- [Narrator] The world can be
full of wonderful surprises. I mean, just yesterday, I
discovered a slice of pizza down the side of my couch, mm! But that's nothing compared
to digging up an ancient rock, only to find a power plug built into it! Or discovering some super ancient relic on a very serious dig site. With that said, it's time to take a look at a few weird, accidental discoveries and the stories behind
some everyday innovations, that you've probably never even heard of. (soft melodic music) Let's Rock. In 1998, electrical
engineer, John Williams went out hiking in the mountain wilderness in rural North America. He was hoping to simply enjoy the scenery, but instead, he discovered something, that took his breath away and I'm not talking about the altitude. After digging up an oddly-shaped
rock from the ground, Williams was shocked to see, that a 3-pin electrical
connector was embedded in it. Curious, he tried to pull
the plug out of the rock, sort of like a modern-day version of King Arthur pulling
a sword from a stone, but unlike Arthur's sword, the electrical connector wouldn't budge. So was this mysterious object
artificially manufactured? Apparently not, Williams
claimed that the rock wasn't found near any human settlements, although he also didn't
disclose the exact location, apparently afraid the site might be plundered by artifact hunters. That led some skeptics to conclude, that this accidental
discovery was just a hoax. However, researchers who've
examined the strange device known as the Williams
Enigmalith say otherwise. Apparently, the rock is
composed of granite, quartz and feldspar and doesn't
contain any binding agents ruling out the possibility, that it was artificially manufactured. Also, the metal-like
material making up the pins is not, in fact, any kind
of identifiable metal and according to Williams, the rock is at least 100,000 years old, meaning it can't have
been created by humans, if our understanding of mankind's technological development is correct. Offers of up to $500,000 have been made for the device, but
Williams refused to sell. Crazy as that seems, it's
because he believes the artifact belongs to an advanced
ancient civilization or even an extraterrestrial race. Could it have been part of a UFO, or was it some sort of
ancient, rock-shaped, plug-in diffuser, what do you think? If it looks like a UFO's taillight to you, hit that like button. Reckon it looks more like
a secret civilization's rock-shaped air-purifier,
then hit subscribe. But if you think Mr.
Williams might be making up a few of these supposed
features just to feel special, go ahead and hit both. Well, that's the most cosmically
crazy set of questions I think I've ever asked,
though it doesn't compare to the questionable
discoveries coming up next. Miracle Medicine. Now, a few hundred years before
John Williams' freaky find, back in the 17th Century, a feverish man suffering from malaria was staggering through the Andean
forests of South America. The parasitic infection was
a difficult one to endure and so desperate for a
drink, he gulped from a pool of stagnant water at the base of a tree. Any survival expert will tell you drinking stagnant jungle
water is a very bad idea, as it's a breeding ground for dangerous, waterborne pathogens. Although he quenched his
thirst, the man soon experienced a horrible, bitter taste in his mouth. He immediately feared that it had made his illness even worse,
yet to his amazement, the malaria subsided and
soon after, he was able to find his way home and
share his miraculous story. Fictional as this may sound, it turns out that the bark of the quina-quina
tree contains quinine, a compound that has
anti-malarial properties, any guess where this tree's found? That's right, only in the Andean forests of South America, clearly the tale spread. In the 1640s, the quina-quina
bark was introduced to Europe for medical use, sounds
like good news, right? Well, not for everyone, as
the magical effects of quinine became more and more well-known, everyone was after some of the good stuff, whether it was King Louis XIV of France, King Charles II of England
or even the countless number of soldiers from European countries, who were colonizing lands
where malaria was rife. And while quinine helped keep hundreds of thousands of Europeans alive, it meant that countries in
Africa, Asia and South America became more easily colonized, yikes! To make matters even worse
for the Andean people, it also resulted in the devastation of their quina-quina trees. In 1805, explorers documented
25,000 of these trees in the Ecuadorean Andes,
today there are just 29. Well, there's one discovery, that might have been
better left undiscovered. Mammal Mia. Now, you might already know, that some deep-sea
creatures, insects, algae and even fungi can glow in the dark thanks to a feature
called bioluminescence. While they're all hypnotic
to watch in action, you've probably never
seen photos or footage of a glow in the dark mammal. It was believed all mammals
simply lacked the ability to glow in any way until very recently. Back in 2017, Jon Martin, a Forestry Professor at
Northland College, Wisconsin, was wandering around the woods
at night, trying to find out whether certain lichens, fungi and plants would glow under an
ultraviolet flashlight. Whilst foraging amongst the undergrowth, Martin heard a rustling above him, so he pointed his flashlight
