1. George Barber had a bunch of enormous dinosaurs built and randomly placed around the 10,000 acres of woods he owned.

via RoadsideAmerica

The dinosaurs were built by artist Mark Cline - and Barber also hired him to do a few more Insane Rich Guy things:

 

Install a statue of an enormous woman in a lake.

via RoadsideAmerica

Create a fiberglass recreation of Stonehenge in Alabama

via RoadsideAmerica

 

2. On April 1st, 1989, Richard Branson sent out a hot air balloon designed to look like a UFO and hired a dwarf in an E.T. costume to come out and scare anyone around when it finally landed.

Wrote Branson:

It was great fun watching their reactions. What we didnt know was three police forces had been mobilised, the army had been alerted and radio and TV stations had all gone on the air about a UFO flying low over London!

The police surrounded us and then sent one lone policeman with his truncheon across the field to greet the alien. The UFOs door opened very slowly, with tonnes of dry ice billowing from it. A dwarf that we had carried on board, dressed in an ET outfit, walked down the platform towards the bobby. He promptly turned and ran in the opposite direction! The police initially didnt see the funny side of it and threatened to arrest us for wasting their time. But they soon joined in the general merriment of it.

 

3. Vladislav Doronin built his then-girlfriend, Naomi Campbell, a massive mansion in Moscow designed to look like a Star Destroyer

via Zaha Hadid Architects

 

4. Howard Hughes bought a casino just so he could reposition their neon sign, which had been keeping him up at night, and get rid of the giant slipper, which he believed was being used to spy on him.

 

 

5. George Lucas is going to build a ton of low-income affordable housing to stick it to his snotty neighbors.

via The Washington Post

Lucas originally wanted to use the land to build a massive production facility, but the neighbors pushed back and blocked his repeated attempts. So instead, he's going to spend between $120-$150 million to build low income housing in Marin County, saying that the area already "has enough millionaires." So say what you will about George Lucas, but at least he's willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to get petty vengeance.

 

6.  Sheikh Hamad Bin Hamdan Al Nahyan had his name written in the sand via canals so that it could be viewed from space.

 

via The Wall Street Journal

...it has since been covered up, because c'mon dude.

 

7. Cecil Chao offered any man $120m if they could woo and marry his lesbian daughter.

via The Independent

His daughter, now married, has not had her sexuality changed by any daring suitors - and wrote to him:

I know it's difficult for you to understand how I could feel romantically attracted to a woman; I suppose I can't really explain it either. It just happens, peacefully and gently, and after so many years, we still love each other very much. My regret is that you have no idea how happy I am with my life, and there are aspects of my life that you don't share. I suppose we don't need each other's approval for our romantic relationships, and I am sure your relationships are really fantastic too. Now, I'm not asking you to be best of friends; however, it would mean the world to me if you could just not be so terrified of her, and treat her like a normal, dignified human being.

 

8. Larry Ellison hired a guy in a powerboat to follow his yacht and scoop up any basketballs that fell overboard.

via Busines Insider

There's billionaire, and then there's "I have basketball hoops on my yacht and hire people to catch the balls" billionaire. 

 

9. Pablo Escobar spent untold millions building his own private prison (called "La Catedral") to hold him, since he did not think the government-run prison would treat him fairly. He installed jacuzzis, a soccer field, a waterfall, hired his own guards, and slept on a waterbed.

via BBC

He also once burned $1 million to keep his daughter warm while they were on the run.

Also, when his daughter told him that she wanted a unicorn, he purchased a horse, stapled a cone to its head and wings to its back. It soon died of infection.

Everyone go watch Narcos immediately.