# 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:** 5
**Author:** ![The\_Tof](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@The\_Tof](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tof)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2002, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/81 "2002-06-27T13:35:52Z")
> [@](#): > > \*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’. > \*\* At my sisters old duplex, at the top of their driveway her and her neighbor had something similar to what you describe. It was kinda like a manhole cover, but you lifted a handle which locked it in place adn there was a little area that went down maybe 5 feet. I was told it was basically a trash can. You used to throw trash in there, and the trashmen came and lifted the whole thing out and emptied it and returned it. Now it is just useless. (When I opened it I just found webs and spiders.) Not sure if I’ve ever really found anything too interesting. I found a polaroid of a nasty old car. (60’s style car all rusted.) I still have it. I found some poor homeless guy’s “lair” so to speak. It was hidden away in some woods in a park. There was a large overgrowth and a clearing that you really had to work your way into. I was doing a community service “clean up the park” project at the time and I made my way there because I saw some trash. There were some blankets, empty alcohol bottles and a leg fetish magazine. We cleaned up the trash and left him his blankets. ---
**Author:** ![robertwa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e9a140/32.png) [@robertwa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robertwa)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2002, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/82 "2002-06-27T13:38:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by robertwa \* > \*\*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! > > \*\* > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Flamsterette\_X \* > \*\* > > Thank you so very much for putting that image in my head. Guess it’s a good thing that I haven’t eaten dinner yet. > > \*\* Oh, I forgot to mention that the book had a picture of a shepard-looking man biting away. Yummy! ---
**Author:** ![jonpluc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/fbc32d/32.png) [@jonpluc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jonpluc)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2002, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/83 "2002-06-27T14:07:57Z")
I was at Friendlys at like 11:30 at night geting some icecream, went to the walk up window so i wasnt away from my car for more than a few minutesand returned to my car. I opened my car door and i discovered a painted box turtle sitting on my front seat. Im sure he was trying to steal my car but luckily i had my car keys with me. ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2002, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/84 "2002-06-27T14:28:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by MachV \* > \*\*(And it’s only a matter of time that someone says they found Jesus - In their heart!) > \*\* One time, okay, one time I was at the hospital when they discovered a heart murmur. After a few x-rays we found out the murmur was caused by Jesus saying “Get me out of here!” So we did. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2002, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/85 "2002-06-27T15:26:40Z")
Am I the only one here thinking: “Yep. That’s a human ear, all right.” ---
**Author:** ![xizor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xizor/32/102_2.png) [@xizor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xizor)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2002, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/86 "2002-06-27T15:53:32Z")
I bought a used car once and hidden in the trunk found a machete, some brass knuckles and a dozen shotgun shells. ---
**Author:** ![Encinitas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@Encinitas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Encinitas)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2002, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/87 "2002-06-27T17:17:05Z")
I worked on an archaeological dig in France way back in 1981. While excavating the contents of a Celtic well, I uncovered an adult human skull (female). We excavated all the contents of the well and found no further parts of the woman. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2002, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/88 "2002-06-27T17:17:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by gonzoron \* > \*\*Not actually found by me, but by my mechanic. (with me watching.) > > A seat belt buckle from a DIFFERENT model car INSIDE my passenger’s side car door. (Not in the car, in the DOOR). \*\* I think I have read about this - I remember, years and years ago, reading an interview of a college football player in Sports Illustrated who was supposed to be the Next Big Thing (Brian Bosworth, maybe?). He was an arrogant twit. He described working on an automotive assembly line, and out of immature boredom, putting stuff inside doors of cars so that they made inexplicable noises and pissed off the owner. Nice guy, eh? Sounds like what might’ve happened to you… ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Some\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ad7895/32.png) [@Just\_Some\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Some_Guy)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2002, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/89 "2002-06-27T17:54:17Z")