at it and was stunned to see a pink, glowing squirrel
staring back at him. In a supremely unexpected
twist, Jon had discovered, that some mammals could be biofluorescent, but this fluky find led fellow professors at Northland College to do a bit of exploring themselves, what they saw left them gob smacked. They shone an ultraviolet flashlight on an old platypus specimen of theirs to see if that too glowed
and shockingly it did, this time with a blue-ish
green hue and that wasn't all! Word soon spread to
other zoos and museums, who went round all their
exhibits and found that bats, Tasmanian devils, wombats
and many more also glowed! So why do some mammals
turn into shiny Pokémon under a UV light? Biofluorescent animals have
fur or skin that absorbs the short wavelength ultraviolet light and re-emits it at a longer wavelength, making it visible to humans. It's still not entirely clear why some mammals have this fancy trait. One theory is that their neon glow can help squirrels and
platypus recognize each other in low-light situations, another is that the light
emitted may be enough to scare off any predators
lurking in the dark. Currently it's a mystery, but who knows, perhaps their true calling is
to become living nightlights? Backyard-asaurus. If you dig up your backyard, you might discover some broken plant pots, or maybe if you're lucky, some old coins, however, one man from Pombal in Portugal found something slightly
ah, bigger back in 2017. While doing some
construction on his property, he noticed bone fragments
poking out from the earth. But before you start getting
too nervous, don't worry, he hadn't stumbled across some
cursed, ancient burial site. It was actually the fossilized
remains of a dinosaur! The skeleton was found in Upper
Jurassic sedimentary rock, suggesting that it was a
whopping 150 million years old. Excavators continued
to unearth more remains with the size of the bones
suggesting the dinosaur was around 40 feet high and 80 feet long! Just for reference, that's
around the same size as an adult blue whale, the largest living animal in the world. Paleontologists believe
that this sizeable skeleton belongs to the brachiosaurid sauropod, a gigantic, herbivorous dinosaur with a wildly long neck and tail. In fact, this yard fossil is
so large, it's believed to be the biggest dinosaur found in Europe. Forget "Jurassic Park,"
this is Jurassic Yard! Spring Break. Anyone who struggles with
sea sickness will tell you, that even the slightest
rocking motion of a boat is enough to make them retch. But nausea isn't the only problem, that swaying ocean waves can cause. In 1943, Richard James was
working on finding a device, that could keep sensitive
ship equipment steady at sea. He eventually came up with the idea of suspending the items with springs. But after James inadvertently
dropped one of the springs on the floor, he stumbled
across an even better idea. When the spring fell to the ground, it walked end-over-end, like a metal worm. Excitedly, James returned home and told his wife about his discovery. She scoured the dictionary,
looking for the perfect name to call the new toy-like invention. In the end, the couple decided on a name you'll probably
recognize, Slinky and it's safe to say, that their accidental
discovery was a success, more than 360 million
Slinky toys have been sold since they hit the shops in 1945. But apparently the
benefits of this fluky find weren't enough for Richard, in
1960, he left the Slinky firm and his family to join a
religious cult in Bolivia. Guess you could say he slinked away. Yeah, I'll see myself out. A Cereal Discovery. There's nothing worse
than moldy food, right? But crazy as it sounds,
sometimes it pays off to leave your food out overnight, just ask the Kellogg
brothers, the siblings, who were two of America's
first wellness gurus, attempted to make a fresh batch of granola using wheat berries one day in 1898. But after they went off to bed, forgetting to put away their
wheat-based cereal dough, they came downstairs the next morning to find that their mixture had fermented. Now, that may sound like a quick way to get abdominal ache, but
fermenting grains like wheat actually helps to make it more digestible. So when the dough was rolled
into thin sheets and cooked, it produced perfectly thin, crispy flakes. Eventually, Will Kellogg
figured out that corn, rather than wheat produced
even crunchier, crispier flakes and eight years later, Will opened the Battle Creek Toasted
Corn Flake Company, creating the first batch
of Kellogg's Cornflakes. Since then, you could say the cereal's been pretty popular. Today, the Kellog's Company is worth an eye-watering $24.8 billion and sells around 31.7 million boxes of Cornflakes alone every year! Pretty astonishing to
think such big numbers were born out of an
accidental dough mixture. Hm, maybe I should
check my kitchen counter for anything that might
be fermenting there. It could be gross, but it
could be the next Cornflakes, only time and cockroaches will tell. Fire Start-up. Even after the invention of
lighters, there's a chance, that you'll find a good
old-fashioned box of matches somewhere in your house, but as useful and popular
as these little sticks are, they didn't start off as
an intentional design. In 1826, English chemist,
John Walker was working with phosphorous, antimony
sulfide and potassium chlorate, for those of us that
