An early homo sapien sapiens skeleton was found in a cave in Luxembourg clutching a small rectangular device with a smooth dark screen. It was wrapped, quite literally, in the skin of an otter.

An ancient Egyptian mummified in one of the more modest pyramids was dissected by the British Museum in 1924. The mummy had a tattoo of a butterfly on her lower back.

The Greek poet Aeddidus wrote, in one of his lesser known works:
o’ muse, hear out my shout
to Athens, Queensbridge and the Bronx

One member of the Terracotta Army entombed with the Emperor Qin was discovered with a red cap on his head. The words “Make Amer” were still visible on it.

In the apocryphal Book of John, John the Baptist is described, shortly before baptizing a repentant sinner, as putting on footwear that was somehow both sandal and shoe. And garish green, too.

In 1897, a pair of amateur archaeologists unearthed a bendable plastic straw in a Native American burial mound in Southeastern Ohio. The Smithsonian Institute swiftly confiscated the straw and several ancient alien corpses to boot.

The obscure Elizabethan playwright James Doothe left behind an unfinished title page for five-act tragedy called Stark, the Man of Iron.

In Vernon B. Marshall’s landmark oral history Johnny Reb Remembers an anonymous confederate tells how he saw a shirtless man riding some sort of motorized cart at the Battle of Shiloh. The shirtless man apparently yelled, “Get her done!” before a cannonball obliterated him.

On August 19th, 1911, the English farm girl and noted diarist Claire Button wrote “father shot down a tiny flying ship that was hovering close to the privy.”

When I was twelve, I met a man who looked a bit like my father but fatter. He told me that I should stop masturbating at the family computer before it was too late. Then he told me to invest in biscuits. He may have actually said Bitcoin but, regardless, I am poor and overweight.

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Lee Blevins lives in Lexington, KY. He was born with a webbed toe. You can follow him on Twitter @BleeSevens or visit his sad, bare-bones website byleeblevins.com.