Most Amazing Backyard Discoveries

Let's investigate some of the most amazing backyard discoveries!

February 18, 2022・

18 min read

While spending time in your backyard you might have fantasized about finding buried treasure. But many people have actually found insane things in their underneath their houses! There are all sorts of creepy, crazy, and downright weird things people have discovered hidden around their property. Let's investigate some of the most amazing backyard discoveries!

He Was Digging and Discovered a Secret Door

When John Sims moved into his new home in Tucson, Arizona back in 2015, he, like any other homeowner, couldn’t wait to start making the house his own. But just as he was preparing to get a little DIY done, a previous owner of the property got in touch, and let him know there were rumors of something secret lurking beneath the lawn.

Curious, John wasted no time retrieving the property’s permit from city records, which included a very old, very rough sketch of some sort of weird subterranean structure! To ensure he wasn’t about to go ripping up his newly purchased lawn without reason, John swept his backyard with a metal detector.

Nothing happened at first, but all of a sudden, the detector went wild. After ripping up a few feet of earth and finding nothing, he was about to give up when his shovel suddenly hit something hard.

Had he discovered a secret hideout? An old evil lair? Maybe even a haunted underground tomb? After hearing the metal clang, for a moment John thought he had found his own septic tank. But as he continued to clear the soil, he realized he had found an actual hatch, with an old handle attached to it.

After leveraging the thing open, he saw an old set of spiral steps, buried in rubble, leading down into the dark.

Fueled by curiosity, he carefully picked his way down to find out where it led and discovered that it opened up into a huge main room with a domed fiberglass ceiling just like the sketches he’d found described!

A little more digging revealed that it wasn’t just some super cool secret man cave. It was actually an old concrete fallout shelter, built all the way back in the 1960’s in the midst of the Cold War.

Back then the tense battle between the United States and Soviet Union was fought by stockpiling as many nuclear weapons as possible. And at the time, Tucson had been ringed by underground silos, each of which reportedly held one of the US Air Force’s intercontinental ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads!

The city was, therefore, believed to be at high risk for attack, and a number of fallout shelters were reportedly built in the area. Once the threat of an all-out nuclear war passed though, most of the bunkers were simply sealed up and forgotten about.

But standing there in his very own, albeit dilapidated, fallout shelter, all John could think about was restoring it to its original glory, complete with old artifacts from the time! By May 2021, John had built a little protective hut over the entrance to his bunker, a Shelter Shelter, if you will!

Although, he hasn’t revealed whether he’s made any major changes to the bunker’s interior yet. Maybe he’s leaving that part up to our imaginations, or maybe he doesn’t want the entire world to see how he’ll be waiting out the inevitable zombie apocalypse.

Backyard Bunker

John isn’t the only one with a survival bunker at his disposal. In November 2017, Lisa Marie Camps from Gloucestershire, England, decided to investigate a strange old concrete manhole cover in the garden of her newly purchased property.

She asked an online history group for advice, and local history buffs, Jonathan and Gerald, were more than happy to volunteer their time to help unearth her discovery.

After a few hours of back-breaking work, they suddenly realized they might be sat on something incredible, a secret underground bunker from the Second World War!

The previous owners, an elderly couple who had lived in the house since it was built in the 1950s, had unfortunately passed away, so Lisa thought she might be at a dead end with her discovery. However, the neighbors informed her that the bunker was originally a two-story shelter, with one of the stories above the ground!

According to the Gloucestershire Council’s archaeology department, the bunker was too much of a hassle to completely fill in when the surrounding houses were built, so it was left as it was and had eventually been forgotten about!

But not entirely. Gerald, one of the local historians, said that the bunker had been partly filled in with concrete when Lisa discovered it. This meant none of them could be absolutely certain about its past use and purpose.

But if the bunker was indeed a former World War Two shelter, it would have been used by brave citizens forced to tough it out against the bombs Britain’s enemies would routinely drop on the country! That bravery alone makes it worthy of at least some preservation!

Hidden In Plain Sight

One afternoon in July 2021, sixty-two-year-old John Bostock was tidying up his property in Birmingham, England in preparation of moving house. He was giving the plants in his pretty sizable garden a little spruce up, when he discovered something huge.

