Most people throw away corks... Kerry Haulotte kept them! Then he kept saving them until he had enough to build an amazing creation: a full suit made of more than 1,150 bottle corks.
The construction was slow. Kerry drilled a hole through each cork and threaded them together one by one, linking them like a string of pearls until the strands became panels and the panels became a suit.
He worked on it in his spare time. When he finally counted up the hours, he'd spent more than 130! Believe It or Not!, the finished piece weighed around 14 pounds.
Getting in the Water
Building it was one thing. Wearing it into the water was another.
Kerry admits he was nervous. What if the whole idea turned out to be a failure? What if he sank? Every hour of drilling and stringing came down to a single question with only two possible answers.
He got in anyway.
Believe It or Not!, Kerry floated! And rather than laughing him out of the water, everyone wanted a turn.
How Ripley's Found Out
Kerry didn't send the story in. His stepdaughter, Haley, did.
She was proud enough of what he'd made that she wrote to Ripley's herself! Somewhere between the drill press and the shoreline, a pile of corks turned into something unbelievable.
See It in Wired Into Weird
Kerry and his cork suit are featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not! Wired Into Weird, our newest annual—packed with the strangest people, places, and animals we've tracked down over the past year.
It's available for pre-order now. Get your copy before it hits shelves this fall, and find out what else made the cut.