What’s the most unbelievable thing you’ve held in your hands? – 17 objects that have blown people away

Chances are we’ve all seen impressive sights, like a breathtaking sunset or a city you’ve always wanted to visit. And while they’re all well and good, there’s something extra special about holding an incredible object.

Redditor LickItToGrowIt was curious to hear more about the incredible things placed into people’s palms, so they put the following question to r/AskReddit:

‘What’s the most unbelievable thing you’ve held in your hands?’

Here are the top replies you’d hate to accidentally drop…

1.

‘A lung.

‘After being laid off for the third time in a decade from glorified data entry, I went back to school in my mid-thirties. I had a generic business degree but was able to get into an accelerated nursing program. It took about 2.5 years.

‘I’d never worked in the healthcare field. I didn’t like dealing with patients. But I was fascinated by the science, so I ended up as an operating room nurse. It’s a wild place to work.

‘I’m still doing orientation when we do a lung resection. The lung is removed, passed off, and needs to be transferred to a container for sending to the pathology lab. I realized that meant me, so I put on gloves and picked it up.

‘After a lifetime of meaningless work, I found myself in a room of extremely skilled surgeons and anesthesiologists. There are surgical residents that have trained in school for a decade to get to this point. There’s a very sick patient that put their trust in us to help them.

‘Then there’s me. Someone that has only worked in an office doing pointless work and did a quick program to be a nurse entirely for the job security and paycheck. I’m out of my depth and sweat through my scrubs every shift for the first few months out of fear. And there I am, holding someone’s lung.

‘I had a lot of unbelievable moments like that in this job. They don’t happen very often any more but I’ve gone from being terrified to being able to enjoy the experience.’
-Evearthan

2.

‘Went to some founders day celebration for a tiny town in Tennessee. Went into the museum they had for the event, and there was a woman speaking of the history of that town. Apparently one of the founding fathers had received the Nobel Peace Prize, and they literally passed the prize around thru the crowd. So yeah, I held a Nobel Peace Prize.’
-ivegotmysuspicions

3.

‘Meteorite that’s older than planet earth’
-Theopold_Elk

4.

‘A copy of the book Alive signed by all 16 survivors of the plane crash in the Andes that the book is about.’
-kierabs

5.

‘An ancient Roman coin.

‘The wild part is how accessible they are. People usually assume anything from antiquity has to be locked behind museum glass, but common bronze coins from the 3rd or 4th century only cost about twenty bucks.

‘Holding one and realizing an ordinary person was carrying it around to buy bread or wine two thousand years ago is just a surreal feeling.’
-masonjordanjh

6.

‘A human brain (I’m not a doctor or medical student, but I took a course where we learned about human anatomy).’
-SatisfactionEven508

7.

‘Bilateral Gynadromorph Blackthroated Blue Warbler, a beautiful bird split down the middle half male and half female.’
-Direct_Obligation570

8.

‘A charred piece of paper from one of the planes that hit the WTC. It was a written prescription for one of the passengers. My father worked in the WTC, he made it out, the amount of debris falling down was incredible. This piece of paper got lodged in the cuff of his pants.

‘When we saw him a few days later he showed it to us and when I held it, it had some kind of extremely bad feeling on it. I don’t do woo-woo stuff but I’ll never forget the urge to immediately let go of it, it didn’t feel right at all.’
-Chimes320

9.

‘Hand grenade when I did my military conscription, especially the last second when I pulled the pin and threw it was simultaneously a little unbelievable but also felt casual.’
-HK448