don't speak chemistry, that's basically a lot of stuff
you don't want to mess with. It's believed Walker
was dangerously meddling with these compounds to make
percussion caps for guns, but after stirring the mixture together, he was left with a small blob
at the tip of his splint. In an attempt to remove the residue, Walker swiped it against his fireplace. At that moment, the
splint lit up with a flame and just like that, he'd created the first friction-based matchstick as a fluke. Over the next few months,
Walker perfected the mixture and one year later, he
began to sell his invention, known then as friction lights. Yet, for reasons unknown, Walker never patented his invention. Unsurprisingly, other
inventors were quick to jump on his idea and created their
own friction-based matches and now, around 500 billion are used every year in the US alone. Who knew that chemicals and fire were a match made in heaven? Underwater Raves. Back in September 2022,
fishermen off the coast of Devon, England, were looking to catch lobsters through an alternative,
albeit bright method. Instead of putting bait
in expensive lobster pots, they used small underwater potlights. The idea was that the lighted bait could outline the lobster
pot as potential shelter, or that the crustacean would
be attracted to the light. To the fishermen's amazement, potlights proved to be a huge hit, but not with lobsters, with scallops. Usually, the fishermen would catch around five scallops out of 35,000 pots, yet, with the addition of the LED lights, there were around 15
scallops for every 50 pots, that's a 1,500-fold increase! Scientists are still trying
to uncover the reason why scallops are attracted
to these little lights. I mean, they don't even
have eyes or do they? It turns out scallops
have not one, not two, but um, 200 eyes, all lining
the mantle of their shell. Although they don't work like our eyes, they are able to detect prey by picking them out in
the glow of the light and scientists believe it's
for this reason that these guys just can't resist that
little patch of light, like moths to a flame or, more accurately, scallops to an LED and it's just as well, the traditional method of catching delicious scallops is by dredging. Now, scallop dredges rely on
heavy-duty, metal-framed nets, which are pulled over the
seabed, digging into it, flipping scallops out of
the sand and into the nets. But this catching method
causes irreparable damage to the seabed, taking up to 10 years for the ecosystems to
recover from dredging. But with the discovery of
scallop discos, there's hope, that we'll soon see a decrease
in this catching technique. I think that calls for a party. Ship Shape. September 11th, 2001, was
a dark day for America, an attack on the World Trade Center destroyed the Twin Towers and almost 3,000 people lost their lives. But out of the tragedy, a
construction crew at Ground Zero made an incredible discovery, that softened the loss ever so slightly. In 2010, digging began for
the Vehicular Security Center, an underground parking complex for the One World Trade Center. As they dug deeper and deeper, the workers uncovered a historic gem, around 20 feet underground
were the remains of a large ship's hull
measuring 30 feet long. It featured some interesting cargo too, like this leather shoe, comfy! After gathering samples of wood from what would have been the hull, scientists used
dendrochronological dating, which is the method of dating tree rings to work out that the ship was built in a Philadelphia shipyard around 1773. No one knows for sure what
the backstory of this ship is, or how it came to rest at such a profound point in New York. At the moment, the best guess is that it's a Hudson River Sloop, this was a vessel designed
by Dutch settlers in the US to carry passengers and cargo
over shallow, rocky water, like the Hudson River that
runs through New York. But the real question is, how did a ship end up buried 20 feet below ground? After being in use for around 20 years, the ship's believed to have
sailed to Lower Manhattan, where it was eventually sunk, either deliberately or by accident. Sadly, the vessel didn't
have a great send off, it was likely buried by trash
and other fill materials to extend Manhattan's shoreline. Thankfully, this lucky
discovery has seen the ship gain a slightly better resting place at the New York State Museum. Inner Workings. Around 415 million people
in the world have diabetes with many relying on a
simple insulin injection to live their lives as
normally as possible, but without a bizarre discovery, this remedy may never
have been identified. In 1889, two doctors from
the University of Strasbourg in France were trying to understand how the pancreas affected digestion. To do this, they removed the
pancreas from a healthy dog. The results didn't help them
discover much about digestion, clearly, they were
barking up the wrong tree. However, they did notice
one strange quirk. A few days after the pancreas was removed, flies were swarming
around the dog's urine. Something abnormal and
unexpected had happened. After testing, the doctors
realized that the dog was secreting sugar in its
urine, a symptom of diabetes. The doctors knew that
removing the pancreas had caused the previously
healthy dog to become diabetic. With more tests, they concluded, that a healthy pancreas
