# 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:** 2
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2002, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/21 "2002-06-21T22:31:54Z")
A small green piece of paper about two inches square with (in a neat hand) the words ‘Roxell Roxell Bowshot’ written in the middle of it. That was more than twenty years ago and I still wonder about it. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2002, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/22 "2002-06-21T22:35:17Z")
Although it only seems like 9 minutes… ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2002, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/23 "2002-06-21T22:52:44Z")
well, i have found some weird stuff, but what i think is stranger is that on 3 seperate occasions, in 3 different locations i have found a Leatherman Tool, complete with pouch. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2002, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/24 "2002-06-21T22:58:16Z")
I inherited someone else’s office. There were already a lot of papers there, which I simply left untouched, until I decided to do some cleaning out. I found a plain brown envelope containing photocopies of a man’s … genitalia. :eek: (No, I don’t know who had the office before me.) ---
**Author:** ![Lizard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@Lizard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lizard)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2002, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/25 "2002-06-21T23:04:41Z")
Walking down the sidewalk at Ohio State, an eating spoon made from silver. I know it was silver because it was tarnished. It was weird because I was nowhere near a restaurant or any kind of residence that had a kitchen. I still have that spoon. ---
**Author:** ![shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ab992/32.png) [@shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shrew)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2002, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/26 "2002-06-21T23:19:29Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ftg \* > I took the top off and turned the knob. Viola, a tiny little dildo rose out. Weird. Unless you are speaking to someone named Viola, I think you meant, “Voila”. 🙂 Me? I found a crackpipe in an apartment I was inspecting after a “Move Out” back when I worked for a summer at an apartment complex. I didn’t even know what the pipe was; someone had to tell me. The weird thing was that the former tenant happened to be my hairdresser. ---
**Author:** ![Glory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/7cd45c/32.png) [@Glory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Glory)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2002, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/27 "2002-06-21T23:46:07Z")
I also found a polaroid! It was lying face down in a mall parking lot. It was a close up shot of a heavy, hairy **naked** man from about belly to knees. I would think, if one were to take a picture of oneself naked, one might attempt a more FLATTERING or IMPRESSIVE pose, since the picture was neither. I used to keep it in my glove box and toss it at unsuspecting passengers. ---
**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:** [June 21, 2002, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/28 "2002-06-21T23:56:11Z")
Found a wallet with $4000 in it. Had the owner’s ID too. At the time I was unemployed and owed about $4000 in back child support. Had my angel on one shoulder saying return the money and the devil on my other shoulder saying keep it. I called the owner and he accused me of stealing his wallet. He would not answer me when I asked him why would I call him if I stole his wallet. He just kept threatening to call the police. I threatened to keep the money. He told me he would have the number traced and have me arrested. I told him I was at a pay phone and I would be gone before the police arrived. He called me a bunch of names and really pissed me off. I went home and mixed the contents of the wallet (and the wallet too, nice leather one) with some fresh dog shit. Stuffed it all in a plastic bag and left it in his mailbox early the next morning. Called later that day to see if he got it and talked to his wife. She thought is was funny what I did. He was at the bank trying to exchange the smelly money for some fresh bills. Sometimes I wish I would have kept it. ---
**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:** [June 21, 2002, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/29 "2002-06-21T23:59:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mangetout \* > \*\*A small green piece of paper about two inches square with (in a neat hand) the words ‘Roxell Roxell Bowshot’ written in the middle of it. > > That was more than twenty years ago and I still wonder about it. \*\* “Bowshot” is an archery term describing the distance traveled by an arrow fired from a bow. I suspect that it may be a shopping list for an archery buff. “Roxell”–a target arrow? “Roxell Bowshot”–a hunting arrow? The term “bowshot” in context could imply long range, hence good for hunting. Was there anything odd about the paper? Or was it cardboard? ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2002, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/30 "2002-06-22T00:13:01Z")
An audio cassette tape with a woman making a noise on it – very weird, it was very faint in the background, and sounded like she was crying, or having an asthma attack. If I had to guess, I would say it sounded like a tape that someone put in a tape player and accidentally hit “record” instead of “play” and thus recorded whatever noise was going on in the room. At first it was funny, because the sighing noises sounded a little like porn, and we thought it was going to be a performance art sort of tape, but it wasn’t really like that. It was more depressing, because after a while, it was clear that it was more of a distressed, wheezing sound than anything else. It went on for the entire 45 minutes of the tape on one side (the other side was blank), but it was strange because the noise was constant – it never got louder, or softer, or less frequent, or anything that would identify it as anything in particular. I found it in MY APARTMENT, when my roommate and I were having one of those project nights, going through a huge carton of mostly unlabeled cassette tapes and sorting them out. It was right after college, and we had tons of tapes that probably really belonged to other people in the dorm. We became strangely fixated on this, and made all of our guests listen to it, hoping that someone would identify one of the background noises on the tape so we could figure out where it came from, but it remained a mystery. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2002, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/31 "2002-06-22T00:48:59Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor \* > \*\*[list=a] > [li]A bright orange stuffed alligator, in an attic in Wisconsin[/li][li]A big rubber mallet, by the side of the road near the Nashville airport.[/li][li]A counterfeit coin with a picture of Martin Luther King on it. 😕 [/li][li]A combination microscope/calliadascope(sp?)/music box. (I gave it to my sister-in-law as a gift.) 🆒 [/li][li]A hubcap up in the top branches of a tree, miles from the nearest road, in a thick forest. FYI–it was **not** a Jeep hubcap. 😕 😕 [/li][li]A velvet painting of Elvis in a Mao jacket & hat, carrying a copy of the Little Red Book. (at a rummage sale) :eek: [/li][li]My stuffed armadillo. 🆒 [/li][/list=a] \*\* It sounds like an Anime movie exploded in midair… Ranchoth ---
