If you look around long enough, you’re liable to find some pretty bizarre things on the internet. For every platform or website offering a place to discuss something near and dear to your heart, you’re liable to find just as many places where people are discussing the strangest, sometimes most disturbing things you’ve ever heard of. Without getting too dark, though, part of the thrill of the web is the promise of reading about or seeing things that you’ve never seen before, a promise that keeps us coming online again and again. With that said, here are 30 of the strangest and most confusing sights the internet has had to offer.
1. Somebody found this thing lying on the floor of a server room.
Though we don’t want to tell anybody what to do, when something looks like it might be a bomb, we’d advise you to stay as far away from it as humanly possible. After some internet sleuthing, some helpful online commenters suggested that it might actually be an anti-tank missile—and it was promptly confiscated and investigated by the police shortly thereafter!
2. Now this one just seems a little bit silly.
We’ve all seen silly bands in the shape of dogs or Christmas trees or pumpkins before, but we’ve never seen one that looked quite like this. Is there even a shape to it? Is it just a prank on whoever buys it? As it turns out, it’s supposed to be a “dragon-monkey hybrid.” Go figure.
3. These little things were actually pretty useful, back in the day.
Somebody was digging around in their yard when they found a bunch of these thin, narrow little glass bottles. As it turns out, these are actually battery oil bottles from back in the days on railroad track signals.
4. This weird little face is also pretty confusing.
Although it looks pretty cute and harmless at the outset, this little device actually has a relatively important purpose: it is a panic button that you can use to call the police in an emergency. Pretty neat, huh?
5. Is that an alien spaceship on the back of this thing?
The biggest thing we’ve ever seen on the back of a truck on the highway is probably a mobile home being shipped somewhere else. Still, the truck in this picture is towing something a little larger—it’s actually an F-35 fighter plane and not an alien spaceship. False alarm!
6. Somebody found a whole bunch of these in their dad’s garage.
Though these look like something that went bad, they’re actually a little more useful than you might expect. If you’ve ever had a decorative lava lamp in your room, you might know what they’re for. Give up? Each one of these is a reloadable lava lamp filler! You just screw it in the bottom and the heat melts the goo around it.
7. This old piece of wood from a shelf in grandma’s house might not have the use you think it does…
Though this looks like it’s a broken table leg or something similar, the use for this device is actually a little more sinister. As it turns out, this is actually a replica of an old-fashioned cannibal fork, used in the Fijian islands in a spiritual, war-related ritual among indigenous tribes there.
8. Who would need a marble egg-shaped thing like this?
Of all the things on this list, this is one of the more practical ones. If you’ve ever been working outside or near a breeze with a stack of papers, you know just how easy it is to have them all blown away. That’s why you might use one of these paperweights to hold your stuff in place.
9. You don’t expect to something weird like this when you’re out hiking.
Although you may see some unusual animals while you’re out in the mountains, you don’t usually expect to see a weird metal device like this. As it turns out, these things are actually avalanche breakers that are put there for the hikers’ safety. Who knew?
10. Now this is a sight you don’t want to see looking up at the sky alone at night.
Though you’re bound to see some strange things if you always keep your eyes on the skies, this is definitely an unfamiliar color and shape to most of us. For those in the know, this was actually a chemical cloud from the launch of the space shuttle Antares on May 21st, 2018.
11. This is a treasure-hunter’s dream.
This image was posted online as being found near a shipwreck. As it turns out, this is actually a 16th century Spanish trade coin that has been worn down and made basically illegible by the ocean waves. Still, quite a find for any amateur historians out there!
12. If you’ve ever been to New York City, you might have seen this strange building at some point.
Though most of the things on this list are small little trinkets that somebody found in a garage somewhere, sometimes you come across something that’s a little larger in scale. As an example, this huge building is called “The Vessel,” and it’s a climbable sculpture in Hudson Yards, New York.
13. When you look closely at everyday objects, you might notice something new.
In the case of this little can, what you see on the side of the can is definitely Braille—but it’s Japanese Braille. It translates to “alcohol,” and if you already knew that, maybe you didn’t already know that there are different kinds of Braille just like there are different kinds of sign language.
14. Though it definitely looks cool, it’s not easy to figure out what it is…
If you’ve ever gotten a mysterious old gift from a friend or relative, you know how hard it is to track down its provenance after the fact. This one is actually a
kiseru, a traditional Japanese pipe used for smoking fine tobacco shreds.
15. Same situation with this one, except that this one actually makes certain special noises as well.
Unlike the one above, this one has a more practical use: it’s actually an electronic device for people with impaired vision or blindness to use when they’re filling up a glass. When the liquid hits a certain level (the prongs’ bottom), the device makes a sound letting the user know to stop pouring.
16. Ever go out fishing and catch one of these bad boys?
No? Ok, we haven’t either—but that doesn’t mean we don’t know what this thing is. As it turns out, this is actually a sea lily, an aquatic creature that’s closely related to sea urchins and starfish. In case you didn’t know, this family of creatures are known as crinoids and are some of the oldest creatures on Earth.
