25 Amazing Things People Have Found In Their Backyards

1.

Whale fossil...In 1978, Gary Johnson from California noticed a large rock sticking out of the ground with a bone pattern in it near his backyard. Thinking it could be an important find, Johnson called in an expert to evaluate it. However, the expert said it had no value. Then, the stone sat in the backyard for over 35 years until February 2014, when Johnson was watching the news and saw a huge piece of a 12-million-year-old sperm whale skull found just a few hundred yards away from where he found the stone. Johnson called another expert, a paleontologist at the Natural History Museum. This time, he was lucky. The paleontologist estimated the fossil to be the 14-16 million years old remains of a very rare baleen whale.

2.

Ancient stone...When an amateur historian Stephen Davis from England was researching the history of his own home, he came across a reference to an ancient stone that was thought to have marked a burial plot from the Bronze Age dating back to about 2,500 B.C. According to the description found in the historical documents, Davis began to search for the stone. After some time, he really found the stone in his backyard, completely covered with ivy. At the time of the find, the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England was expected to pronounce the stone a scheduled ancient monument.

3.

Church bells...In 2013, a man from Czech Republic was digging up his backyard to install some pipes when he stumbled across unusual metal objects. After excavation, he found out it was 2 large church bells about 400 years old. Later, it turned out that the bells were stolen 11 years earlier from a nearby church. The thief who buried them might have attempted to hide them but for some reason, didn't get to retrieve them.

4.

Loaded machine gun...Earlier this year, a man from northeast Calgary, Canada made a disturbing discovery in his backyard. Between his garage and the fence, he found a plastic bag containing a pillowcase. When he looked inside, to his surprise, there was a fully-loaded machine gun along with a cell phone. How the gun ended up in his backyard or who it belonged to is still not clear.

5.

1700's cemetery...When Vincent Marcello from New Orleans, Louisiana decided to dig a plot in his backyard for a swimming pool, he ended up discovering a historic cemetery that dates back to the 1700s.The workers unearthed 13 caskets with human remains. However, it was not the first time bodies have been discovered underground in the area in 1984, 36 corpses were found when an apartment complex was being built.

6.

Mastodon vertebrae...Two boys named Eric and Andrew from Detroit, Michigan were building a dam in the creek that flows through their backyard when Eric saw a strange-looking rock sticking up from the ground. Supposing it might have been a bone, the family called in a paleontologist John Zawiskie at the Cranbrook Institute of Science in Bloomfield Hills who later authenticated the bone as a vertebrae from a mastodon some 13,000 years old.

7.

In Florida, alligators found in backyards are not unheard of but alligator taking a dip in a backyard swimming pool is another story. This is exactly what Sharon Bente and her husband from Bradenton saw when they heard a noise in their backyard in the middle of the night. The 8-feet gator was swimming in circles along with a little floating toy. The couple called the Sheriffs Office and the gator was later taken to a farm in Arcadia.

8.

150,000 dollars in cash...In August 2011, Wayne Sabaj, an unemployed 51-year-old man from Illinois was picking broccoli in his backyard garden when he found 150,000 stashed in a nylon bag. He reported the discovery to the police with the understanding that if the money was not claimed by anyone else by the end of 2012, it would be his. Soon after, an 87-year-old Sabajs neighbor, Dolores Johnson claimed the money saying she had got rid of the money because it was cursed. The court gave a part of the money to Johnsons daughter with a portion of it set to go to Sabaj as a reward. However, Sabaj died just 10 days before receiving the prize.

9.

1000-year-old human remains...Earlier this year, a man from Salt Lake City, Utah was digging up a pond in his backyard when he made a gruesome discovery human bones. Frightened by the unexpected find, he called the police that later sent the bones to the state medical examiner to be tested. Results concluded that the bones were not of a recent murder, but once belonged to a Native American who lived in Utah about 1,000 years ago.

10.

Meteorites...The chances of you finding a piece of meteorite in your backyard is pretty small let alone a meteorite hitting your yard six times in a row. But that is exactly what happened to a Serbian man living in a little village in northern Bosnia. It looks like the mans property, for some reason, attracts space rocks the man even thinks that it might be aliens trying to bombard his house.

11.

650-year-old treasure...An unidentified Austrian man from Wiener Neustadt found a treasure trove estimated to be about 650 years old while digging to expand a garden pool in 2007. The trove contained more than 200 rings, brooches, ornate belt buckles, gold-plated silver plates and other pieces or fragments, many encrusted with pearls, fossilized coral and other ornaments.

12.

WWII bombs...Thousands of homes have been built over a 12,000-acre area that was once a World War II bombing range in Orlando, Florida. The first bomb was discovered in 1998 near the running track of a local middle school. Since then, over a hundred rockets and bombs have been found on the school property and in backyards of nearby housing developments. Even though the Army Corps of Engineering have launched a large-scale cleanup of the area, the danger of stumbling across a bomb left behind is still pretty high.

13.

Dinosaur bone...In 1997, John Lambert from Ipswich, U.K. was building a fence in his backyard when he found a large and unusual bone. He thought it could be an important paleontological find but he just put it in his shed where the bone sat for another 16 years. Finally, in 2013, he decided to take it to Ipswich Museum, where experts, astounded, confirmed it to be the bone of a 250-million-year-old pliosaur. But the pliosaur was not native to the English sea, which made the finding even more mysterious.

