You Find a "Time Capsule" On Your property-I sit Yours?

Burying "Time capsules’ seems to have been a popular activity in 19th and 20th century America. i heard once that there are about 5200 time capsules, buried, but the locations have been forgotten! So my question is; suppose youdig one of these things up-does it belong to you? Is most of the stuff buried in these things just about worthless? i think they put a bikini in the time capsule they buried at the 1964 NYC world’s fair.

I would tend to think there’s some sort of monument or marker in the immediate area saying “HEY! Unless you’re from 2506, don’t dig here!”, with some sort of easement in the property lease to set aside the land.

But yeah, this doesn’t deal with those “lost” time capsules. IANAL, but I would think [sub]there I go thinkin’ again. . .[/sub] that if you buy a piece of property, you also buy the mineral rights to it–including anything good or bad just underneath the surface. Thus, that bikini? Go ahead, try it on!

Tripler
Disclaimer: Some of the aforethinking supposes those in 2506 speak English.

That’s a far-reaching assumption. Unfortunately. :frowning:

My town recently discvovered a time capsule from 1900 that no one knew was there. It was hidden beneath the base of a statue, and when the statue was moved to a new location, there it was.

It was a sealed lead box-- I was there for the opening. We were all in a frenzy of exictement to see what it held, but ended up sorely dissapointed. It contained newspapers of the day a couple of coins and a note from the then-mayor expressing his hopes that people of the future had a “universal faith in Christ.”

What were we hoping for? Diaries, letters-- personal items, not newspapers we already had in our own archives.

Unfortunately, I’d have to guess that most time capsules probably contain similar stuff, so don’t mourn a true loss to history if they’re never discovered.

I made my own time capsule in 1968. I used an empty bottle that had once contained One-A-Day, the big economy size that held almost a pint. It had a plastic stopper that fit securely (as long as the plastic didn’t chemically degrade over the centuries, but I didn’t think of that). I typed a letter to the future, put my picture in it, and a bunch of stuff that was small enough to fit into the bottle. I buried it in a shady little garden back of the house under the lilacs and myrtle.

Of course, once it was planted, the burning desire to dig it back up would not leave me. I think it stayed underground for over half a year, I had that much patience. Maybe I played at being an archaeologist of the future as I dug. I learned my first lesson about archaeology the hard way when my shovel smashed the bottle to bits. :smack:

If its any consolation, your posts here will likely be archived to each generation of new digital media and preserved for all time. You’ll be effectively immortalized anyway.

A word of warning: If you open a time capsule and it contains a frog that can sing, but only when the two of you are alone, just leave it.

While English may possibly not be spoken much in 500 years, it will surely still be understood by a lot of people. People can still read 2,000-year-old Latin inscriptions, even if nobody speaks Latin as a first language.

Is that a “Deep Thought”? It’s a good one.

It’s an old Warner Brothers cartoon (“One Froggy Evening”, I think) where a construction worker finds a time capsule that contains a singing frog. Thinking he can make millions, he tries to show it off, but it will only sing when no one else (except the worker) is around, so it re-buries it.

OK, but if you sit mine, I sit yours, too.

A court would probally consider a time capsule as property that is abandoned in which case it belongs to the finder. Potentially, if the original owner resurfaced, he could argue it was mislaid. Meaning he left it intentionally with the intent to reclaim it later. However mislaid property belongs to the owner of the land in which it is found.

See South Staffordshire Water Co v. Sharman (found objects embedded in the soil belong to the property owner even if the object is foreign to the soil)

I planted a time capsule in 78, in Wisconsin, near the Waukesha County Airport. A mayonaise jar. B&W snapshots, & an old diary of mine. A few coins.

Very true, most time capsules are just filled with useless old crap.

Some countries have laws by which “treasure” belongs to the State. So if the time capsule contains jewellry or valuable coins, the government would claim it. Assuming they find out, of course.

Could have been worse, it could have contained a teddy bear, a fish hook and an inferior bottle of cognac.

woosh?

anyone?

MAS*H reference :slight_smile:

Just in case you DO find one, you might want to check it against This List