17. Sometimes poking around your parents’ things leads to finding things you don’t want to find.
The user who posted this was looking around his dad’s toolbox when he found these two little doohickeys. As it turns out, his dad was a carpenter and worked a lot with wood—but that’s not what these are for. These things are actually nipple pumps… unless this person’s dad has a special, woodwork-related use for them.
18. Ever look up at the sky in your neighborhood and see this?
If you’re alone and the sky is doing something weird like this, it’s easy to panic if you don’t know what you’re looking at. In the case of this photo, the strange pink hue was actually caused by a bunch of bright grow lights at a nearby farm that was growing tomatoes. Still, they can also be used to grow cannabis in places like Washington.
19. If this had crawled out of our toilet, we would’ve turned and ran.
As the title should imply, somebody posted this online in curiosity after a strange rodent crawled out of their toilet. Though it looks a little different because it’s so wet, it’s actually a Northern Flying Squirrel… though how it got in the toilet is anybody’s guess.
20. The person behind this photo said that they’d been trying to figure out what this was for maybe 20 years.
Does anybody know? The users of the internet were able to close in on an answer within about 15 minutes—this may be the cross-section of a freshwater drum, a big fish that has “throat teeth” for breaking up harder things it eats like mussels.
21. Somebody found this weird contraption in their dad’s bedroom.
Fortunately, it isn’t anything terribly unusual. Instead, it’s a Yakstrap, a kind of elastic harness and grip system that goes over your boots to make it easier to walk on ice without slipping. We could definitely use some of these!
22. Ever found a tube full of little balls in the wall of your home?
If you’ve never seen one of these before, it actually has a very practical use. This is a termite indicator, and it works by having a piece of tasty looking wood hold up all these little plastic balls. If a termite has eaten the wood, the balls will descend and a green ball will be visible—in which case you should call an exterminator.
23. Somebody spotted this thing in their yard after a big storm.
Though it was found pretty far from its actual habitat, this little thing is actually a short-spined sea scorpion. Because it seems unlikely that the storm was strong enough to scoop this thing out of the water and drop it in someone’s lawn, the more likely explanation is that a bird dropped it.
24. Somebody was eating a plate of food and found one of these little things in their meal…
As strange and potentially disturbing as it may sound, this is actually a tiny cattle microchip used for keeping track of animals. Though it goes without saying, these little things are definitely not supposed to end up in the food we eat, though…
25. Somebody found this scaly looking thing in their backyard.
If you guessed that this might be a fossil of some kind, you’re right… though it’s not of an animal. Instead, the unique impressions left in the rock are actually from the outer bark of a tree that became ingrained into the stone.
26. Somebody found this weird device while they were traveling in the Alps.
If you didn’t guess what this thing is yet, let’s just say we don’t recommend picking it up and playing with it like this person did. As it turns out, this is actually an explosive device that is typically used to start controlled avalanches. Though it may only be the fuse portion, we wouldn’t want to take any chances.
27. On vacation in Australia when suddenly a strange aquatic creature appears…
Although this little guy may look cute and harmless, it’s actually a Blue Dragon Sea Slug that has tiny little spines on it and is definitely willing to sting. Although they may be beautiful, it’s important not to mess with these things if you see them floating around.
28. Somebody who lived in an old house built in the 1800s found one of these scary-looking devices.
Whatever your first instinct was for what these things are supposed to do, don’t worry—they’re not for torturing people. Instead, they’re actually designed to help people take the tops off of soft-boiled eggs. The more you know!
29. It would be pretty cool to go out for a walk and come across some giant contraption like this one.
It’s not every day that you go out for a stroll and find a giant piece of machinery in your travels. As it turns out, this is a winding gear from a crane that somebody left in the woods to go all rusty. At least it’s not secretly a bomb like some of the other things on this list!
30. Last but not least is this curious little antique someone got from an estate sale.
For those who like thrifting and generally finding nifty little gadgets, estate sales are one of life’s best kept secrets. For those who don’t know what this is, it’s actually a Korean scroll box even though the characters on the inside are Chinese.
If there’s anything we learned from this list, it’s that the world is a lot weirder than we thought and the internet has a lot of time on its collective hands. Although we rely mostly on Google these days to solve everything, sometimes those hyper-specific pieces of knowledge are better left to crowdsourcing on Reddit as these entries show. If you have anything like this of your own, post a comment below and let’s see if we can get it figured out!
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If you look around long enough, you’re liable to find some pretty bizarre things on the internet. For every platform or website offering a place to discuss something near and dear to your heart, you’re liable to find just as many places where people are discussing the strangest, sometimes most disturbing things you’ve ever heard of. Without getting too dark, though, part of the thrill of the web is the promise of reading about or seeing things that you’ve never seen before, a promise that keeps us coming online again and again. With that said, here are 30 of the strangest and most confusing sights the internet has had to offer.