14.

Famous actress...In 1996, then 47-year-old Canadian-born actress Margot Kidder, the spunky Lois Lane in the Superman movies, was found in someones backyard in Glendale, California. The actress, who was battling health and financial problems at that time, had been missing for three days before she was found. According to the police, she was frightened and paranoid, wearing dirty clothes and missing some teeth. She was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder and placed in psychiatric care where she made a complete recovery.

15.

Cheetah...When a nine-year-old boy from Hamerton, Cambridgeshire, U.K. ran to his mother shouting that there was a cheetah in the garden, she dismissed his claims as childhood excitement. But when Julie-Ann Taylor looked out of the kitchen window, to her astonishment, she realized her son was not joking. It turned out that the 6 feet long predator had escaped from a nearby animal sanctuary. The keepers soon arrived to the house and took the tripper back home.

16.

10 million dollars in gold coins...A couple from Sierra Nevada, California experienced what all treasure hunters dream about. When walking their dog on their property, they saw a top of a rusty canister poking out of the ground. The canister contained a bunch of gold discs and they took it home. They found out the discs were well preserved 20 gold coins dating back to 1890s.They hurried back to the location of their find and discovered a total of eight cans containing 1,427 coins with a face value of $27,980. Coin dealer Don Kagin and numismatist David McCarthy helped them restore the coins and evaluate them. The hoard of coins was estimated to be worth about 10 million dollars.

17.

Mystery object...While digging up their backyard, looking for worms to take on an upcoming fishing trip, two sisters from Kitchener, Canada stumbled upon a curious object. Deep in the ground, they found something transparent and shiny, with a bluish hue. At first they thought that it was part of a meteorite, however, earth sciences professor Phil McCausland disagreed, saying that the visible layer of the object should have been much darker if it really was part of a meteorite. Then, a gem expert, Gary Winkler, was contacted and asked to analyze the object. He found that it was definitely not a gem of any known kind. He also speculated that the object was not of natural origins but that a person deliberately buried it. No matter what it was, the sisters were going to keep it.

18.

Fallout shelter...The Zwick family from Neenah, Wisconsin, always knew there was a metal door hidden in the ground in their backyard, but they never dared to explore it before. Then, one day, the family decided to open the metal hatch and see what was inside. It turned out there was a Cold War-era fallout shelter buried in the backyard. A ladder led them down into a bunker, which contained items from the past including clothing, medical supplies, tools, flashlights, batteries and other items needed for a temporary stay in the shelter.

19.

Gold nugget...A Californian man armed with a metal detector and a shovel discovered an 8.2-pound lump of gold in his backyard in 2011. Thanks to its extraordinary size, the nugget was sold at auction for an incredible 460,000. The lucky finder of the nugget remained anonymous to prevent a literal gold rush onto his property. Geologists said the likelihood that there is more gold on that land is 100 percent so the Californian may spend the rest of his life digging up his backyard.

20.

Foxes jumping on a trampoline...Yes, alligators bathing in a swimming pool are obviously not the only animals that can enjoy human amusements. An anonymous man recently woke up to find evidence of some strange visitors in his backyard: a couple of adorable foxes that dug their way in overnight. The nocturnal trespassers took advantage of the slumbering homeowners to have some fun on the trampoline.

21.

Marijuana worth 175,000 USD...Mack Reed from Los Angeles attempted to install solar panels in his backyard when he found 175,000 worth of marijuana in a hidden underneath hot tub. Reed briefly considered all the money he could make from this unexpected find, but he thought that the person who hid the drugs would probably want it back. Instead, he reported his discovery to the police and secured the place with a sign saying We found it and the called police. They confiscated it and are now watching the place. Sorry.

22.

Giant earthworm...Chinese worker Li Zhiwei was putting some clothes to dry out in his backyard when he saw what he thought was a snake. However, when he took a closer look at the animal, he realized it was not a snake but a giant, almost 20 inches half a meter long earthworm. Biologists wondered why it was able to grow so long in a built-up area because an earthworms size is usually closely related to its environment.

23.

Mammoth bone...In 2010, a family from Iowa was picking fruit in their wooded backyard when they saw a white object sticking out of the ground. After digging it out, they found out it was a femur. Scientists from a local university later identified it as a 12,000 years old wooly mammoth bone. When paleontologists came to the site, they soon discovered more bones with only the mammoth skull missing.

24.

Grenades and TNT explosives...In May 2013, a 39-year old man from the Czech Republic wanted to dig out some tree stumps in his backyard when he noticed there was something under them. Disturbed by the unexpected finding, he called the police. After excavating the mysterious objects, they found out that the mans backyard contained tens of hand grenades and several TNT explosives from the Second World War.

25.

Ferrari...When digging for fun in a backyard in 1978, two kids from Los Angeles found a Dino 246 GTS Ferrari. After excavating the car and a little investigation, it turned out that the car had been stolen and buried several years earlier by thieves. Oddly enough, none of the residents who had lived in the neighborhood in the time of the burial noticed anything. Vanishing of the car is believed to have been a part of an insurance scam. The thieves were to allegedly destroy the car but they loved it so much, they decided to bury it and intended to retrieve it later.