Hidden in plain sight for over two decades, all overgrown with ivy and weather-worn, he found a Georgian-style structure made from rough, dark stone. Confused beyond belief, John posted some photos of the strange façade online, where curious Internet crawlers started to point out something sinister about the strange structure.

It had been decorated with rows of oyster shells set into the wall, along with teeth and bones! Fortunately, these weren’t human, and their size indicated they probably belonged to sheep and cows. Experts believe the structure is a Gothic folly, a building constructed primarily for decoration, that was built back in the mid-1700s.

Follies were often built by aristocrats to be admired, and to offer a serene garden escape from the hustle and bustle of the manor house that once stood on the property. The bones and teeth were purely used because they were easily found in the area.

As for how the folly ended up being abandoned and forgotten about for so many years, remains a mystery. According to several experts, there are many historical structures, including follies, in protected and preserved gardens around the UK which also pose an array of unanswered questions.

Cursed Ornaments

Moving into a new home is a time filled with curiosity and wonder. You get to explore every nook and cranny of your new property and discover all its hidden features and characteristics. Only, sometimes you might not be all that impressed with what you find.

And no one knows this better than Brisbane resident, Kerri Moran, who in 2019, shortly after moving into her new home, dug up a seemingly cursed object in her garden. The object, which is sculpted from clay and resembles some kind of jug or crock, bears several disturbing features like a coffin and tombstone, with the letters RIP carved into it.

After posting photos of the sinister object on the Internet, many commenters, perhaps jokingly, advised Kerri to either burn it, bury it, or call an exorcist. But Kerri decided to take her investigation to the next level by contacting the house’s previous owners, and she soon found out that the object wasn’t as cursed as it first appeared.

As it turns out, the previous owner’s son used to take pottery classes, which led to him making and bringing home all sorts of clay creations! The previous owner would then place his curious creations around the garden, where the earth would eventually claim them, particularly things from this kid’s evident emo phase, it would seem.

So, even though the object’s true origin was less devious than she first thought, at least Kerri could sleep well knowing her property didn’t have some ancient curse on it!

For some unknown reason, whenever someone finds something creepy buried in their yard, they almost always put it down to a curse. Like Kerrie, Reddit user Scoliosispenguin was working in his backyard when he dug up an odd object as well. It looked like a small skillet with tiny skeletons around it, all bent over with super creepy expressions on their faces.

To make sure he wasn’t about to be haunted by the object, Scoliosispenguin took to Reddit to ask whether anyone had any idea what it was he had found. And luckily for him, there were several clever Internet sleuths who quickly solved the mystery.

The abomination-of-an-object actually turned out to be two separate objects that somehow got stuck together. The top part appeared to be a tiny skillet, and the bottom part was, unfortunately, only as cursed as a Halloween-themed ash tray could possibly be.

But at least the fact that it probably wasn’t cursed didn’t take anything away from how weird it was. Why would someone stick a skillet and an ashtray together? And why was it buried? There are so many questions.

Underground Parking

In the midst of lockdown in April 2020, West Yorkshire resident John Brayshaw decided to do a little home renovation and set about building a deck in his back garden. But as he was digging, his shovel struck the last thing he ever expected to find in his yard.

John found a pretty old, beat up 1950’s Ford Popular right there in his garden and, as you can imagine, his curiosity was immediately piqued!

Luckily, even though the car was rusty and largely broken up, it still had its engine and registration plate attached. Keen for people to get in contact with him with possible explanations, John contacted the news. And it wasn’t long until tips started rolling in!

One of the earliest ideas was that the car might have been an old military vehicle, possibly used by the secret service. Could an undercover spy have tried to erase their identity by burying the car?

That would’ve been very cool, but the truth unfortunately had nothing to do with the secret service. It turned out, the car had been buried there in 1964 by the previous homeowner, Harold Lyles, after mechanics wrote it off, and he didn’t want to pay for it to be scrapped.

Harold’s son, Nigel, got in touch with John about the car shortly after recognizing it on the news, and while John thought about taking some of the scrap pieces to Harold’s widow, Margaret, lockdown prevented him from doing so.

