JOE (microphone): Oh, my goodness! 200, 300, 400. And 400, 300…
Downloaded from YTS.MX
NARRATOR: Billions of people travel through airports every year.
Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX
600, 600, sold it to you. 575, off 215, it's a buyer…
NARRATOR: With all those people comes a whole lot of stuff.
JOE: And sold, $80. Buyer number is 111.
NARRATOR: Some of that stuff ends up at this auction.
We do it every fall, and it cleans up all the items
that people have abandoned in the airport, lost in the airport, automobiles.
Why not go for the shoes, especially the red bottom shoes.
-$12,500 on the car. -BOB: This year, we have a mini-Cooper,
which is one of the nicer cars that we've seen.
The Cadillac Escalade of a former Steelers player,
-JOE: Can I get fifteen? -That one brought in a lot of money.
(unintelligible) Now two, two, want to get two, now three.
NARRATOR: But we're at the end of the road.
-All of this… -JOE: You got a nice buy there, sir.
starts here.
(plane engine)
(indistinct chatter)
-From lost at the airport… -We received a box of human remains.
-NARRATOR: To found in Alabama… -A 40-carat Colombian emerald.
DEBORAH: Sometimes, it's a good adventure, and sometimes not.
-NARRATOR: And sold at auction. -JOE: Sold at $7,000.
NARRATOR: This is the story of luggage gone lost.
PA SYSTEM: Welcome to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
We want your journey to be a safe one, for all members of your family.
NARRATOR: Ever wonder what happens to your luggage after you check it in?
We did.
Today, we're going to be sending this GoPro down the journey of the bag,
and we're gonna put this protective case on here
because we have no idea exactly what this camera will be encountering.
There we go.
(trap rendition of Deck the Halls plays)
-GUEST 1: Hello. -Hi.
-Is Sacramento your final today? -GUEST 1: Right.
CLERK: And you are all set to go.
-GUEST 1: Awesome, thank you! -CLERK: Thank you.
KEVIN: After your bag gets put on the initial conveyor belt,
it goes through a series of conveyors, sometimes several miles long,
that will take the bag through an automated security screening.
NARRATOR: If the x-ray technology detects a potential threat in a bag,
it sends the x-ray images to a TSA officer who tries to resolve the threat.
If it's still questionable, TSA manually inspects the bag.
Less than 5% of bags are physically inspected.
KEVIN: When the bags leave security, the sortation systems will move the bags over,
which then will go down a slide down to the respective pier,
where an agent will load the bag onto a cart.
NARRATOR: But these are more than just bags.
They hold the clues to who we are as travelers.
What we have in common and what makes us unique.
KEVIN: Once the bags arrive out at the aircraft,
they are uploaded onto the aircraft, and they're off to their destination.
NARRATOR: Or not.
MICHELLE: Thank you for calling Seattle Airport Lost and Found.
My name is Michelle. How can I help you?
-Oh, my gosh! -AGENT 1: Oh, my!
-TONY: Oh, interesting. -MICHELLE: Oh, it's full of stuff.
NARRATOR: Every day, lost luggage stacks up at airports around the world.
FIATELE: I can't judge a book by its cover and every item has a different story.
-AGENT 2: Hi, how can I help you? -Hi, I left something at TSA yesterday.
ALMA: What we do here is lots of detective work, lots.
NARRATOR: Behind the scenes, there are people working around the clock
to reunite all the lost things with their owners.
MICHELLE: I'm looking for clues. Oh, look at that.
This is what I love about lost and found because you can be your own detective.
Yeah, they came from Hawaii.
I'm always surprised by the type of items that people leave behind.
TSA AGENT 1: You got document, 9816.
We received a Costco envelope from TSA.
It looks like maybe personal postcards.
Inside the envelope is seasonal greeting cards.
It's a Christmas card and a New Year.
NARRATOR: The Seattle International Airport
processes about 100 lost items every day.
FIATELE: And this is from December 28, 1976.
NARRATOR: And during the holidays, that doubles!
FIATELE: It says 12/24/59.
These envelopes or seasonal greeting cards seem to be very sentimental.
2007…
Every different item has a different sense of emotion to it.
Maybe we could call Costco and give them that order number
and they'll be able to pull it up.
NARRATOR: With about 430 commercial airports in the US,
we're talking millions of lost items each year.
And that's not even including the airlines.
Your flight with Alaska Airlines, a proud member of the One World Alliance.
KEVIN: In 2021, which was a year without that much travel,
we handled 43,000 left on-board items.
JAVIER: I would say I would have at least once a day
somebody coming towards me and say, "I think I left it onboard."
