From Hollywood actresses to real live cheetahs,
here are twelve of the strangest things found in people’s backyards! 127. Cash in a Bag In August 2011, Wayne Sabaj, a 51-year-old
unemployed carpenter 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. Would you have done the same? Soon after, 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 from complications from diabetes. Delores Johnson also died before she could
claim the money, making people wonder if she was right about that curse. Another interesting twist is that a local
store owner filed a claim for the money, saying the same amount was stolen from his store
in 2010. However, half of the money went to Johnson’s
daughter and the other half to Sabaj’s son. As far as anyone knows, the pair lived to
enjoy their prize. 11. Human Remains In 2011, Don Selby in Salt Lake City, Utah
was working with his crew in a homeowner’s yard. Some reports say they were digging out a water
main while other reports suggest they were digging up a pond. Either way, they made a gruesome discovery
– human bones. Frightened by the unexpected find, he called
the police. When physical anthropologists from the state
got to the scene, they uncovered the skeletal remains of an adult, but no head. Later, when Selby tried to continue work,
he found the skeleton’s skull. Results concluded that the bones were not
of a recent murder, but once belonged to a Fremont Indian who lived in Utah about 1,000
years ago. Over the past 10 to 15 years, similar finds
have been uncovered in the area. Plans were made to test to see if they can
be traced to a modern tribe and all local tribes were to be contacted. According to law, if a tribe wishes to claim
the remains and rebury the person, they may. If no one claimed the remains, they would
be included with a burial vault in Emigration Canyon where unclaimed Native American remains
are kept. 10. Bronze Age Headstone When amateur historian Stephen Davis from
England began researching the history of his house, he came across a reference to an ancient
stone called the Horestone near Stroud, which had been lost for 350 years! Eventually, he began swapping notes with a
local historian named Claire Forbes and eventually decided to go on a hunt for it. Eighteen months after starting an active search
for the stone in 1987, it turns out it was in Davis’ own backyard, covered completely
with ivy!! That’s the benefit to living in a historic
home! Surprises are everywhere! The first mention of the stone was in a legal
document written in the 12th century, and the last mention was in a tax record from
the 17th century. It’s believed to have marked a burial plot
from the Bronze Age and dates back to about 2,500 B.C. At the time of the find, the Historic Buildings
and Monuments Commission for England was expected to pronounce the stone a “scheduled ancient
monument.” Congratulations to Stephen! 9. 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. This is always a bad sign. 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. And now for number 8, but first be sure to
subscribe if you are new here! And let us know the strangest thing you've
ever found in your backyard!! 8. 1700s Cemetery Some people say that New Orleans is built
over the dead and it seems that way, with its plethora of cemeteries. 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 dating back to the 1700s. The workers unearthed 13 caskets with human
remains. The caskets were stacked one on top of the
other underground, at the property that used to be St. Peter Cemetery before it was closed
down due to overcrowding. Wealthy families were probably able to afford
to have their relatives moved to the newer St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 while poorer families
had to leave the remains of loved ones in the St. Peter Cemetery. 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. To quote Marcello, “This is the French Quarter. No telling what’s underground.” Not sure if Vincent was able to get his swimming
pool. 7. A Hollywood Actress In 1996, 47-year-old Canadian-born actress
Margot Kidder, the spunky original Lois Lane in the “Superman” movies, was found in
someone's 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. She was supposed to have flown to Arizona
from Los Angeles to teach a class. However, when she didn’t arrive, her manager
filed a Missing Persons report. According to the police, she was frightened
and paranoid, wearing dirty clothes and missing some teeth. Her paranoia was centered around her ex-husband,
who she claimed was the head of the CIA and out to get her. She had even cut her hair with a razor blade
in an attempt to hide. Doctors later diagnosed her with bipolar disorder
and placed her in psychiatric care where she made a complete recovery. Today, Margot Kidder is a spokeswoman for