Margaret did, however, see photos of the car, and her family said it put a lump in her throat. But whether that’s because she was reminded of her husband, or because she actually hated the car, as Nigel insisted, we’ll never know.

Stolen Property

When Matthew Emanuel from Staten Island, New York, moved into his house in 2014, he assumed everything was in good working order, including the weird rusty box in the bushes by his fence. It was probably some sort of electrical box, or worst-case scenario, some trash, which he didn’t pay a lick of attention to at the time.

4 years later in 2018 though, a deer ravaged the bushes, and Matthew called in a landscaper, who noticed the unusually large box buried in the earth. At about two feet wide and 1.5 feet deep, Matthew couldn’t tell him for sure what it was, so he decided to take a closer look.

It wasn’t an electrical box at all, it was an old, rusted, locked safe! And with it weighing in at around 80 to 100 lbs, it definitely wasn’t empty! After breaking it open, Matthew and his landscaper were shocked when they found stacks of hundred-dollar bills, about three inches thick, wet, and stuck together, inside.

There were also small bags of gold, diamond rings, earrings, and other jewelry, which boggled Matthew’s mind even more. All this time, this treasure trove had been sitting in his garden, and he didn’t even know.

For days, Matthew sat peeling apart bills, drying them out and counting them. Ultimately, they added up to about $16,000 in cash, and that was without the potential value of the jewels and bags of gold. But cold hard cash wasn’t all Matthew had on his hands. On one of the items, Matthew discovered an address belonging to one of his neighbors!

After going to their house and discussing the safe, he learnt that the couple had in fact been robbed many years ago, and that none of their stuff had been recovered, until now! But the question still remained, why was It in Matthew's garden?

Perhaps the burglar overestimated how much he could carry? Maybe they hid it there, and then forgot where they’d left it? Either way, the burglar was clearly criminally dumb. Being a stand-up guy, Matthew returned every single dollar and jewel. What a saint!

The Solomon Bombs

In May 2021, a man was digging a hole for a new septic system on his property in the Solomon Islands. It was a pretty average day all round, until he stumbled upon something which made his blood run cold.

He’d only managed to dig a few feet into the earth, when his shovel hit something metallic. And it was only when he looked closer that he realized his renovation work might easily have ended in a fatal accident because right there beneath his property, he’d managed to hit an entire stash of World War Two era bombs!

Following the discovery, and after he’d stepped away very, very carefully, the Explosive Ordnance Disposal of the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force was called in. Pretty soon they’d removed a whopping 101 Explosive Projectiles from the man’s property.

The find was part of a devastating legacy from the Second World War, when thousands of bombs had been dropped on the Pacific islands, many of which failed to explode. After the war, allied countries were supposed to properly dispose of the bombs, but, clearly, they didn’t always do so.

Basically, if you ever find yourself on the Solomon Islands with the intention of building a house, it's advised to do a sweep first.

Animal Planet

Just imagine this: It’s a nice, sunny day, and is the perfect time for a nap in the sunshine. Well, what better place to take a nap than in that new hammock you recently got? Only the problem is, it appears to already be occupied. Not by a human, but by a big, very dangerous black bear!

That’s exactly the scene Florida homeowner, Vincent James, walked into in May 2014, when he found an actual bear resting its eyes in a hammock in his backyard.

It stayed in the hammock for about 20 minutes, before the bear simply got up and left. It was as if it literally only came there for a nap!

Residents say the bear had been seen scavenging for food in the neighborhood several days prior, ripping through garbage cans and knocking down bird feeders. That clearly tired it out, if its need for a nap is anything to go by!

But Vincent isn’t the only person whose backyard turned into a real-life feature on Animal Planet. In July 2021, a pensioner from the British village of Billinghay, which is 20 miles from the sea, was shocked when she woke up one morning to find a seal sunbathing on her patio.

Seventy-two-year-old Anne Page discovered the animal in her garden when she went out to do a spot of gardening, and she couldn’t believe her eyes. How on earth did a seal find its way into her garden? They’re not exactly adept at moving around on land, and it’s hardly like it could have gotten a taxi!

