a scuba diver at the Cancun Underwater Sculpture Museum (MUSA) in Cancun, Mexico — A diver drifts over a submerged vehicle at MUSA, the underwater museum of contemporary art in Cancun, Mexico.

Photograph by Mauricio Collado, Xinhua/Alamy Stock Photo

TRAVEL

10 of the World’s Weirdest Museums

These treasure troves around the globe will satisfy your strangest curiosities.

ByGulnaz Khan

March 8, 2017

11 min read

What turns an ordinary object into something extraordinary? Put it in a museum. No matter how seemingly odd or mundane, objects offer us windows into history and connect us to our past. They expose our darkest preoccupations, most brilliant ideas, and the limitless creativity of the human mind.

Plastinarium

Guben, Germany

ventriloquist puppets at Vent Haven Museum in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky — Smiling ventriloquist dolls fill rows of seats at the Vent Haven Museum in Kentucky.

Photograph by Edward Rothstein, The New York Times/Redux

In 1910, William Shakespeare Berger bought his first dummy: Tommy Baloney. By 1947, his collection had grown so large he renovated his garage to house the figures, and in 1962, he had to construct a second building. Today, Vent Haven Museum—the only one of its kind—displays more than 800 dummies, photos, playbills, and historical books from Berger’s collection. The museum also hosts the annual ConVENTion, a ventriloquist meeting that attracts professionals and enthusiasts from around the world.