# What is the strangest thing you've ever found? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 21, 2002, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293 "2002-06-21T16:42:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Avarie537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/48db29/32.png) [@Avarie537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Avarie537)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2003, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/181 "2003-08-07T20:06:18Z")
I once found a 14k gold wedding band (that’s what it looked like) while on a walk. I was 12 or so, and it was a Sunday in February. I slipped and almost fell - caught myself on the way down. When I looked at my hand on the ground, there was the ring. Must’ve been a size 5 because it fit my pinky perfectly. I was stolen three years later. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2003, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/182 "2003-08-07T20:16:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Avarie537 \* > I once found a 14k gold wedding band (that’s what it looked like) while on a walk. I was 12 or so, and it was a Sunday in February. I slipped and almost fell - caught myself on the way down. When I looked at my hand on the ground, there was the ring. Must’ve been a size 5 because it fit my pinky perfectly. > > \*\*I was stolen three years later. \*\* :eek: You were KIDNAPPED?!? ---
**Author:** ![Avarie537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/48db29/32.png) [@Avarie537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Avarie537)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2003, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/183 "2003-08-07T20:27:46Z")
LOL - noooooo … IT was stolen. ---
**Author:** ![Emperor\_Penguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c2a13f/32.png) [@Emperor\_Penguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Emperor_Penguin)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2003, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/184 "2003-08-07T22:29:56Z")
**MidnightRadio** , is [this](http://www.struthers.org/photos/mia/index16.html) it? If so, it looks freakin’ cool. I haven’t found many memorably weird things myself. Probably the strangest was an empty pack of Korean cigarettes at my school. Not too oddball, as we have a lot of exchange students, but I thought it was cool. ---
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2003, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/185 "2003-08-07T23:46:29Z")
In the dumpster outside our college dorm was a machine with a plastic housing, a sort of bellows system inside, some white foam pellets that blew around and were visible through a little window on the side. It also had a flexible metal tube with two rings coming off the end of it. No one had the slightest guess what it was. It did have an electrical cord. We called it the theory machine, and put it on the back of the toilet so everyone could have their moments looking at it and thinking about it. We also took it to a hamburger restaurant, plugged it into the dirt in a planter, and charged people a dime (put into a random tube on the dumb thing) to see it in action. The bellows were then released, and white pellets flew out (having been set up in the airway before). Really hysterical stuff, if you’re into seeing people being totally lost. ---
**Author:** ![UperCow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/c0e974/32.png) [@UperCow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UperCow)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2003, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/186 "2003-08-08T00:01:00Z")
‘The Bible Game’ with jesus, mathew, paul, and the rest of the ‘gang’ playing pieces ---
**Author:** ![racer72](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/racer72/32/3075_2.png) [@racer72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racer72)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2003, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/187 "2003-08-08T00:26:14Z")
A severed finger on the floor of an Olds Cutlass. The car was in a wrecking yard and appeared to have been crashed at least 10 years earlier. The county medical examiner picked it up the next day. A tool box full of tools and jewelry. I guessed it was from a home robbery but no one in the neighborhood had been robbed recently. The toolbox and most of the tools were stolen from me about 7 years later. A used condom in the trashcan inside of my high school track coach’s office. About 12 years later while teaching at another high school, he was arrested and charged for having sexual relations with a 15 year old student. While I was in high school it was rumored he was boinking a female student. I guess I know the truth now. ---
**Author:** ![raz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@raz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raz)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2003, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/188 "2003-08-08T03:51:54Z")
I went with my family to Washington D.C. earlier this summer. My mom asked the flight attendant for a Diet Pepsi. She got a “Pepsi Lite” with the old-style pull tab on top and Chinese writing on it. She didn’t open it and we brought it home with us. It’s kinda neat. ---
**Author:** ![ice1000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/a3d4f5/32.png) [@ice1000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ice1000)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2003, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/189 "2003-08-08T04:51:48Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by robertwa \* > \*\*Leave to someone from **East Lansing** to say something dumb… > > [Brooke Shields] I farted on the set of Blue Lagoon once… [/BS] > :smack: > > Anyhoo, my weird finds include a used condom that was tied off and _nailed_ to a street sign, and a manual on sheep castration. The gem of knowledge from the latter is that, should you find yourself needing to castrate a sheep without having a sharp blade, you can use your teeth. BLECH! \*\* Ummm…aren’t all sheep female by definition? ---
**Author:** ![racinchikki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eada6e/32.png) [@racinchikki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racinchikki)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2003, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/190 "2003-08-08T05:03:57Z")
No. Sheep are sheep. Male sheep are rams, but they are still sheep. Female sheep are ewes, but they are also still sheep. ---
