You’ve heard of cockeyed, but what about clock-eyed? Harold Maconeghy of Scranton, Pennsylvania, looked like a perfectly normal ten-year-old until you looked closely into his eyes. Thin white lines in his irises had the appearance of Roman numerals, as if on a clock face. Ripley drew them in a Believe It Or Not! cartoon in 1930.
Known as the Clock-Eyed Boy, Maconeghy enjoyed local fame after Ripley’s cartoon ran and displayed his eyes for the public at various shops, including of course, a store that sold eye glasses. “Come and bring the children,” its ad read. “Doctors invited to examine this phenomena.”
Naturally, as with many of Ripley’s cartoons, there were skeptics who chose not to believe and set out to prove the cartoonist wrong. But as a 1930 article noted, “they failed again” after a photograph confirmed his eyes looked as Ripley drew them.
Despite the Clock-Eyed Boy’s abnormality, he reportedly enjoyed perfect vision.