It’s believed that the seal reached Anne’s house by swimming up the River Witham, which leads to the coast of the North Sea, and branches off into a tributary towards Billinghay. But that’s not all.

The seal was later identified as Dandy Dinmont, one of seven seal pups rescued back in 2017! All the precious pups were named after dog breeds, and then released near a grey seal colony in the River Welland about 40 miles away.

Seems like Dandy didn’t want to leave the area, though, clearly, Billinghay has the best spots for sun-lounging in England!

Lost Palace

In March 2021, Eighty-one-year-old Charles Pole from the small English town of Wiveliscombe hired a construction crew to build him a cottage in his garden before selling the main house. However, his plans were turned upside down when builders stumbled onto wall foundations and the remains of flooring beneath the soil.

The remains were suspected to be part of Bishop’s Palace, a 13th-century building long thought to have been lost. Historical records show that a palace had been located in the area, but up until then, researchers had no clue of its actual resting place.

The palace was one of several residences used by local bishops up until at least the 16th century, when workhouses were erected on the site, and the palace’s stone was repurposed for local housing.

But despite the significance of Charles’ discovery, the find unfortunately hasn’t been all good news for him. Since the cost of the entire archaeological examination fell to Charles, the retired pensioner had to pay around $21,000. Not to mention he had to put a firm halt on his cottage until archaeologists finished recording and covering the site to protect and preserve it.

All the poor man wanted to do was live out the remainder of his days without bothering, or being bothered, by anyone around him. And now he’s not only stuck with dozens of unexpected guests, but also a big fat bill. Apparently, it’s quite expensive to accidentally discover ancient palaces.

Lost Mexican Kingdom

In 2014, Whittaker Schroder, a graduate student of archaeology at the University of Pennsylvania, was waved down by a food vendor on a highway in Chiapas, Mexico. The vendor, rather eagerly, told Whittaker, who was known to be researching archaeological sites in the area, that his friend had uncovered an ancient stone tablet in the backyard of his ranch.

Intrigued, Whittaker visited this friend, where he got to observe the tablet and verify its authenticity. He was convinced he had something big on his hands. Whittaker informed several archaeological professors at esteemed universities, but it took several years to gain permission to excavate the site.

Archaeological work only began in June 2018, after researchers had carefully fenced off the site from the rancher’s cows. Right there in the rancher’s backyard, archaeologists discovered what is believed to be the capital of a long-lost Maya kingdom, Sak Tz’i!

Though not as large as the well-known ancient cities of Chichen Itza or Palenque, the capital of Sak Tz’i was settled around 750 BCE and contains the remnants of a 45-foot-high pyramid. A 1.5-acre ceremonial center was also found, along with the remains of ancient fortifications and dozens of sculptures!

Hopefully, the poor cattle rancher wasn’t also charged like the poor pensioner from our previous story. Because if digging up a palace cost $21,000, just imagine what digging up a whole city would cost!

Double Take

Discovering live animals or cursed objects in your backyard is startling enough, so imagine how scary it would be to discover an ancient relic, only for it to suddenly start to move!

In 2016, Li Whenhua, an orange farmer from south-west China, was digging up his yard when he discovered what he thought was an ancient seal of some kind.

Only, when he picked it up to examine it, he experienced every arachnophobe’s nightmare. Instead of a seal, Li had discovered an eight-legged, eight-eyed, very alive spider!

After he made the discovery, he showed its peculiar patterns off to his neighbors, who then turned to the internet for insight. Pretty soon, they realized that what Li had found was one of the rarest spiders known to man, an Hourglass spider.

Since 2000, less than 10 Hourglass spiders have been sighted in China - which, as you can imagine, makes Li’s find all the more amazing. Especially since, according to Zhao Li, head of the Insect Museum in China, the Hourglass spider is extremely valuable due to its rarity.

After learning this, Li has decided to keep the spider until the right buyer, with the right price, I can imagine, comes around.

If you were amazed at these backyard discoveries, you might want to read this article about incredible discoveries found underground that changed History! Thanks for reading.