I’ve got a socialist newspaper from a small town with the obituary of Jack London. It was tucked into an old book I was given, though not one of Mr. London’s. I was kind of surprised that this tiny town had enough people to support a socialist newspaper… ---
**Author:** ![XCchick22](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/e19b73/32.png) [@XCchick22](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XCchick22)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2002, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/90 "2002-06-27T21:12:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by evilhanz \* > \*\*On a remote mountain summit, I found a sign that said “Calle Enselada” or something like that. I still have no idea what it means. > \*\* If it said “Calle Ens **a** lada,” it meant “Salad Street.” Weird. ---
**Author:** ![Hoopy\_Frood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hoopy_frood/32/8452_2.png) [@Hoopy\_Frood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hoopy_Frood)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2002, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/91 "2002-06-27T21:37:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by snermy \* > \*\*I found a (blank) postcard of one of Richard Nixon’s presidential portraits dated 1972. It was (presumably) being used as a bookmark in a used book I bought. > > Just a head shot against a lovely yellowish beige background, which is kinda large on a postcard. You can see a bit more of Richard Nixon’s pores than anyone really ought… \*\* I found a Nixon campaign ad picture in a copy of _1984_ at my in-laws place. I guess someone was using that as a bookmark as well. ---
**Author:** ![Runestar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/74df32/32.png) [@Runestar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Runestar)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2002, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/92 "2002-06-27T22:10:41Z")
Don’t know if it counts as ‘found by me’, but my parents bought an 1870’s Victorian row house in Philadelphia when I was about 3 years old. The previous owner - one Marcel Viti - and his sister lived there for nearly 70 years before they both passed away. My parents bought the house after it had stood empty for over 4 years. An estate sale had been held, selling off most of the contents of the house, but the attic still held the following: - 60 years worth of checkbooks with all of the canceled checks carfully pasted back into them. - A small suitcase full of American Kennel Club dog show ribbons, plus a framed display of more ribbons pasted up like a crazy quilt. Most of the ribbons dated from between 1900-1930. - Thirty years of “The Social Register”. Both he and his sister were in it, of course. - Fifteen bottles of black hair dye, still in their original bottles, vintage 1910. - His consular uniform (despite being Italian, he was the Swedish Vice-Consul), with all the gold braid and buttons carefully wrapped and sewed in tissue paper. - A framed photograph of him in said uniform, complete with cocked hat and dress sword. - A desiccated alligator/crocodile skin hanging on the attic wall. When my parents actually tried to move it several years later it collapsed into dust. - A locked trunk containing about twelve flags, including a University of Pennsylvania class of '96 (that’s 1896) banner, a 35-star American flag, a thirty-foot long battleship pennant, and a 12-foot by 12-foot field of stars. None of these seemed to bear any relationship to the 20-foot flagpole that was also in the attic. - A genuine Piranesi print, creased and lying on a filthy floor. - A hundred or so historical maps and autographs and etchings of historical figures scattered around the floor in folders. Somehow the estate auctioneers had overlooked them. - The entire financial and publishing records of a magazine called ‘The Dog’, which he seems to have published in his spare time. ---
**Author:** ![raz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@raz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raz)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2002, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/93 "2002-06-27T23:24:00Z")
A few days after my family moved into our current house, I opened an air vent in the floor and found a dead petrified goldfish. A friend and I were investigating a shallow hole at the side of his house covered by boards. When we moved the boards aside we found the front cover and a few pages of some sort of sex manual. My dad got a foreign coin out of the coin return of a pop machine. ---
**Author:** ![Barnabas\_Truman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/848f3c/32.png) [@Barnabas\_Truman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barnabas_Truman)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2002, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/94 "2002-06-27T23:56:35Z")
I once found a severed, eyeless black cat head in the backwoods of a city park. I think I was 9 or 10 at the time. Kinda freaky. Last year I lived a few blocks from a Masonic temple that I passed by on the way to class every day. There was a vacant lot across the bike path from it. One morning, I noticed a little lump of cement in the vacant lot, maybe a foot and a half long and half a foot across, with the word “FOJAR” inscribed in it, that hadn’t been there before. It’s still there, although somewhat overgrown with grass. Anybody have any idea what it might mean? And while I’m on the subject of the Masons, my grandpa was once rooting through a dumpster looking for clock parts when he found a rather old, thick, red-hard-covered Masonic handbook. Very mystical. I’d like to look through it but I think my mom gave it to somebody as a joke Christmas present some years back. -=-Barnabas ---
