baker ejection seats to escape a dangerous situation and survived are welcomed into the Martin-Baker Ejection Tie Club. They receive a patch, certificate, and membership card, all featuring the red triangle symbol of ejection seats. There are over 6,000 members in this unique club.
I’m Erin McCarthy from Mental Floss, and I’m here to tell you about some other fascinating clubs you might not know about. Besides the Martin-Baker Ejection Club, there’s the Caterpillar Club, which started in 1922. This club is for aviators who have been saved by parachutes. The name “Caterpillar” comes from the silk used in parachutes, similar to a caterpillar’s cocoon. Famous members include George H.W. Bush and Charles Lindbergh.
Then there’s the Shuttlecock Club, which isn’t about badminton. It’s for people who have crashed at the Shuttlecock Corner on the Cresta Run in Switzerland. This icy track is known for its challenging turns, and those who fail to navigate the Shuttlecock Corner are launched into a pile of snow and straw. Members can wear a special Shuttlecock tie from the Cresta Run gift shop.
Some clubs have unusual criteria for membership. The Sons of Lee Marvin is a club for people who look like they could be related to the actor Lee Marvin. Created by director Jim Jarmusch, it includes members like Nick Cave and Tom Waits.
The Bohemian Club is a secretive male-only club that meets annually in California. It’s rumored that parts of the Manhattan Project were planned there. Notable members have included presidents and famous writers.
On the other hand, the Belizean Grove is a female-only club focused on helping women leaders connect and succeed. Members have included Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
If you’re a scientist with impressive hair, you might join the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists. To join, you need a photo of your hair, proof of your scientific work, and a clever statement about why you belong.
Project Steve is another club for scientists, but only if your name is Steve or a variation of it. It’s a playful way to show that gathering signatures from scientists doesn’t necessarily prove anything about evolution.
The Order of the Occult Hand is for journalists who can sneak the phrase “it was as if an occult hand had” into their writing. This tradition started in the 1960s and has appeared in many major newspapers.
Lawnmower racing is a real sport! The British Lawnmower Racing Association started in 1973, and now there are clubs in several countries. If you love racing, this might be for you.
The Not Terribly Good Club was for people who weren’t very good at things. Members shared their funny failures, but the club disbanded when it became too successful.
The Association of Dead People is for those who have been mistakenly declared dead. It helps people in India who face this unusual problem.
The UK Roundabout Appreciation Society admires roundabouts as beautiful traffic features. They even have a president called the Lord of the Rings!
The Society of Happy People encourages sharing happiness. It gained attention when it challenged advice to keep good news private, leading to a surge in membership.
Extreme Ironing combines ironing with adventure sports. It started in England and has seen people ironing in extreme places like the French Alps and Everest base camp.
The Twenty-Minute Society at Newcastle University surprises its members with spontaneous events. Members receive a text and have 20 minutes to reach a mystery location for fun activities.
The 300 Club is for those brave enough to run outside in Antarctica after a hot sauna when temperatures reach negative 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
The Putney High Tide Club is for those who accidentally park too close to the Thames River and get their cars submerged by the tide. Photos of these mishaps are shared online.
The Rubble Club is for architects whose buildings are demolished within their lifetimes. It’s a reminder of the impermanence of their creations.
The Cloud Appreciation Society celebrates the beauty of clouds. Members receive a pin, certificate, and a tool to identify different cloud types.
If you have questions about these clubs or want to learn more, feel free to ask! And don’t forget to check out Mental Floss for more interesting stories and videos.
Imagine you could start your own club. What would it be about? Think of a unique or quirky interest or activity that you and your friends might enjoy. Write a short description of your club, including its name, purpose, and any special membership criteria. Share your ideas with the class and see what creative clubs your classmates come up with!
Choose one of the clubs mentioned in the article, such as the Martin-Baker Ejection Tie Club or the Extreme Ironing Club. Research more about its history, membership, and activities. Prepare a short presentation to share your findings with the class, including any interesting facts or stories you discover.
Using art supplies or digital tools, design a membership card for one of the clubs mentioned in the article. Think about what symbols, colors, or images would represent the club well. Include the club’s name, a logo, and any other details you think are important. Display your card in the classroom for others to see.
