Number 10: A Giant Fake Rat A giant fake rat was dredged from the
drain of Mexico City’s Magdalena Contreras borough in September 2020. It was part of a subterranean
garbage heap that weighed 44,092 pounds, or half the weight of a sperm whale, lying right
beneath the city’s suburb. Unfortunately, the enormous rodent and the rest of the catastrophic
collection of trash caused a flash flood that led to the death of a 54-year-old woman.
When officials scoured the sewers to determine where the blockage was, they couldn’t believe
their eyes. Some say that the gargantuan rat was a Halloween decoration that had washed down the
tubes, but how or why it got there is anybody’s guess. Despite its gristly complicity in Mexico
City’s flash flood, the giant fake rat has become something of a local celebrity, making headlines
around the world for its sheer foolishness. After unearthing this bizarre sewer find,
there’s no doubt that locals are wondering what else might be lurking right below their feet.
Number 9: Dinosaur Fossils When the city of Edmonton in Alberta,
Canada, was putting in its new sewer system, they didn’t expect to find 70 million year old
dinosaur fossils and teeth in the sewers right beneath their feet, but that’s exactly what
happened. Although Edmonton is a fantastic place to find all sorts of Mesozoic Era dinosaur bones,
nobody could have speculated that some of the most impressive finds were lingering with debris
right in their sewer system. The bones were found during a happy accident when workers
investigated a mystery clog and wound up with a bunch of Edmontosaurus and Albertosaurus bones.
The Albertosaurus is a less-famous version of the T-Rex. What makes this find even more
unique is that both of these ancient dinos hailed from the Late Cretaceous Period.
Although scientists have uncovered many Mesozoic Era bones, there are precious few from the Late
Cretaceous in this area, so these sewer bones can offer a vital clue as to what Alberta looked like
during the reign of the dinosaurs. Number 8: Alligators
The Southern United States has Alligators lurking in the sewers, and they pose a big danger to
people and pets. Contrary to popular urban legend, these fearsome reptiles don’t lurk in New York
City, but they are partial to the semi-tropical heat of places like Texas and Florida, where open
sewers provide them with excellent places to lay down roots and stay awhile. There are countless
examples of these green ghouls popping up where you least expect it. In April Point North, Texas,
children stumbled upon a massive reptile hibernating in the sewers right near their
condominium. Similarly, Venice, Florida’s sewage system was home to a 6-foot behemoth
that needed to be removed by a professional trapper. Louisiana had the biggest whopper,
though; a 10-foot beast the length of a small billboard living in its suburban storm drains.
Number 7: A Historic Cannonball When Shawn Fulkerson was cleaning out a
sewer line in May of 2013, he never imagined that he’d stumble across an astounding piece of Civil
War history. Perry County, Indiana, might not have been a huge hotspot for Civil War conflicts,
but at least one cannonball was fired there. It made its way into the sewers only to be unearthed
150 years after the war ended. Although it’s impossible to tell for sure, historians think
that the cannonball was fired by a Union gunboat during a scuffle with the Confederacy over the
Hawesville cotton mill. While the skirmish never wound up in most history books, it’s
now common knowledge in Perry County, Indiana, where the cannonball is proudly displayed.
Number 6: Gold and Luxury Watches The new Gold Rush just might be in
the sewers, based upon how much of the rich stuff ends up going down the drain. In 2009,
Japanese maintenance workers stumbled across a dazzling find at Nagano’s Suwa treatment facility,
where they uncovered 5 million Yen, or 48,223 US dollars, of gold in the sewer sludge. Japan
isn’t the only place where the sewers may flow with gold. In Switzerland, the booming jewelry
industry leads to plenty of silver and gold flakes getting flushed away. While it’s not advisable
to go mining for gold in sewers, there can be fabulous surprises in the pipes. British drain
technician Arron Large found 4 luxury watches near Essex, including one Rolex worth 21,000 pounds,
or 28,538 US dollars. That’s a hell of a payday. What’s more, another Rolex and two
more watches were found a few days later in the same spot. While there’s some speculation as to
the authenticity of all the pieces, at least one Rolex was real, but it might have been nabbed and
discarded by a thief. Eventually, the authentic Rolex found its way back to its rightful owner.
