From entire spacecraft to precious stolen works of art, here are 10 things that we thought
were lost but were rediscovered….
10.
Spacecraft
The Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory B was launched by NASA in 2006, alongside
its sibling A craft, with a mission to orbit and take readings of the far side of the sun.
All was going to plan, but in 2014, as it looped behind our solar system’s star, all
communication with the probe was lost.
It happened while mission control was testing its ability to reset its systems in case of
a problem, but it went out of range at a crucial moment, and it became impossible to reconnect
with it.
Since then, while STEREO-A continued its work, monthly attempts were made to contact the
missing probe B, but all efforts failed.
Just when mission planners were about to give up all hope, though, they had a fortunate
turn of luck.
22 months after losing contact, in 2016, they were able to lock on to the downlink by using
the Deep Space Network - NASA’s array of radio antennas that it uses to support interplanetary
missions.
Unfortunately, the re-discovery of STEREO-B turned out to be short-lived.
Further attempts at communication failed, and in October of 2018, NASA officially terminated
recovery operations for good.
9.
The Queen Anne’s Revenge
Blackbeard was undoubtedly the most famous pirate that sailed the seas, but for nearly
300 years after his death in the coastal waters of North Carolina, the whereabouts of his
legendary ship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge, remained a mystery.
It was known to have run aground in 1718 near Beaufort, but from then all record of it vanished.
This all changed in 1996 when a private salvage company called Intersal Inc. found what they
believed to be the remains of the ship on a sandbank just offshore from the town.
It took a further 15 years of collecting evidence before local authorities could confirm that
this was, indeed, one of the most feared ships of the time.
Among the wreckage, they found a small amount of gold, a bell engraved with the date ‘1705',
and apothecary stamps marked with French royal symbols… all things you'd expect to find
from a ship that was formerly a part of the French navy.
A legal battle soon ensued to determine who had the rights to any further artifacts that
were recovered from the site, and it could be a while longer until we learn if Blackbeard's
legendary treasure was ever found.
8.
The Patiala Necklace
De Beers is a company that’s synonymous with diamond mining, and soon after the company
formed in 1888, they found a huge light yellow octahedral crystal.
At 234.6 carats it was one of the largest diamonds to have been found in the region,
and it was bought by the Maharaja of Patiala who had seen it on display in Paris.
The Maharaja sent the diamond, along with a trove of other jewels, to the House of Cartier
in Paris with the order to create a ceremonial necklace worthy enough for a king and so,
after 3 years of work, the Patiala Necklace was born.
It contained 2,930 diamonds over 5 rows of platinum chains, along with Burmese rubies
and the DeBeers diamond as its centerpiece.
Valued at around 125 million dollars, the necklace was regularly worn by the Maharaja,
and following his death it was locked in the royal treasury of Patiala, only to be removed
for special occasions.
In 1948, though, it was discovered that the necklace had vanished from the vault amidst
rumors that it had been dismantled and sold off.
For 30 years, the fate of the necklace remained a mystery, until the De Beers diamond reappeared
at a Sotheby's auction in Geneva in 1982.
Another 16 years later, in 1998, a Cartier representative was in a small antique shop
in London, when he recognized what remained of the necklace.
The big stones were gone, along with the rubies, but Cartier still purchased it and restored
it to its former glory by using replica stones.
7.
The Huberman Stradivarius
Antonio Stradivari was an Italian maker of string instruments who lived between 1644
and 1737.
His particular specialty was in the construction of violins, and his are generally regarded
as the best to have ever been made.
In total, he's thought to have produced 960 of them, with as many as 512 still surviving
to this day.
Some are more sought after than others, though, and one particularly famous one is known as
the Gibson Stradivarius, which was made in 1713.
It's also an instrument with a varied history and has been stolen twice.
The first time saw it being returned a few days later, but the second time it was stolen
from Bronislaw Huberman while he performed at Carnegie Hall.
It was the last he ever saw of it.
Various stories went around of who the thief was, but the violin would only be re-discovered
50 years later when, on his deathbed, a musician confessed to his wife that his violin was
the missing Stradivarius that he had bought from a friend for 100 dollars.
Covered in shoe polish to hide its identity, the violin was restored to its former glory…
and is now owned by Joshua Bell, who paid just short of four million dollars for the
antique.
6.
The Long-Beaked Echidna
Species of animals quite often go extinct, but it's very rare for them to be re-discovered
again.
For a long time the long-beaked Echidna, native to Australia, was thought to have died out,
with the last records of it dating back to 11,000 years ago in ancient Aboriginal rock
art and fossils from the time.
There's now hope, though, that they may still exist in parts of the outback.
Researchers at the Natural History Museum in London were looking through the archives,
and they found an echidna specimen from 1901.
At first they thought it was a mistake, but soon realized it had been collected by famed
Australian naturalist John Tunney.
If the records were right, it means that the long-beaked echidnas were still alive in Australia
in the early 20th century.
It had been found in Kimberley, a region only accessible by 4x4 and helicopter, which means
it’s quite possible that they’ve evaded the impact of humans and could have survived
through to today.
5.