**Author:** ![drgnlvr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85e7bf/32.png) [@drgnlvr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drgnlvr)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2003, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/191 "2003-08-08T05:11:55Z")
Well, it’s my turn to list some of the odd, and just plain interesting things I’ve found in my misbegotten life… Cool stuff: \*A diamond ring \*A small rock that looked like a jumping dolphin \*Letters written to a young man in a wall in an old farm house, dating back to the mid 1800’s (you would be amazed at how forward some of those girls were back then) \*A paperback book of Star Trek, The Motion Picture, signed by Gene Roddenberry \*A metal letter opener that appears to have been a promotional give-away for a car dealership in Tulsa, Ok…with only 4 numbers for the phone number Odd, or creepy things: \*An afghan hound in the desert, with his feet wired together, and his mouth wired shut, and his skin gone, mummified:eek: \*A dead body in a small park in downtown Wichita, Ks \*A live mouse in my vaccuum cleaner \*Various and sundry polaroids of naked people \*\*\*And the most bizarre at the time (I was on medication, too), was riding home on a miserable, windy winter day. A large, black garbage bag blew across the highway is such a fashion that it looked like a giant slug. ---
**Author:** ![MidnightRadio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecd19e/32.png) [@MidnightRadio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MidnightRadio)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2003, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/192 "2003-08-08T07:34:33Z")
**Emperor Penguin** , no that’s not my pursephone, but it’s very similar. Mine is black and the plastic is segmented (for want of a better word) in an attempt to make it look like reptile skin of some sort or something like that. Its also much bigger. And I realize now that it probably was supposed to be a briefcasephone, not a pursephone. But I think I’ll keep calling it my pursephone. That sounds cooler. Thank you so much, **Emperor Penguin** , for looking that up for me! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2003, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/193 "2003-08-08T12:04:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by drgnlvr \* > \*\*Well, it’s my turn to list some of the odd, and just plain interesting things I’ve found in my misbegotten life… > > \*A paperback book of Star Trek, The Motion Picture, signed by Gene Roddenberry > \*\* How much for this? What condition? Contact me via e-mail. ---
**Author:** ![Avarie537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/48db29/32.png) [@Avarie537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Avarie537)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2003, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/194 "2003-08-08T13:45:27Z")
Oh yeah! I found a polaroid, too. This one was a little different, though. It looked like it was taken by a woman looking down her body at a man with his face in her crotch. This was outside the gas station where I worked when I was 19. Our very Christian manager tried to rip it up - then she got out the scissors. ---
**Author:** ![cuauhtemoc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecb155/32.png) [@cuauhtemoc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cuauhtemoc)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2003, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/195 "2003-08-08T16:26:16Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by flapcats \* > > > [@](#): > > > > When I was in college, my friends and I were browsing a secondhand shop in Miami, Oklahoma, and I found (and bought) what I now call my pursephone. It looks like it was made in the Seventies, maybe the late Sixties. It has a flap-over top and on the front of it, there’s a phone dial with the buttons arranged in a circle, as if the manufacturers were trying to pretend it was a rotary dial. Under the flap, there’s a phone cord that you can plug into a phone jack. The handle is really a phone receiver which is attached to the pursephone with a velcro strap which you can unfasten to release the receiver. As I said, the phone isn’t a real rotary dial, it’s got buttons, but it’s a pulse dialing phone, not a touch tone phone. > > \*\*Legend has it that the purse-phone was so beautiful that the God of the underworld fell in love with it and spirited it down to Hades. > > The purse-phone is a somewhat melancholy Goddess, yearning to be free of the underworld, but doomed to spend half the year there. > > When it does escape, the world comes alive again. \*\* A man could wait a lifetime for a setup like this. You have been delivered the Golden Straight-line. It couldn’t have gone better if you’d planned it for a hundred years. In fact, it’s almost too pat, isn’t it? Congratulations anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Wonko\_The\_Sane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/258eb7/32.png) [@Wonko\_The\_Sane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wonko_The_Sane)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2003, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/196 "2003-08-08T21:07:19Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by zen101 \* > \*\* tripping balls on Gooney Bird blotter \*\* What the hell does this mean? ---
**Author:** ![chaoticbear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f07891/32.png) [@chaoticbear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chaoticbear)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2003, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/197 "2003-08-08T21:55:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Avarie537 \* > \*\*Oh yeah! I found a polaroid, too. This one was a little different, though. It looked like it was taken by a woman looking down her body at a man with his face in her crotch. This was outside the gas station where I worked when I was 19. Our very Christian manager tried to rip it up - then she got out the scissors. \*\* / / go to yahoo, search for ‘moustache’, and look under images, scroll near botton. that picture? ---
**Author:** ![drgnlvr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85e7bf/32.png) [@drgnlvr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drgnlvr)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2003, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/198 "2003-08-09T00:35:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor \* > \*\*How much for this? What condition? > > Contact me via e-mail. \*\* I want to aplogize, but unfortunately, it was stolen a couple years later. ☹ Believe me, if I still had it, I would be more than willing to negotiate. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2003, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/199 "2003-08-09T11:45:45Z")
When his family moved into a house, my friend found there a tombstone with his initials on it. ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_Ellis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/977dab/32.png) [@Michael\_Ellis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael_Ellis)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2003, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/200 "2003-08-09T12:12:02Z")
I found a jogging bra inside a storage room in my high school’s theater. Size 38D. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293.md?page=11)