must secrete a substance, that controls sugar levels in the body. The two doctors were never able to isolate that mysterious substance. However, thanks to their
accidental discovery, Frederick G. Banting, Charles
H. Best and John JR. Macleod of the University of Toronto
were successfully able to make a major scientific breakthrough. In the 1920s, they identified
that insulin was key to maintaining blood sugar levels, the chemical primarily
produced by the pancreas and it's just as well, before
insulin was discovered, the most effective treatment
for people with diabetes was to lower their carbohydrate
and overall calorie intake. This resulted in some diabetics only consuming 450 calories a day, with many succumbing to starvation. Fortunately, the common insulin
injection treatment of today is a much better solution,
bless that pancreasless pupper! Preservation Station. A lot of us dream of one day finding a hoard of lost treasure or secret gold, maybe buried underground or
hidden in an ancient chest. But back in 1982, Mehmed Çakir, a 13-year-old sponge diver from Turkey, got to live out that dream, although it was a pretty wet one. Mehmed had been diving for sponges off the eastern shore of Uluburun, when down in the depths
of the deep blue water, he spotted something strange. It was a pile of what looked like, and I quote, "Metal biscuits with ears." He quickly rushed to
the shore and informed the local Nautical Archaeology department, who sent out an inspection team. What Mehmed had discovered was
a stack of old metal ingots, one of huge historical value,
but when they dived down and finally set eyes on the
site Mehmed had uncovered, they were astonished, it wasn't
just some ancient treasure, but the cargo of an age-old shipwreck! It took 10 years and more
than 22,000 total dives for the archeologists to
complete the excavation, but their findings made it all worth it. What Mehmed had led them to was the Uluburun shipwreck,
a Late Bronze Age ship, which had sailed all the way
back in the 14th century BC, that's some 3,500 years ago! It's likely that the ship
was carrying trade goods from either a Cypriot
or Syro-Palestinian port to Mycenean Greece, due to its
proximity to the shoreline, archeologists presume that heavy winds caused the ship to venture
into shallow waters and collide with the rocky headland. The stricken, 52-foot vessel
was carrying a hefty 20 tons of cargo, with half of it being
taken up by Cypriot copper, but one of the more intriguing items is this gold funerary mask. After death, this would've been placed over the deceased's face, so that the soul would recognize its body
and return to it safely. Among the more exotic objects on board were elephant tusks, tortoise
shells, ostrich eggshells and get this, hippopotamus teeth. Although it may sound like the ship's crew got in a scuffle with the local zoo, it's likely that these
curious animal items were used for things like
vases and containers. All in all, this shipwreck provided one of the most spectacular
Late Bronze Age assemblages to ever be discovered and to think, it may have been forever
confined to the seabed, if a 13-year-old hadn't been
out searching for sponges. Underground Cities. Back in 1963, a Turkish man decided to make a few renovations to his house, but after knocking down
a wall in his basement, he was left staring at a hole, a hole that shouldn't have been there. Behind the wall was a secret room with a long, winding tunnel leading down beneath the property. I mean, that sounds like
free real estate, jackpot! So as you'd expect, he
explored his new man cave, but turns out this wasn't
just a house extension. Nope, as he descended, he realized the true nature of his accidental find, he'd somehow uncovered the ancient underground city of Derinkuyu. The city was initially dug
around 3,000 years ago, but it didn't fully form
until the Byzantine Era from the 8th-12th century,
it was during this period, that the Arab-Byzantine wars occurred. Christians used Derinkuyu as protection from Muslim Arabs, sort
of like a giant bunker. Clearly, it was a hit, with
the cave expanding downwards 279 feet, that's about 25 stories! It was so large that the city's population reached 20,000 at one
point and it's no surprise, considering all the amenities available from schools to chapels and even a winery. But don't book your
flights to Turkey just yet. In the 1920s, Derinkuyu
saw its last inhabitants leave the underground city. Exactly 50 years after this
bizarre basement discovery, construction workers
were demolishing housing around Neveshir Castle just
18 miles north of Derinkuyu and bizarrely, emerging from the rubble was yet another underground city. Like at Derinkuyu, persecuted
Christians had developed an underground city here
to flee from Muslim Arabs during the Arab-Byzantine era. This secret pad came equipped with a 12th century, rock-carved
church, horse stables and hundreds of personal
items like tobacco pipes. Incredibly, the site
underneath the Neveshir Castle is rumored to be the last
underground city in the world, stretching some five million square feet and reaching depths of 370 feet deep. If I didn't know better, I'd
think the population of Turkey was made up of moles! Which of these accidental discoveries did you find most fascinating and have you made any
fluky finds yourself? Let me know down in the comments below and thanks for watching! (soft melodic music)
