18 People Who Found Objects So Strange They Had to Consult the Web to Find Out What They Were

The ingenuity of the human being is so great and complex that we often come across objects that we simply don’t know what they are for. This can also happen sometimes when nature surprises us, but here we won’t leave you in doubt. From something that pretends to be an egg to a very strange door located between the rocks of the sea (but which is not really a door.)

At Now I’ve Seen Everything we bring you some super curious objects and their explanations of what they are. Did you come across something that you didn’t know what it was?

1. “Found this while digging up a 100+ year old outhouse in Southern California. Any ideas on what this is?”

Answer: This is what the first electric toothbrushes looked like.

2. “My Grandad dug this up? Found in Liverpool, possibly WW2, it was found with the decoration on, what is it??”

Answer: This is called “trench art,” a process by which military personnel make various things out of improvised materials, often from the remnants of ammunition and equipment damaged in battle.

3. “Midwest house built in early 1900s has a thing on the wall, what is this thing?”

Answer: This is the century old equivalent of a modern electrical service panel.

4. “I was cutting my watermelon and was confused when I saw these hard stems in it, does anyone know what it is?”

Answer: Probably, due to drought, the fruit deteriorated inside. It is better not to eat it. It is most likely edible, but not very tasty.

5. “These lead blocks were found in a UK river. 125 g each. Can anyone positively identify them?”

Answer: This is what the Indian “magic square” looks like. It is a special table filled with several numbers in such a way that their sum in each row, each column and in both diagonals is the same.

6. “This was found in the vicinity of a random abandoned mine”

Answer: This is a component of the exhaust gas boiler that is used to take advantage of waste heat in ships.

7. “A weird door I saw in the sea wall in Biarritz, France.”

Answer: This is not a gate, but a tide gate that helps prevent the flow of water from the ocean into the city’s storm drainage system.

8. “Found on a beach of Lake Erie. I’ve lived near the lake my whole life and never have seen something like this.”

Answer: These are the pharyngeal teeth of a fish. These teeth can only be seen when the gill cover is removed.

9. “Found this out in the woods”

Answer: This is a steam boiler. Perhaps from a train engine or, more likely, from a building used for heating or generating power for mining.

10. “I found this in a drawer in my office at the Institute of Marine Biology. It looks a lot like an egg, but it’s not.”

Answer: Most likely this is a dummy egg from a gull. The real egg is replaced by this one, so the bird “broods” quietly all season and does not lay a new one. This technique helps to reduce the population. In addition, gulls become very aggressive when they have chicks, but remain calm and quiet when hatching.

11. “This came in a bag of pots and kitchen utensils.”

Answer: A device used with a knife to cut a cake with precision.

12. “Found this in my checked luggage after a flight.”

Answer: This is a hand-held explosives scanner. Through a special filter, the device absorbs oxygen from hands and clothing, and the scanner analyzes the absorbed air for traces of any illegal substances.

13. “What is this black cord in my banana?”

Answer: It seems that those are the seeds of the banana.

14. “I found this in my attic, any idea what this is?”

Answer: this is a berry picking device.

15. “A strange tool I found while cleaning out my late Grandpa’s workshop.”

Answer: This is a Japanese rasp, a file with a very large notch that is used to process soft materials.

16. “Found these in my cooked spaghetti. The sauce was canned.”

Answer: Don’t eat that! It is very possible that those are rosary peas. You can poison yourself with them very badly.

17. “Found this under my passenger seat. It has magnets on the back.”

Answer: “It’s definitely a GPS tracker. My boss found one like that in his truck, his wife was trying to catch him on something.”

18. “Flying over an area outside of Tucson we saw this hole and it looks like it has water in it.”

Answer: It is the open pit mine at Casa Grande.

What is the strangest object you have ever encountered?