Munch’s The Scream
Munch's ‘The Scream' is one of the world's most recognizable artworks, but what most
people don't realize is that he actually created 4 versions of the image between 1893 and 1910-
2 with paint, and 2 with pastels.
Both of the painted versions have been stolen, and both have been rediscovered in unexpected
ways.
The original painted version was stolen from the National Gallery in Oslo on the same day
as the opening of the Winter Olympic Games in Lillehammer.
Taking advantage of the focus elsewhere, two men took the work and left behind a note saying
‘Thanks for the poor security'.
In the following weeks, there were a number of ransom demands for the painting, seemingly
from different people, but the gallery refused to pay.
Just under 3 months following the theft an operation between the Norwegian and British
police, managed to recover it in nearly pristine condition.
In 2004, the other painted version of the Scream was stolen from the Munch Museum in
Oslo.
A passerby at the time managed to take a photo of the masked gunmen as they escaped to their
car, but it would take 2 years, the prosecution of three people, and a compensation claim
from them of about 117 million dollars before the painting, and another that was stolen
at the same time, would be recovered.
In both cases, the details behind how the artworks were recovered have been kept a secret,
but the authorities are adamant that they truly are the originals.
4.
The Lewis and Clark Bear Claw Necklace
The Lewis and Clark expedition between 1804 and 1806 was the first American led exploration
of the western part of the US.
With the main aim of surveying newly acquired territory following the Louisiana purchase,
they also made contact with local communities and gathered a collection of artifacts.
A number of the objects that they took were donated to museums, and one, in particular,
was exciting for those at the Peabody Museum at Harvard… a bear claw necklace.
Since it was first cataloged there in 1899, though, it mysteriously went missing.
Thought to have been given to Lewis and Clark as a part of a diplomatic exchange, the necklace,
made of 38 brown bear claws, was finally discovered again in 2004.
During an audit of items in a storage room linked with the museum’s South Pacific collection,
it was found hidden in a box and was mislabelled as a whalebone necklace.
Now proudly back as a part of its rightful collection, the bear claw necklace is described
as the perfect Lewis and Clark artifact- referencing the natural world and the people they met
on their expedition.
3.
The Jules Rimet Trophy
The soccer world cup takes place every 4 years and is, by far, the most popular global sporting
occasion.
As would seem appropriate for such an event, the winners win the 18-carat gold Fifa world
cup trophy.
The prize hasn’t always been this trophy, though, and originally winners were awarded
the Jules Rimet trophy- a gold plated depiction of Nike, the Greek goddess of victory.
There were a number of occasions when thieves tried to get their hands on the original trophy,
but the most famous happened in England in 1966.
Three months before the tournament of that year began, the trophy was put on display
in Westminster Central Hall.
Guards checked the display at 11 am, and all was fine, but when they returned just after
midday, the glass cabinet was smashed and the trophy was gone.
The soccer world was outraged, with the Brazilian authorities saying it would have never happened
there because even their thieves love the sport.
Fortunately, a week later, the trophy was discovered in a dumpster by an unlikely hero…
Pickles the dog.
That wasn’t the end of the attempts on the Jules Rimet trophy, and it was finally successfully
stolen, never to be seen again.
The irony of the story?
It was being held in Brazil in 1983 when thieves managed to get their hands on it!
2.
Nuclear Bomb
If there’s one thing in the world you’d hope never gets lost, it’s a nuclear bomb…
but there have been occasions when this has happened.
In February of 1950, a B-36 bomber was flying a training mission over the Pacific when three
of its engines caught on fire, forcing the crew to abandon it.
Following procedure, they jettisoned the bomb beforehand so it wouldn’t be with the wreckage
when the plane crashed into the mountains in northern British Columbia.
For 60 years the whereabouts of the bomb was unknown, until a diver, working on an archipelago
to the west of British Columbia, found what he thought to be a UFO… but what turned
out to be the 12-foot long bomb.
He had found the remains of the first known ‘broken arrow', the term given to accidents
involving American nuclear weapons.
Fortunately for him, there was no danger for swimming so close to it because as part of
a training mission, the bomb was a dummy- containing lead instead of plutonium.
Phew!
1.
Charles Darwin’s Galapagos Tortoise
Charles Darwin changed our understanding of the world by uncovering the process of evolution.
As a part of his life-long studies, he collected specimens of animals from around the world
and proved that their adaptations could have only come about by a process of natural selection.
While visiting the Galapagos islands, as well as feasting on a number of supposedly delicious
tortoises, he also took one as his pet and called it James.
What happened to this tortoise, though, has been a mystery ever since.
The Australia zoo claimed that a tortoise there was once Darwin’s, but the truth finally
emerged in 2009.
While carrying out an inventory of items in storage at the Natural History Museum in London,
researchers found a number of objects from Darwin’s voyages that were unlabelled.
They found a small tortoise whose undercarriage had been wired to its shell, and by gently
separating the two they saw the word ‘James' etched into it.
It seems this tortoise met an untimely end at the hands of the man who made one of the
most important scientific breakthroughs ever… and it makes you wish that the Australia Zoo's
version of the story was the one that was true!
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