Imagine you have joined one of the unusual clubs from the article. Write a short story about your experience as a member. What activities do you participate in? What kind of people do you meet? How does being part of the club change your perspective or daily life? Share your story with a partner or the class.
Participate in a class debate about the value of unusual clubs. Divide into two groups: one arguing that these clubs are beneficial and promote creativity and community, and the other arguing that they are unnecessary or frivolous. Use examples from the article to support your arguments and listen to opposing viewpoints. After the debate, discuss what you learned about the role of clubs in society.
Here’s a sanitized version of the YouTube transcript:
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Did you know there’s a special club just for people who have had their lives saved by an ejection seat? Pilots who activated their Martin-Baker ejection seats and lived to tell the tale are officially inducted into the Martin-Baker Ejection Tie Club after surviving their harrowing ordeal. Pilots receive a patch, certificate, and membership card to commemorate the event, each item emblazoned with the red triangle icon that signifies ejection seats. So far, there are more than 6,000 registered members of the Ejection Tie Club, which is not a club I’d want to join.
I’m Erin McCarthy, editor-in-chief of Mental Floss, and the Martin-Baker Ejection Club is just the first of many absolutely fascinating clubs and societies you may or may not want to join that I’m going to share with you today. The Martin-Baker Ejection Club isn’t the only association for people who have bailed out of a bad plane situation. There’s also the Caterpillar Club, which was started in 1922. This worldwide organization is for military and commercial aviators who had a life-saving experience with a parachute. Why Caterpillar? At the time, parachutes were made from silk, so the metaphor of a caterpillar spinning a safe cocoon and then emerging from it to take flight was apt. It’s estimated that more than 100,000 people have been part of the Caterpillar Club over the years, including George H.W. Bush and Charles Lindbergh.
The Shuttlecock Club has nothing to do with badminton; it’s actually an exclusive society for anyone who has crashed at the Shuttlecock Corner on the Cresta Run or on the sledding track in Switzerland, one of the last natural ice tracks in the world. The Cresta Run in St. Moritz spans about three-quarters of a mile with an elevation drop of 514 feet. The Shuttlecock is an infamous corner of the run designed to stop out-of-control riders. If they can’t make the corner, riders launch off the side and land in a pile of snow and straw to cushion the fall, but it’s not exactly a soft landing. People who have failed the corner say it’s like falling out of an aircraft. As consolation, all failures are inducted into the club and are entitled to wear a Shuttlecock tie available at the Cresta Run gift shop.
You can’t really choose to join the Sons of Lee Marvin; genetics choose you. The club includes anyone who, according to film director Jim Jarmusch, has a facial structure such that you could be related to or be a son of Lee Marvin, the American actor known for films like “The Wild One” and “Cat Ballou.” Known or rumored members of this club, which was created by Jarmusch, include Nick Cave, Tom Waits, Josh Brolin, and Iggy Pop. Fun fact: Waits once designed business cards for all of the Sons.
Chances are you probably won’t be invited to join the Bohemian Club. No offense, but the secretive male-only club gathers once a year to camp on 2,700 acres they own in the Bohemian Grove forest in Sonoma County, California. No one is quite sure what they do there, but rumors abound. It’s said that some of the Manhattan Project was planned at the site. Notable members and guests have included Herbert Hoover, William Randolph Hearst, Jack London, Donald Rumsfeld, Henry Kissinger, and Ronald Reagan.
Thanks to YouTube commenter Invisible Lemons for the suggestion! If you want to be featured in the next episode of the List Show, leave us a question in the comments below about the List Show. That’s right, our next episode will be a Q&A where we answer audience questions about the List Show and/or Mental Floss at large. If you have a question you’d like us to answer, let us know!
Back to weird organizations: just like the Bohemian Club, you’re probably not going to get invited to the Belizean Grove. It’s the female-only answer to the Bohemian Club but with a more public mission to help female leaders build trusted relationships with each other and to help rising stars get to the top. Members have included Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and U.S. Army General Ann Dunwoody.
