Example of Rejecting the "Ridiculous"

People will often reject a notion on the grounds that it's "ridiculous". I want to eventually write a longer post about this, but for the moment I'm just collecting examples. Tim Cahill provides one in his book Remote Journies Oddly Rendered. The particular story in the book recounts the time he camped in Yellowstone National Park near a set of remote geysers, and it notes:

Early white explorers sent back accounts of the boiling water and steam erupting from the earth. One eastern publication, in 1870, rejected what now seems like a solid descriptive manuscript with the words, `Sorry, we do not print fiction.’ And it was in 1870 that men who wondered at the supposedly fictional geysers first expressed the thought that the entire areas would be set aside as a National park. (1st ed, pg 200. Note that in the US the book seems to be called "Pass the Butterworms: Remote Journeys Oddly Rendered").