132-year-old rifle found leaning against tree in Nevada 'where it was left'

Telegraph ^

[Phillyred]

It was a moment frozen in time – an 1873 Winchester repeating rifle propped up against the trunk of a juniper tree exactly where its owner had left it over a hundred years ago. Eva Jensen, an archaeologist out scouring the hillsides of Nevada’s arid Snake Mountains for Native American artefacts, let out an involuntary cry of surprise when she stumbled across the find, and then fell into silence. “I recognised it instantly, but it takes your brain a little while to catch up,” she told The Telegraph. “The reality of it, I let out an exclamation and the rest of my staff thought I must have fallen off a cliff or something, because I just couldn’t say anything else after that," she said. The find was pure chance - the rusted barrel of the rifle just catching in a gleam of the late afternoon sun. Otherwise it was perfectly camouflaged, the walnut stock that once been a rich, burnished brown bleached grey and rendered indistinguishable from the juniper wood by a century of desiccating winds. From the first moment of the rifle’s discovery last November, Ms Jensen and her staff at the Great Basin National Park found their minds racing with speculation about the how the rusting repeater came to be abandoned in the hills. Related Articles Ship found beneath World Trade Centre built in 18th-century 31 Jul 2014 Human teeth found in statue of Christ 11 Aug 2014 “Everyone gathered round and the questions began right away,” recalled Ms Jensen. “Who would just leave their rifle? Why did they lean it against the tree, and what happened that they never took it back?”

[NormsRevenge]

Some guy out in the boonies.. Takes a leak. Bear jumps him.. Century later..

[Procyon]

Why didn’t the bear take the gun?

[dead]

No storm blew it over in 130 years? That defies logic.

Obviously, there was a time-traveling gun fight involved somehow. Like on Dr. Who or Supernatural.

[Big Red Badger]

132 yrs,

in the elements,,

should have been completely destroyed.

[The KG9 Kid]

That rifle hasn’t been leaning against that tree for 100 years. Maybe out in the elements like that for 40 or so, possibly less.

[IronJack]

There is no evidence that this rifle has sat there for 132 years. It may have been manufactured in 1882, but that doesn't mean it was left by the tree then.

With all the hullabaloo over this, you'd think they'd found the Lost Dutchman. It's a rusty old rifle, for cripes' sake!

[wally_bert]

Captain Harkness may have passed through there searching for renegade aliens or their technology and left it there figuring to pick it up later.

[SoothingDave]

I saw a Twilight Zone like that over the holidays.

[Squantos]

Agree.....

[SoothingDave]

I assume the person who found the rifle was immediately arrested for unlawful possession of a firearm in a national park.

[dblshot]

The Holder Just-us Department is starting an investigation to track down the owner and charge him with failure to secure a fire arm with a trigger lock.

[shove_it]

Right where Dingy Harry left it.

[dead]

Oh yeah! The wagon train guy went over the hill and came back with the medicine to save the dying child!

[Paladin2]

It doesn,t look like the tree had time to grow around it. No one has yet wondered if a round was chambered.

[Drango]

If FBI agents can leave their pistols in the loo while taking a leak, why can’t an old pioneer leave his Winchester against a tree?

[Paladin2]

How old is the tree?

[SoothingDave]

That’s it!

[Flick Lives]

No storm blew it over in 130 years? That defies logic.

Looking at the picture, the barrel of the gun is resting in the V of the trees branches. It would have taken a tornado to topple it.

Sort of interesting to contemplate the story and imagine how it got there.

[GeronL]

I doubt that it was there for 132 years, it might have been left there 10 years ago