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Dad Discovers 160 Bowling Balls Buried In Back Garden

Dad Discovers 160 Bowling Balls Buried In Back Garden

David Olson was working on his back steps when he made the bizarre find

Dave Honeyford

Dave Honeyford

We've all found some odd things whilst doing home renovations, whether it's old newspaper stuffed in the walls, or a family heirloom thought to be lost forever.

Whatever you've found pales in comparison to what this Michigan man discovered when working on his property; bowling balls, and lots of them...

David Olson/Facebook

David Olson was demolishing the stairs behind his Muskegon home on 1 July when he spotted a spherical object embedded in the sand behind some cinder blocks.

He could see that a couple of bowling balls had been used as filler, odd but not completely out of the ordinary. It wasn't until David dug further that he realised the true amount that were buried.

David Olson/Facebook


David Olson

David told the Detroit Free Press: "That was one of the bowling balls. I didn't think a whole lot of it. I was kind of assuming maybe there were just a couple in there just to fill in. The deeper I got into it the more I realized it was just basically an entire gridwork of them making up the weight in there."

He went on to add: "I was actually a little happy about that because it's a little easier to roll bowling balls out of the way than to move the sand and figure out where to put all that."

Olson Initially found just 50 balls, but he uncovered more and more as he dug deeper. The total reached 158 by the end of the day, and he recently discovered two more, bringing the total to 160.

After the initial surprise of making such a strange find, Olson's thoughts turned to his kids as he was worried the balls may toxic due to their age and condition.

However, after contacting Brunswick Bowling Products (maker of the balls) he was assured that they weren't and could be safely disposed of.

Now then, why on earth were there 160 bowling balls in David's garden?

The answer isn't as strange as you'd think. The manufacturer of the balls, Brunswick, used to have a factory in Muskegon which was still in operation when the house was built in 1959.

An ex-employee reached out to tell him that workers used to take defective balls home to use as a cheaper alternative to gravel or sand, which explains why so many were found stuffed around his property. Weird but practical, I suppose.

Words: Dave Honeyford

Featured Image Credit: David Olson/Facebook

Topics: US News, Weird