Only Ripley's Believe It or Not! could come up with such stories: that women who have fondled African fertility statues keep getting pregnant.
But there they were Thursday, many of the 14 mothers and mothers-to-be who did just that at Ripley's offices before the carvings went on display.Now, many other women who want to be pregnant are flocking to the exhibit at the Ripley museum to marvel at and touch the ebony statues of male and female gods carved by the Baoule tribe of the West Africa nation Ivory Coast.
Kimberly Martin didn't intend to rub the belly of the fertility carving. She tripped over it.
"I caught myself on it and kept myself from falling. A month later, I was pregnant," said the 24-year-old Martin, who said she was on birth control pills at the time of her mishap with the statue.
Some of the mothers and moms-to-be admit the whole thing may be a coincidence, but they say it can't be ignored.
In some cases, the women had been on fertility drugs, to no avail. Others had tried artificial insemination. Several were on birth control pills.
Seven women have had babies, and seven others are expecting.
Believe it or not, all the babies and pending births - with a single exception - are boys.
The 41/2-foot-tall figures, which had been housed temporarily in Ripley's corporate offices, went on display this month after officials realized what was happening.
A sign on the wall behind the statues warns visitors: "Please Don't Touch Unless You Want to Start a Family."
Vanessa Katz and her husband, Bruce, are ecstatic over her pregnancy because they had tried for two years to have children.
"Every time I was in there I would kind of rub the statue as I went by," said Katz, who worked on Ripley's computers. "I tried insemination, nothing worked. Whatever the statue did is fine."
The power of suggestion, or science?
Dr. Faizea Hakim, a physician who recently moved to Orlando from Manchester, England, said some infertile women can become pregnant when something jogs their brains and bodies into relaxing.
"People can get a mental block about pregnancy," she said. "Wishing for it - or avoiding it - can become stressful. If you relax, pregnancy can come. Different things work for different people."