On June 12th, 1886, a German ship in the Indian Ocean tossed a bottle into the water to track the currents. Amazingly, that bottle was discovered earlier this year on a beach in Australia, making it the oldest message in a bottle ever found—a time capsule, 131 years in the making.
The year is almost over and Americans are reflecting on the highs and lows of 2017. Here at Paleofuture we’re obsessed with time capsules, so it got us thinking about what a 2017 time capsule might include. Which objects would you bury to show people of the future what it was like to live through 2017?
The Voyager 1 spacecraft might be the most famous time capsule in history, soaring through space as a testament to humanity’s achievements. We don’t know if intelligent life will ever find the craft or its contents, launched in 1977 to explore the planets before sailing indefinitely beyond our solar system. But at…
We’ve looked at a lot of different time capsules over the years. And quite frankly, most are incredibly boring. But they don’t have to be.
Construction crews in New York shut down a street in the Flatiron district yesterday after accidentally digging up a bomb. But they soon discovered that this bomb wasn’t filled with explosives. Surprisingly, the strange, metal artifact was filled with paper letters and photos. Yes, this bomb was actually a time…
In 1911, a monument was erected in Orlando, Florida in honor of the Confederate traitors who fought to uphold slavery in the South. This week that monument was moved from its prominent position (despite protests from local losers) to a nearby cemetery, but the controversy hasn’t died away yet. A local chapter of the…
Federal police in Argentina recently discovered a time capsule of evil, hidden inside a house near Buenos Aires. Roughly 75 Nazi artifacts, including everything from a large knife to Nazi medical devices to a photo negative of Adolph Hitler, were uncovered in a secret room. Police are investigating when and how the…
A secret time capsule was recently discovered under the floor boards of a historic dance hall in Tulsa. The capsule was filled with some very cool music memorabilia, including vinyl records, Elvis playing cards, and unused Rolling Stones concert tickets. But it was opened a little prematurely. Which is totally fine,…
To help celebrate the school’s 200-year anniversary, students at the University of Michigan have decided to build a time capsule. Boring, right? Not exactly. Instead of burying it, which would inevitably lead to its contents rotting away, the students want to blast it into space where it will orbit the earth for 100…
A New Jersey man was out walking his dogs on the beach recently when he came across something peculiar. It was a message in a bottle, with a note explaining that it had been sent adrift into the Atlantic Ocean by a man named Stuart, possibly from England.
In 1895, the people of Louisville buried a time capsule with some rare Confederate artifacts. It included everything from a cigar smoked by the Confederate President Jefferson Davis to some Confederate currency. This week, the capsule was opened to reveal that it’s now just a bunch of soggy garbage. How fitting.
After months of searching, a history museum in Ohio has finally found a time capsule that was sealed by a local church in 1866. But it’s missing a few items, including a check that was supposedly made out to “generations yet unborn.”
Demolitions crews in Albuquerque, New Mexico just discovered a time capsule from 1968 near a former elementary school. And based on the messages discovered inside, some kids of the late 1960s had a pretty creepy vision for the future. Or, perhaps, a creepy vision of their present.
When museum curators cracked open two time capsule drums in Dallas last week they didn’t know exactly what to expect. What they found were some amazingly well preserved pieces of World War II history—bombing technology that helped defeat the Nazis.
Researchers in Poland have uncovered a time capsule, dating from 1934. But this isn’t some ordinary time capsule with the run of the mill items you might expect. Sure, it has newspapers, coins, and books—common items for any time capsule. But these items were buried by Nazis. The books inside? Two copies of Hitler’s …
Janet Knox’s Baton Rouge home is now just a shell of its former self. The recent floods in Louisiana have forced her to tear out the waterlogged walls of her house and begin the rebuilding process. But Knox has had at least one pleasant surprise during the clean up. She found a time capsule dating back to 1942 stuffed…
This week the city of Dana Point, California opened up a time capsule that the community sealed back in 1966. The metal tube, safely tucked inside a boulder in 1968, contained a lot of things you’d expect in your average 20th century capsule—like photos and newspapers. But the most interesting thing inside might be…
Five years ago, Jennifer Storrar and Troy Reddington buried a time capsule together on a remote campsite in South River, Ontario. This summer they went to dig it up, but the jar that had been filled with memories now just contained a mysterious card. Storrar was confused until she opened it up. The note read, “Will…
Regular readers of Paleofuture know I’m constantly on the hunt for interesting time capsules. But I draw the line at putting your life on the line for a good time capsule story. Especially if it involves something called a “survival biscuit.”
A time capsule sealed by a bank in 1916 was opened in Saratoga Springs, New York this week. And it has many of the things you’d expect—like some photos of the town, a letter from the president of the bank in 1916, and some old coins. But one artifact stuck out as peculiar to the onlookers of 2016: A 10-cent bill.