**Author:** ![carlotta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/898d66/32.png) [@carlotta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carlotta)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2002, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/95 "2002-06-28T01:05:21Z")
The strangest thing I ever found was a very little boy wearing nothing but shoes. He was just standing on the grass between two apartment buildings at my apartment complex. My then boyfriend was with me. We hung back for a few seconds, ascertaining that was no one around who might be responsible for him. There was absolutely nobody around except us and him. I approached him and asked where his mommy and daddy were, what his name was, but he just looked scared. We stayed with him for about 10 minutes and there was still no sign of a parent, etc. I sent my boyfriend to call the police. The little boy never said anything. I was trying to be reassuring. After my boyfriend had been gone for about 10 more minutes, a frantic looking man ran up speaking a language other than English (don’t think it was Spanish either). The man grabbed up the boy, speaking loudly. Even though I didn’t understand his language it sounded pretty much like he was saying “Where have you been!? We’ve been looking everywhere for you!?” The little boy looked very happy to see him and the man hurried off without acknowledging me at all–I tried to say something, but he was gone. Then my boyfriend showed up with a policeman. I explained what happened and the officer asked a few questions and seemed a little concerned about me letting the guy go off with the boy, though there hadn’t been much I could do. He said we did the right thing to call the police. The whole incident seems much less odd to me now that I have children. They can learn how to work doorknobs much younger than you might think, and they can move fast. I lost my own son right outside my house with three adults standing there. He was missing a very long ten minutes. Ack! Also now I realize that the little boy was much younger than I estimated at the time, probably only 16 or 17 months. Very interesting thread! Thanks for starting it! ---
**Author:** ![pato](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f6c823/32.png) [@pato](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pato)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2002, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/96 "2002-06-28T03:00:49Z")
When I lived in Belmont MA the house had something like what you describe, a hole in the ground with a round hinged metal door. It was for garbage–not trash, garbage, like kitchen waste. Way back when, there was a pig farm in town, and somebody would come around to collect the garbage to feed it to the pigs. > [@](#): > > \*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? > … > \*\* ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2002, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/97 "2002-06-28T03:47:35Z")
Found, by the side of the road, a letter written by a depressed biker to his mother about how life is meaningless and he intends to commit suicide. After i saw the Satanic markings at the end of it i…slowly…put it back down on the side of the road ---
**Author:** ![slb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5a626/32.png) [@slb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slb)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2002, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/98 "2002-06-28T04:15:16Z")
gee, that’s sad. i once found a small octopus living in a tin pot just off the coast of a tiny island near venezuela… …and more recently i found that i had members of five generations of the same family in my minibus (which is weird because in NZ the average age of childbirth is about 25 and rising slowly but steadily) ---
**Author:** ![Jello](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f05b48/32.png) [@Jello](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jello)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2002, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/99 "2002-06-28T04:21:09Z")
When I was twelve I found a naked man. My dad, brother and I were just wandering around on a beach in Rhode Island and we climbed on some rocks. I was ahead of the others and I looked down from a four foot ledge and - gasp! - a passed out, completely nude middle-aged man was lying on the ground with several empty beer cans and bottles nearby. This was around 2:00 in the afternoon. We laughed about it for a little while and then turned back. My ten year old brother threw crabapples at him. ---
**Author:** ![taliesin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/22d042/32.png) [@taliesin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/taliesin)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2002, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293/100 "2002-06-28T05:18:01Z")
i found a reelect Nixon Campaign poster in the attic of the luggage store i worked at when I was a kid. I have it in my office framed. t says Nixons the one! and the acronym C.R.E.E.P on the bottom Yeah I know, commitee to reelect the president But I still think it is funny. I also found a a set of bolt cutters in my driveway. Oh and letsee a permit to own a phone circa 1930 in a San Francisco garage. That one I put back I figured it was part of history [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-strangest-thing-youve-ever-found/115293.md?page=6)