Are you a scientist? Do you have a gorgeous mane of hair? Then you might be a great candidate for the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists. There are just four steps standing between you and membership:
1. Photo evidence of said luxuriant flowing hair (there’s a strict below-the-clavicle rule).
2. You need to know which hair clubs you want to join; the LFHCS has subchapters for flowing facial hair, formerly flowing hair for science journalists, and more.
3. A link to a site such as your employer that legitimizes your scientific credentials.
4. A pithy statement about why you belong.
The LFHCS isn’t the only weird club scientists can join. If you’re a scientist and your name is Steve, Project Steve might be right up your alley. It’s a somewhat tongue-in-cheek undertaking by people who wanted to prove that it’s easy for creationists to get hundreds of scientists’ signatures on anti-evolution statements. The sheer number can make it seem like evolution is being seriously questioned by professionals when it’s really not. Project Steve shows that hundreds of scientist signatures can be gathered without proving anything except how easy it is to get those signatures. If you’re a Steve, Steven, Stephanie, Esteban, or any other variation, you’re welcome to join Project Steve, which even has its own theme song.
The Order of the Occult Hand is open to any journalist or writer who can manage to work the phrase “it was as if an occult hand had” into their writing and get it published. The strange tradition began in the 1960s and spread as reporters and journalists moved to new publications. The phrase has appeared in newspapers like The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and many more. It’s been used in small-town crime reports and by Pulitzer Prize winner Paul Greenberg. But since the order was exposed in 2004, it’s as if the occult hand has turned on itself; the odd wording doesn’t turn up as much as it once did. According to Greenberg, the order has chosen a new piece of overwrought language journalists must sneak into publications for admission into the club. The rejected options were “hanging over the scene like a shroud” and “like a soft warm weird breeze blowing aimlessly through the palms.” The phrase actually chosen remains a mystery.
Lawnmower racing is apparently an international phenomenon. The British Lawnmower Racing Association was founded in 1973. As their website says, the pastime has spread like crabgrass, and now you can join official lawnmower racing associations in the U.S., Germany, Luxembourg, Canada, New Zealand, and the Czech Republic. If you don’t necessarily want to join the LMRA but you do want to stay current on standings, be sure to check out their blog, The Cutting Edge.
Do you find yourself failing at things again and again, almost comically? Then you would have been a perfect candidate for the Not Terribly Good Club. British journalist Stephen Pyles started the club in the late ’70s for people who were just not terribly good at things. To prove they were worthy members, they had to tell their tales at meetings. Pyles later turned some of the more famous examples into a series of books. One example from 1999 was when a family planning agency distributed condoms stapled to a pamphlet about STDs; the now-perforated condoms were a not terribly good form of contraception. As for the club, it disbanded when members urged making itself successful and therefore ineligible to exist. Maybe it’s time to start it back up using the argument that the Not Terribly Good Club is not terribly good at following its own rules.
The Association of Dead People isn’t what you’d think. Being alive is actually a requirement to belong. In the mid-’70s, Law Bihari discovered he was dead on paper in order to inherit his share of the family’s estriol homeland. A relative of Maharishi had him declared deceased. The underhanded tactic took a staggering 17 years to undo. Frustrated with the slow process to get himself declared alive again, Bihari formed an advocacy group to help others going through the same thing because being wrongly declared dead is apparently not an uncommon occurrence in India.
Where some people see an unremarkable traffic feature, the UK Roundabout Appreciation Society sees beauty, proclaiming the humble circular intersection as an oasis on a sea of tarmac. The UK RAS admires the beauty of roundabouts big and small, and the president of the association is called the Lord of the Rings.
If you’re happy and you know it, join the Society of Happy People. Founded in the late ’90s, at a time when it was cool to be blasé, the Secret Society of Happy People really found its footing when they challenged Ann Landers on a piece of advice she gave to readers. The columnist told people it was best to keep good news to themselves when writing holiday letters, which made the secret society very unhappy indeed. The press picked up the clash, and the resulting publicity made membership skyrocket.
