Flashes of Panic

In the summer that I worked for the American Journal of Physics (actually, here) then-editor Bob Romer had a file with various names which contained "the unpublishable," various handwritten manuscripts from deluded unfortunates claiming to have disproven Einstein (or Newton!), invented a perpetual motion machine, etc. etc. For some reason I remember at least one of the authors actually writing from jail. Bob continued including choice excerpts (with the names removed) in his semi-annual Editor's Letter, which I got until he gave up AJP in 2001. Generally he responded with a kindly-worded letter pointing out that AJP generally did not publish new research. ("The Journal is particularly interested in manuscripts that can be used to bring contemporary research in physics and related fields into the classroom.")

Now I find a tool which would have made these even more amusing, if only by allowing us to rank them: the Crackpot Index.