**Author:** ![jacksen9](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ce73a5/32.png) [@jacksen9](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jacksen9)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2002, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/32 "2002-06-22T02:04:42Z")
I grew up in the middle of nowhere. We had a big gully on our property. There were all kinds of things in this gully and we used to plunder around down there. We found this tomb stone… part of one. I can’t remember what was written on it now. We spent half of the day rolling that thing, end over end, all the way into the yard. Then we went in to get my mom so she could see what we had found. She went nuts and bitched us out for bringing it into the yard. We spent the afternoon rolling it back to the gully. Who is this guy that keeps taking pictures of his hairy butt??😃 ---
**Author:** ![Grelby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a5b964/32.png) [@Grelby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grelby)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2002, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/33 "2002-06-22T03:02:35Z")
Off to the side of my front yard, there was an odd cover in the ground - a lid, so to speak, made of metal. Kinda like a manhole cover, but a bit smaller and lighter. One day, I lifted it off, to find… that whatever this little metal hole in the ground was, it was filled with ancient dishes and cookware. I mean, ancient, rusted, some metal, some ceramic, just generally a lot of rubbish. I mostly wonder what the heck this thing is - some kind of storage? What the hell is it doing there, right on the edge of our neighbors’ yard? I haven’t opened the thing in years. It’s all must and dirty and disgusting in their. And it’s not technically ours. It’s the neighbors’. Whatever. They can keep it. ---
**Author:** ![Horseflesh](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horseflesh/32/7502_2.png) [@Horseflesh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horseflesh)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2002, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/34 "2002-06-22T10:31:52Z")
**Grelby** - sounds like your somebody in your neighbor’s house doesn’t like to do dishes. My strangest thing? A _very_ very mouse came out of a ceiling light fixture while fixing it. We had probably been electrocuting it for 15 years or so, every day. ---
**Author:** ![Horseflesh](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horseflesh/32/7502_2.png) [@Horseflesh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horseflesh)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2002, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/35 "2002-06-22T10:33:22Z")
I swear that said “A very **flat** mouse” on preview. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![flapcats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@flapcats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flapcats)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2002, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/36 "2002-06-22T11:02:18Z")
Near the top of Silicon Hil (Strahov) in Prague, in an ancient turret were two dried frogs - also very flat - but there was no pond or stream anywhere nearby (it’s quite a steep hill). ---
**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:** [June 22, 2002, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/37 "2002-06-22T11:16:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Grelby \* > \*\*Off to the side of my front yard, there was an odd cover in the ground - a lid, so to speak, made of metal. Kinda like a manhole cover, but a bit smaller and lighter. One day, I lifted it off, to find… that whatever this little metal hole in the ground was, it was filled with ancient dishes and cookware. I mean, ancient, rusted, some metal, some ceramic, just generally a lot of rubbish. I mostly wonder what the heck this thing is - some kind of storage? What the hell is it doing there, right on the edge of our neighbors’ yard? I haven’t opened the thing in years. It’s all must and dirty and disgusting in their. And it’s not technically ours. It’s the neighbors’. > > Whatever. They can keep it. \*\* Almost certainly an old bomb shelter, Cold War era, circa 1960. Probably flooded or partially caved-in. Many were shoddily built, & this one seems to have been filled in with trash. ---
**Author:** ![tsarina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f4b2a3/32.png) [@tsarina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tsarina)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2002, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/38 "2002-06-22T11:49:14Z")
Other than a few used condoms, the most unusual thing I’ve ever found was the foil wrapper from a pack of Korean chewing gum on the steps of the MSU Union. We do have a lot of Asian students here, though, so that probably isn’t too strange. ---
**Author:** ![zen101](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c68b51/32.png) [@zen101](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zen101)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2002, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/39 "2002-06-22T13:02:39Z")
Mid August in 1986 me and my best friend Jared Bassera were going to Quality Pie (all nite diner) from Confettis (underage disco in downtown Portland) and were tripping balls on Gooney Bird blotter when we passed through Cooch Park and found a dead guy with his throat cut and his eyes open. I also found a diaphram once. I dunno which one is weirder. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2002, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/40 "2002-06-22T13:34:28Z")
A hundred dollar bill. An eight inch switchblade knife. A huge white stuffed elephant on Thanksgiving Day. A box of old Weight Watchers magazines. Odd cause I collect Weight Watchers stuff. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293.md?page=3)