Results: If These Bags Could Talk...

Every year, 25 million bags - out of 4.3 billion bags in total - get misdirected or lost at airlines worldwide. The majority of these bags eventually are found and claimed, but some do not. And although most baggage is returned to passengers within 24 hours, some languishes in airports and warehouses before carriers declare it officially lost. Airlines spend a considerable amount of effort tracking down owners of unclaimed luggage -- they even use clues from inside the bag when the outer tags are gone. But some luggage, no matter how carefully the carrier tries to trace it, is irretrievably lost. Have you ever had your luggage lost, and did it eventually show up?

Fifty years ago, entrepreneur Doyle Owens started the Unclaimed Baggage Center by buying left-behind bags and other left behind "findings" from transportation companies and selling them to customers at his brick-and-mortar store in Scottsboro, Alabama. Today, that operation has grown to become a 50,000-square-foot store that sells everything but the kitchen sink (except for one time they did sell a kitchen sink) to customers interested in the promise of great deals and interesting finds. The store recently went online, to expand their customer base. Before the pandemic, Unclaimed Baggage was processing some 7,000 items bought from airlines daily. Have you ever bought anything from this store?

Naturally the main thing this store sells off is luggage. The next most common items are electronics, like lap tops, phones and accessories. But, they also sell off the contents of the luggage and other unusual things left behind on planes -- none of which was ever claimed. Here are some of the surprising things that this store has had for sale. Are you surprised that anyone would forget and not claim any of these items?

The last list pales in comparison to some of these things the store has seen, including, yes, a kitchen sink. Can you believe anyone would not try and claim any of these very strange things left behind or lost?