Whats the craziest thing you have dug up?

I was working in Detroit and had a abandoned can on a site I was cleaning up. When I was finnished it was smaller than a refridgerator, it did not resemble a car at all. It was hualed in for scrap and it was called a red fridge... had no problem getting rid of it.

I've dug up alot of things. Worst was a high pressure gas line in a subdivision that was a mess. I've dug up some dead animals before, try to get them back in the ground as soon as possible. I've found all sorts of stuff cleaning up old farms, tractors, cars, you name it. I've got a old back powder rifle I found in a pond a few years ago in my garage. A good one was a few years ago we were on a grading job where the cival war came through and found about a dozen bullets and a couple arrow heads. That one was pretty neat. A funny one was oneday we tore down a building and I got all excited when I found a 1" copper line buried in the ground. this was back when copper was like 4.00 a lb so I was yanking all I could of it out, turns out I got a little happy and yanked it out of the side of the 8" main water line past the shut off valve... whoops. a good one was at my freinds company when the hit a 30" water main with a cat 330 and drained a 4 million gallon water tower in about 15 minutes. That one cost the insurance alot of money lol

I've had many my share also.Tons of bottles,cars,trucks,swing set in a homemade cess pool,huge sink hole from a rotted stump smack in the middle of a secondary road,abandoned oil drums,knocking out IBM's computer bank of fiber optic cables after an'' all clear'' from Dig Safely AND existing blueprints of the ''as-builts'',chicken,horse,cow bones,but my ''claim to fame'' was one mastodon skull--part of the youngest mastodon[12K years old] ever found on the planet---Hyde Park,NY,basically my backyard in 2000.That was cool. Entire skeleton of the big guy is a main attraction up at PRI's Museum of the Earth up in Ithaca,NY now.Push the button on the monitor and you will see muah on my backhoe.

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Cars, car parts, tow truck, empty fuel tank that was supposedly removed, petrified tree stump, three seemingly furnished house basements that were suppose to of been hauled away to the dump. lol

hahah some decent things discovered there

Silver Ingots???? Now that sounds like a real find! Were they in the escape tunnel? Sounds like you need to write a book. The worst is find thos old explosives and/or the mine shafts. You never know what is going to happen.

We were logging and one of the guy fell in an old city well casing. I am not sure how big it was, but the EX200 wes in it far enough that he couldn't swing at all.

Ive dug a few items up mill stonse and grind rock. Horse bones, old truck cabs, barrels, a few old dozer parts, rock drill stems, septic tanks, RR irons, and old clam bucket all riveted construction, 3/8th yard and nearby and old 3/ths drag bucket. My boss wanted them and made the office flower beds from them. The most important and fun ones were and indian grind stone, and the camp fire pits they used alont the TN river that had the big river snails in it. That was about 50 feet above the river.

They had a ton of them I found some with D66E Komatsu loader most with a 300. We were working beside a TVA steam plant and had a ton of these pits around it was cecked out with a Native American council. After the left I was building a coffer dam and had some real pointed rock teeth on the bucket. THere was a smooth potato shapedrock in the teeth. I got it shook out and picked it up. I knew what it was and a friend had a fit over it. He was taking a bathroom break behind a spoil pile and found the bowl it went with. Same job I was digging a trench for a pipe and found 2 75 foot sections of RR iron that had been buried. II tried to pull them up and it wouldnt budge I tracked over and dug a test hole and found the other ends. We torched the ones in the trench and finally got the old ones up.

On the other end of that job I was digging another trench and dug up a bundle of Cat grader edges and dozer cutting edges brand new and a 55 gallong drum of end bits and bolts. I dug test holes al over lol. I got a bonus for the edges all ne stil lhad pain on them. The most fun thing we dug up I was loading out shot rock and and settin boulders out to the side. I had some spectators trying to motiopn me how to dig. I saw a little yellow wire and knew it was a shot that didnt go off. I picked up te next bucket I foundit. Igot it up and roled it out of the bucket beside them and they left.