Number 5: False Teeth The sewers are simply stuffed with sets of false
teeth that find their way down drains all over the world. A pair of slippery mitts and a too-wide
drain can easily lead to a dental disaster that’s just as costly as it is inconvenient. Partial
dentures start at 300 US dollars a pop, and a full custom set will cost you 8,000 US dollars.
In addition to the human headaches that lost false teeth cause, these items can cause massive
problems once they’re washed down drains. They can clog up pipes or even find themselves trapped in
huge gelatinous piles of sewer waste and everyday items, far below the surface. The problem is so
bad that there have been excavation campaigns to recover the lost teeth and try to return them to
their rightful owners. It’s unclear how many folks actually cashed in, though, for obvious reasons!
Number 4: Bones Bones are gristly but common
items in sewers all over the world. While some can be used to solve cold cases, others are too banged
up or deteriorated to be identifiable. Who knows how long some of these skeletal remains have been
hanging out in the drains? Many bones are from animals, but some are human, which raises plenty
of questions. None of them are pleasant! In 2009, a full jaw bone was found in Edmonton, Canada.
It was the remnant of an unidentified herbivore, but sewer crews in Panama City, Florida,
weren’t so lucky. They found a whole cache of human bones clogging a sewer in March 2020.
After a medical examiner determined that the bones were, in fact, human,
the entire area was locked down as a crime scene. Although the bones might have found their way into
the sewer system from a nearby cemetery, foul play wasn’t ruled out, and it’s a mystery to this day.
Number 3: Toys Galore With all of the toys
found in sewers over the years, it’s possible to imagine that Santa has a stinky satellite workshop
right below our feet. Toys go missing all of the time, and our sewers are a veritable metropolis
of forgotten action figures, Teletubbies, and figurines. In the United Kingdom, Farington Sewer
Works stumbled upon a vast cache of these toys in June of 2020; so many that they wondered if
the playthings were being flushed on purpose. The United Kingdom isn’t the only place where there
seems to be a hefty toy trove beneath the streets. In 2018, Cincinnati, Ohio, had its own puzzling
discovery where loads of toys, eyeglasses, and cellphones wound up in the sewer system.
Number 2: Blood In 2017, blood gushed from the ground outside of
a Baton Rouge funeral home in a ghoulish accident that sounds like it’s straight out of True Blood,
but isn’t. Although there’s plenty of human blood in the sewer, much of it is from pretty mundane
causes like nicks or scratches. This glut of gore was something different. It soaked the street
behind the local funeral home. The gory substance turned out to be blood mixed with Formaldehyde,
a common item used by funeral homes to embalm bodies. A storage tank containing Formaldehyde
started leaking, gushing a mixture of blood and chemicals into the streets. Fortunately,
the city determined that the leak was confined to the funeral home, and nobody had to worry about
the bloody mix getting into their water supply.
Number 1: Fatberg Fatberg is exactly as disgusting as it sounds;
an enormous gelatinous mass of toilet leavings, wet wipes, bath oils, fake teeth, sanitary pads,
bones, condoms, twigs, and toys. In 2019, one of these sewer abominations was unearthed in
Sidmouth, Devon, England. It was 210 feet long, or longer than two basketball courts laid end to end,
and stuffed with more garbage than you can imagine. What made it even more horrific is
the fact that Sidmouth is an idyllic seaside village with only 13,000 permanent residents.
How could such a gargantuan fatberg have formed there? Most of the time, fatbergs show up under
big cities like London and New York. In a gross way, they can really define what kind of people
live in the metropolises that they fester under. Since fatbergs can cause enormous problems in the
sewer system and are just plain disgusting, officials advise that you take steps to
counteract your fatberg contributions. One of the biggest culprits are wet wipes, which many people
flush. Instead, it’s better for your sewer heath to toss the wipe in the garbage can. Dentures,
condoms, oil-based cosmetics, and microbeads all contribute to the ghastly monsters as well.
Thanks for watching! Would you rather wrestle with an alligator or take a good
long whiff of Sidmouth’s fatberg? Let us know in the comments section below.