the mentally ill and has gone over ten years without a manic or depressive episode. 6. Church Bells In 2013, a man from the Czech Republic was
digging up his backyard to install some pipes when he stumbled across some unusual metal
objects. Just as a side note, always call the city
before you start digging deep in your backyard! After excavation, he found out it was two
large church bells about 400 years old! And those things are huge! Later, it turned out that the bells had been
stolen 11 years earlier from a nearby church. The thief who buried them might have attempted
to hide them and later come back to get them but for some reason or another, he was never
able to. 5. Mastodon Bones In 2012, 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. Eric thought it was a rock but his cousin,
Andrew, immediately recognized it as an animal bone. Eric’s father, an internal medicine doctor,
confirmed Andrew’s assessment. The family called in a paleontologist from
the Cranbrook Institute of Science in Bloomfield Hills who later authenticated the bone as
an axis, or neck bone, from a mastodon some 13,000 years old! Pretty cool right? This is not the first such find in Michigan. In 2015, a contractor working on a client’s
property discovered 42 bones. Scientists determined they belonged to a 37-year-old
male mastodon who walked the Michigan area some 14,000 years ago. Those bones are now part of a permanent exhibition
at a museum in the Ann Arbor area. 4. Meteorites The chances of you finding a piece of meteorite
in your backyard is pretty small, let alone a meteorite hitting your house six times in
a row. But that is exactly what happened to Radivoke
Lajic, a Serbian man living in a little village in northern Bosnia. It looks like the man´s property, for some
reason, attracts space rocks! The man even thinks that it might be aliens
trying to bombard his house. Lajic sold one of the meteorites to pay to
reinforce his roof against future attacks. Scientists are studying the property to see
if it has any special magnetic properties. Pretty crazy right? 3. WWII Bombs During WWII there was a bombing range called
Pine Castle Range. Now thousands of homes have been built along
the northern side of the 12,000-acre area. Usually, when we think of World War era bombs,
we think of Europe, where the majority of the fighting occurred. However, Pinecastle Range was located in Orlando,
Florida. Though plenty of bombs were dropped on the
site, talks of cleaning up didn’t happen until bombs were discovered in 2007 near the
running track of a local middle school. Kind of dangerous… Before that happened, in 2002, a ranch hand
clearing brush in the same area set off a bomb with his tractor. Since then, over a hundred rockets and bombs
have been found on the school property and in backyards of nearby houses. In 2008, Army Corps of Engineering launched
a multi-million dollar large-scale cleanup of the area, eventually finding around 400
pieces of unexploded weapons. 2. Whale Fossil In 1978, 17-year-old Gary Johnson from Palos
Verde, California noticed a large rock sticking out of a hill between his house and a neighbor’s. It appeared to have a bone pattern. Thinking it could be an important find, Johnson
called in an expert to evaluate it. I don’t know what kind of expert he was
but anyway, he said it had no value. The stone sat in the ground 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 had 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-year-old jaw, skull, and baleen of a very rare baleen whale. Baleen whale fossils are very rare with only
about 20 known specimens in the entire world. 1. A Cheetah In 2008, nine-year-old Toby from Hamerton,
in the U.K. ran to his mother shouting that there was a cheetah in the garden. His mother dismissed his claims as childhood
excitement. Clearly. I mean, its the UK. That is, until Julie-Ann Taylor looked out
of the kitchen window. To her astonishment, she realized her son
wasn’t joking. Toby had been playing in the backyard with
his bicycle when he suddenly saw the African big cat. Or, rather, the big cat saw him. Toby ran the forty feet to safety and, luckily,
the cheetah had no interest in little boys. Instead, the animal, a male named Akea, settled
for chewing the tires and the seat of Toby’s bike. The 6-foot-long predator had escaped from
a nearby animal sanctuary. The keepers soon arrived to the house and
took Akea back home to his enclosure. The incident terrified poor Toby because,
really, no one expects to come upon a cheetah in England although if you look into it, it
happens more often than you might think! However, the keepers played down the incident,
saying that Akea was as tame as a dog since he had been raised by humans since he was
a baby. At least it wasn’t the beast of Dartmoor.