Went to start a new job in a field that had never been touched before and the farmer who had owned the land warned me to look out for the caves. I couldn't understand what he meant until I eventually found them under the old pig houses. Turns out they were man made and had been used by the natives in Ireland to hide from Viking raiders. They had build the chambers of large stones. It was kind of like an underground stonehenge. We were told to shut up about it and just cover it over again. They are below someone's front yard now. I also had a hitachi 130 inside the building where they build all the furniture and fittings for the titanic. I dug up part of the floor to put in new drainage but didn't come across anything exciting. One thing I did dig up that was real nice was old bottles from maybe 150 to 200 years ago. There were also ceramic hot water bottle and ceramic beer bottles. They are all worth quite a bit of money so I've been told.

Maybe the most common thing I've dug up... golf balls. Doesn't seem to matter if we are anywhere near a golf for or not, I havent' been on a job yet, where we don't have at least a few in the topsoil.

Not very crazy- a mismarked 13KV primary cable. The craziest comment was after I hooked into a secondary (120V to ground)40' from the nearest markout a power co. field tech inferred that I marked out the entire 50 unit subdivision- elec., tele, water, CATV and sewer- to cover my mistake. My mistake was seeing the subdivision all marked out before I started and I didn't call to get a Digsafe #, the power co.'s issue was they marked out from a plan (construction or as-built , I don't know which) but didn't verify any cables with a locater.

JimBruce42 said:

Maybe the most common thing I've dug up... golf balls. Doesn't seem to matter if we are anywhere near a golf for or not, I havent' been on a job yet, where we don't have at least a few in the topsoil.

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Amazing how many golf balls you will find working in an empty field. I did a project where we built a wet land on a piece of city owned property. It was the only open area around for miles. Total site was 50 acres. It was amazing when we started stock piling topsoil. The dirt looked it was full of little round white rocks. Our grade checker didnt have much to do, so he was assigned to collecting golf balls. By the time the job was done, the foreman had a short bed half ton chevy pickup full of golf balls.

I worked on one house where they found 12 cars buried in the foot print of the basement. I was sent out with a dozer to finish grade and spread topsoil. I was cutting a swale in the back yard, and noticed an odd feeling as a tracked along. The next pass, sure enough, the roof of an old chevy. Per the bosses instructions, I tore the roof off, filled with dirt, and spread topsoil. I also rolled an old fridge, box springs, and a few other chunks of metal out of that job.

Most common item I dig up now, 55 gallon drums.

For me it was a rail road tank car buried in the middle of a 200 acre field. I clipped it and didn't break through it I had to work at it to pop the top hatch off with the 8, that's when I discovered it was full of liquid chicken s**t and I have weak stomach, wasn't pretty getting that out of the ground, stunk for weeks.

what a question and was hoping to see some funny stuff. i've found a few gas lines but nothing fun with that

blademan150 said:

For me it was a rail road tank car buried in the middle of a 200 acre field. I clipped it and didn't break through it I had to work at it to pop the top hatch off with the 8, that's when I discovered it was full of liquid chicken s**t and I have weak stomach, wasn't pretty getting that out of the ground, stunk for weeks.

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I wish id had dug up stuff as exciting as yours. For me it's just the usual junk. Not very exciting.

Mark
ELB Group - Industrial Equipment

Nerve gas canisters.

Wasn't accidental though. We just didn't know exactly where the canisters were buried. Or what condition they were in.

Case backhoe, shovels and picks, syringe of Atropine.

From silver ingots to tanker of chicken poo. What a thread!!!

We was working for a mine in indiana and was building them a new railroad track to get coal out. Wee we had 110 ft of fill and we were using dirt from one of there spoil piles from back in the 60's and 70's! Well we were cutting out of there one nite and one of my scraper hand thought hed hit a rock cause it stopped him dead in his tracks and killed the machine. So i push him out and get to diggin around it amd its an old dozer. I guess they were done with it and didnt want to haul it off so they just buried it.

Down near ft. Belvoir va, I hit a 60 inch pipe laying up right filled with land mines. Was in a hitachi 350 and on the first half of a 20' cut.

Was in Blytheville, Ar in the late 90's installing some Sanitary Sewer in a farm field about 12 feet deep and ran across some large trees laid down horizontally in the bottom of the trench. I'm thinking from the New Madrid Earthquake in the 1800's??

Full grooved indian axe head,golfballs,couple log chains,bottles some old some not so old