Parents Credit Ripley's Fertility Statue for Baby

(Jan. 24) – Of all the wondrous people linked to Ripley's Believe It Or Not! over the past 90 years, one of the most amazing may be Liam Faulkner, a perfectly normal 8-month-old baby.

That's because Ripley's famed fertility statues may have helped make his birth possible.

When Liam's parents, Stephen, 34, and Tricia, 30, of Long Island, N.Y., heard the statues were making a stop at the Times Square Odditorium back in August 2008, they decided to pay a visit. Married since 2005, they'd been trying just about every other means of getting pregnant for nearly a year and a half.

"We did five months of fertility treatments and we had one more month of trying before we were going to move on to in vitro," Tricia said.

After seeing the event posted online, they took it as a joke. Stephen, a marketing data specialist, and Tricia, a speech language pathologist, are hardly the superstitious types. Yet, they figured a little extra help couldn't hurt.

"We conceived two weeks later," Stephen said. "We were both floored, but it's just a funny coincidence," Tricia added.

It probably was.

But the new parents are hardly alone in their success. Ripley's fertility statues, acquired from the Baule people of West Africa's Ivory Coast, have been linked to more than 2,000 pregnancies since their first tour in the 1990s.

"I think we can safely say we are having an impact," said Michael Hirsch, general manager of Ripley's Believe It Or Not! Times Square. "Whether it's the mental fact where people really believe and that allows them on a physical level to have success – or maybe there is something behind them. Who's to say?"

Even Hirsch can attest to the apparent power of the statues. When they arrived in New York, he and his wife quickly took advantage. They had been trying to get pregnant for two and a half years. "When they got here, my wife was the first one to touch them, while they were still in the crates on the loading dock," he said. "We got pregnant six months later."

Ripley's acquired the pair of 5-foot-tall ebony wood figures in 1993. "They weren't bought for mystical powers, we bought them for their beauty," said Tim O'Brien, the company's vice president of communications.

They were originally confined to Ripley's headquarters in Orlando, Fla. Within 13 months there were 13 pregnancies. "Including the UPS lady," O'Brien said. "And that's what started the whole thing."

The African carvings have since proved to be the most popular exhibit in Ripley's history and have toured the United States several times.

"They don't have any known powers and we can't endorse them," O'Brien said. "But something's working."

In fact, it's even working for couples unable to visit in person. Many have faxed Ripley's their handprints as a substitute. "We'll rub them up against the statues and send them back," O'Brien said. "What people do with them I have no idea. But we've had at least six or seven women in the past year say that worked for them."

The statues are just beginning a new tour. Stephen and Tricia may return to Ripley's to have Liam photographed with them. "We'll just make sure we don't touch the statues again," Stephen said. "He doesn't need a little brother or sister right now."