The world is full of weird stuff.
Before the internet , we had to turn to the library for help with identifying the weird stuff around us. These days? We can hop on Reddit and ask the clever members of r/whatisthisthing for the answers to our questions!
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From bombs to airplane parts, these are the weirdest things Redditors have helped identify lately.
This is so neat!
“I found this metal object. No text or numbers. Can retract to be the size of a bracelet.”
Turns out, it’s the top part (aka clasp) of a purse! I wonder how long it’s been separated from the purse portion?
This fence looks like a love lock bridge.
“You can open the gate by unlocking only one padlock. The way it’s designed means that multiple people can use the gate, and if one person loses their keys, only their padlock needs replaced. As opposed to one padlock with many keys, you’d need to give tons of people the new key.”
You’ll never guess what this is.
It’s a vintage fire extinguisher!
“This device was made to be hanging stationary over an area of high risk and is designed to shatter when the internal pressure of the gas rises to high from heat – same way a contemporary sprinkler head works today.”
The things you find in the sea…
“There’s a lot of canon balls in the bottom of the ocean around the Caribbeans. They’ve been known to wash up on beaches from North America to South America. I have a friend that found one on a beach in South Carolina.”
These were found in cooked spagetti, and came out of a sealed can.
“They definitely look like rosary peas.
Symptoms of poisoning include nausea, vomiting, convulsions, liver failure, and death, usually after several days.
Don’t eat that spaghetti bro.”
Now how the heck did those get in canned spaghetti sauce?
I was not expecting this one.
“Me and my parents [sic] found this in our backyard earlier today (it reads ‘do not enter poison gas’) it’s on a circular concrete thing.”
That right there is the entrance to a septic tank. Gross.
This one made me laugh.
I recognized this immediately, but some people may have no idea what it is! This is ostensibly a “herb grinder,” but most people use it to grind cannabis. It’s also magnetic so that the cannabis doesn’t fall out while it’s being ground.
This is beautiful, yet odd as hell.
“It is a Campbell-Stokes sunshine recorder. You place a strip of card into one set of grooves in the piece that curves behind the sphere, point the opposite side of the sphere towards the equator, and the sphere will focus the sunlight to burn a track on the card.
The card has hours marked, and more the card is burnt, the brighter the sunlight was.”
This is a hilarious mix-up.
“Any guesses as to what this plane part is? Fell out of the sky in Colorado when that United engine failed.”
Turns out, it wasn’t a plane part at all — it was a vape pen. Oops.
So…what the heck is this thing?
“Almost looks like one of those things you stick through the top of a blender to stir it up. Not entirely sure what they’re called.”
Yup! It’s a “Back to basics smoothie chill stir stick.”
I was thinking lawn dart, so that’s me educated.
Well this is terrifying.
A security camera caught this person scanning for something with a weird device, but what is it?
“This person is probably a car [thief] scanning for keyless car keys. . never leave them near windows and doors.”
Oh my god?
This post foiled a scammer.
“Someone claiming this is a section of Bezos spacecraft that fell in London. It’s clearly not but any idea what it is? He’s asking 700k for it!! What is this thing?”
That right there is a stripped-down mini-fridge.
“A strange metal container with a lock and a hole in the front and the word ‘Nelson’ on it. The back has a dial reading just under 22 with no units.”
My guess was that this was some sort of time machine, but I was pretty far off:
“It’s a lock that is used on shipping containers. When the pin is inserted and it’s locked, there is nothing exposed that can be cut.”
Ohhhh, that makes sense!
All I can say is “OOPS.”
This is a foreign object testing disc factories use to ensure you don’t end up with weird stuff in your chips.
“The entire purpose of the test is to make sure that stuff like this–which is supposed to simulate a foreign object–does not get through.”
It’s safe to say the test was failed big time.
Spoiler alert: this is not a tea kettle.
“Found this small kettle years ago. Tried searching for a similar one but have always come up with nothing.”
I hope they didn’t drink out of it, because that right there is a portable urinal for bed bound patients.
