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We've all had fantasies about discovering a priceless
item, or maybe just loads of cash or gold, while poking around in our
backyards. Don't give up just yet. Below you'll find some people who
have discovered some incredibly rare things, from rare fossils to
millions of dollars worth of gold. Most of these folks weren't even
looking for anything to begin with! To be sure, some of the finds are a
lot less glamorous (the anaconda, for instance), but they all make
excellent stories. They'll also make you wonder what's really buried
beneath your home, but in some cases, you'll probably wish you'd never
found out.
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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.
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Chris and Colleen Otcasek spotted a hole
in their backyard and discovered that it led to this fully stocked
nuclear fallout shelter from the 1960s.
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Gary Johnson found this rare whale fossil in Los Angeles. It's estimated
to be about 14 to 16 million years old!
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What would you do if you found a 9 to 10-foot anaconda sunbathing near
your home? This one was found in Melbourne, Florida.
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A Turlock resident found this lemur in their backyard last December.
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Someone in New Jersey found these baby foxes in their backyard!
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Prehistoric mammoth bones were discovered in a backyard in Oskaloosa,
Iowa in July 2010.
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Here's what a 100-year-old bottle looks like. Many older homes have
antique items buried in the ground. In the past, people would get rid of
their trash by burying it.
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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 Sabaj´s 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 Johnson´s daughter with a portion of it set to go
to Sabaj as a reward. However, Sabaj died just 10 days before receiving
the prize.
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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.
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