One of my favorite places to go when I lived in L.A. was The Museum of Jurassic Technology. It’s an almost impossible to describe museum of just weird stuff (unfortunately only open by appointment these days). One example is an exhibit of the parts of the late magician Ricky Jay’s dice collection that were disintegrating because of the material they were made of.
But one of my favorite exhibits was a collection of letters cranks had sent to Mount Wilson observatory from its opening in 1915 until 1935. Happily, I discovered recently that the whole thing was transcribed and I can now read it and, even just flipping through it, I forgot how hilariously funny it is. The addition of photos of the original letters and telegrams along with the transcriptions adds to how much fun it is. The transcriptions are as accurate as possible, including misspellings and sometimes a total lack of punctuation.
Basically, it's what insane people used to do before there was an internet and they could amass a following who would go out and harass anyone who dares to suggest that Saturn is not, in fact, a chili cheese burrito. They just bothered the poor scientists directly.
At least they had to buy stamps.
My favorite so far has been a long screed which begins with, in all caps, "I HAVE THE KEY TO ALL EXISTENCE," and a Christmas card from a Jewish person who stated that Jews would rule the world because of people like Einstein was a real head scratcher.
I'm too lazy to type in what's in the book, but someone on a website transcribed this telegram:
GENTLEMEN. ARE YOU INTERESTED IN SEPARATING VALUABLE CHEMICAL COMPOUNDS FROM THE SUNSHINE RAY? WORTH BILLIONS OF DOLLARS. APPRECIATE AN AIRMAIL REPLY.
The link is to buy it directly from the museum, which is one of the coolest places you can go in Los Angeles, but it's available elsewhere.