Do you love ironing? Do you love rock climbing? Why not combine your two passions with the Extreme Ironing Bureau? A group of very tidy adventurers, Extreme Ironing began in Leicester, England, when rock climber Phil Shaw decided the tour would be much more enjoyable outside and dragged his ironing board out to his garden. The idea exploded from there, and soon he had recruited people to fight wrinkles while skiing the French Alps, at the base camp of Everest, and even while BASE jumping.
The Twenty-Minute Society at England’s Newcastle University is all about surprise and delight, with an emphasis on the surprise. Every two to three weeks, its 500 members receive a text providing a location they must arrive at within 20 minutes. From pub meetups to ice skating, members never know what they’re in for. The club also holds an annual formal event and has a drawing for a mystery vacation once a year. The randomness of the society has proved popular, with more sprouting up across the UK all the time.
Simply having an adventurous spirit isn’t enough to get into the 300 Club. The opportunity to gain membership in this exclusive group happens when temperatures in Antarctica reach negative 100 degrees Fahrenheit. After roasting in a 200-degree sauna at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, those attempting to join the club must go streaking outside around the ceremonial South Pole with shoes on. If that’s any consolation, one participant said it felt like “somebody was hitting me with a tennis racket full of needles.”
No one wants a Putney High Tide Club membership. Members are involuntarily inducted when they park too close to the Thames in the Putney district of London and fail to move their cars before the tide comes in. Members are inducted via photos on the official Putney High Tide Club pages on Twitter and Facebook.
The Rubble Club is probably a slightly sad affair. Members of the club are architects who created buildings they believed would be around for the long haul, only to see them intentionally destroyed within their lifetimes. The Rubble Club secretary told us there’s no official membership, saying, “We are unique in that self-knowledge is the only route to membership.”
Everybody loves a beautiful cloud, but the Cloud Appreciation Society takes it a step further. Their manifesto states that they believe clouds are unjustly maligned, that they are expressions of the atmosphere’s moods, and that those who contemplate the shapes in clouds will save money on therapy bills. If your head is always in the clouds, this is just the society for you. Your membership will include a pin, a certificate, and a cloud selector identification wheel.
Don’t forget to drop your List Show-related questions in the comments for our upcoming very meta episode of the List Show dropping on January 29th. If you haven’t seen the pilot episodes of our new series “Food History” and “Kids vs. Science,” check them out! We had a lot of fun making them. If you want to know why the French passed a law banning potatoes in the 1700s or what experimental physicists can teach us about paper airplanes, you want to give them a watch. Subscribe to Mental Floss and check back every Wednesday at 3 p.m. for new episodes. Bye!
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This version removes any inappropriate language and maintains a professional tone while preserving the original content’s essence.
Clubs – Groups of people who meet to participate in activities or discuss topics of common interest, often related to hobbies or academic subjects. – In the early 20th century, many young inventors joined science clubs to share their ideas and experiments.
Membership – The state of being a member of a group or organization. – Gaining membership in the prestigious explorers’ society was a significant achievement for the young historian.
Scientists – Individuals who conduct research and experiments to discover new information about the natural world. – Scientists in the 19th century made groundbreaking discoveries that changed our understanding of electricity.
History – The study of past events, particularly in human affairs. – Learning about the history of ancient civilizations helps us understand how modern societies have evolved.
Aviation – The design, development, production, and operation of aircraft. – The Wright brothers are famous for their contributions to the field of aviation with the first successful powered flight.
Parachutes – Devices used to slow the descent of a person or object through the air, often used in aviation for safety. – During World War II, parachutes were crucial for pilots who needed to escape from damaged aircraft.
Ejection – The act of being forcefully expelled, often used in the context of pilots leaving an aircraft in an emergency. – The pilot’s quick ejection from the jet saved his life when the engine failed.
Adventure – An exciting or unusual experience, often involving exploration or risk. – The explorers embarked on an adventure to discover new lands and document their findings.
Creativity – The use of imagination or original ideas to create something; inventiveness. – Creativity was essential for scientists like Leonardo da Vinci, who imagined inventions far ahead of his time.
Happiness – A state of well-being and contentment, often resulting from achieving goals or experiencing positive events. – The discovery of ancient artifacts brought great happiness to the archaeologists who had spent years searching for them.