One time, I was working a flight, and another passenger comes over and says,
"Hey, I was on this plane, it landed. I think I left something of value in there."
And I said, "Okay, well, what is it?" And he says, "it's my dentures."
So I went onboard.
And it was there on the floor, you know, it's just the dentures, just right there.
So I grabbed a couple of napkins to pick it up. (laughs)
And he also seemed very relieved to find them.
KEVIN: The guests deplanes, and typically, the items are found by our cleaners.
They will log the seat that they found it in,
hopefully, they'll have the flight number that had just come in.
They'll give that item either to the customer service agent that met the flight
or, if it's a late at night flight,
they would bring it down to the baggage service office.
JAVIER: If nobody claims those items, then they get sent here
to Central Baggage Services, and then we try to make a match.
AGENT 3: The way I describe it is we're the lost and found for the whole airline.
Anytime something's left on the plane, whether it's a pencil,
a wallet, an iPad, everything gets sent here within 24 hours.
So we have a CPAP machine.
At this stage, we're kind of just processing it.
Sorting it from high value, low value.
And then the next agent will actually be able to do a little bit more research.
AGENT 4: We will start with high value items. We do prioritize these items.
I'll go ahead and start with this laptop and log it in as a found report.
KEVIN: The first step that's taken,
is there any obvious signs that we can reunite this item?
And here, we found a boarding pass.
KEVIN: We log that into a technology system
that will help us identify key words in a report that the guest has hopefully made.
AGENT 4: I do have a lost report for the same flight.
Oh, I have two. So, I will open each of these up.
And see if I can get a matching name.
Which I did!
At that point, we would reach out to the guest.
I was calling to let you know that I was able to match your lost report
with an item that we found in our warehouse.
GUEST 2: Awesome. Alrighty, wonderful. Thank you, ma'am. I'm so excited.
Everyone was like, "I don't know. With no tags on it,
it's a 50/50 chance, and I was like, "I just got that thing."
Oh, right. I did find your boarding pass, so that helped a lot.
GUEST 2: Thank you so much, ma'am.
Okay, thank you so much for choosing Alaska. You have a great day.
I lost my bag.
FIATELE: We are always busy here in the Lost and Found office,
but we get even busier during the holidays.
(crowds chatter indistinctly)
This past holiday season we had a suitcase of meat come into our office.
The suitcase was filled from bottom to top with nothing but deer meat,
goat meat, sausage, many different items.
One interesting item that we saw was a guy who lost a box of rocks.
A guy came through and he asked, "Have you guys seen any rubies?"
No, we haven't seen any rubies.
He said, "Well, you probably wouldn't know if they were rubies
because they're raw, they look like rocks."
It was a box about like this, and when we brought them out,
he goes, "Yeah, that's it, that's it."
FIATELE: We've all been there before.
I think it's a common thing we can all relate to.
Everybody's done it before. I've done it myself.
Oh, yeah, head rests.
I've lost several head rests, too embarrassed to say how many.
A very nice lady said, "Ma'am, is this yours?"
I was so embarrassed. I said, "Yes, it's mine, thank you."
It was a gift.
And then I had to run back and say, "It's me, I left my bag onboard."
(laughs) And they said, "Don't you work for an airline?" I said, "Yes."
To this day, I still miss that brown sweater.
PA: Mark Jackson, please return to the checkpoint for a left behind item.
Lost and Found handles anything left behind
in security checkpoints and any general airport areas.
(indistinct din)
TSA AGENT 1: Alright, let's go, heading to checkpoint three,
to start the day for lost and found.
NARRATOR: 70% of Seattle's lost items comes from the TSA checkpoints.
TSA AGENT 1: Alright, gentlemen, excuse us please.
(indistinct chatter)
JUAN: First thing in the morning, we check our lost and found database
and we compile a list from all five screening checkpoints.
TSA AGENT 1: We got 9324.
JUAN: We go out to each individual checkpoint
and collect all their lost and found.
-TSA AGENT 1: And last item, 9015. -TSA AGENT 2: 9015…
TSA AGENT 1: Excuse me gentlemen.
JUAN: Pre-pandemic, we collected roughly 30,000 items on a yearly basis.
TSA AGENT 2: So that one, I need…
JUAN: High travel seasons do produce a lot more lost and found,
your summertime, your spring breaks especially, holiday season.
-TSA AGENT 1: So three. -TSA AGENT 2: Gotcha.
NARRATOR: No TSA meant a lot less lost items.
Before TSA was established in 2001,
passengers merely had to walk through a metal detector.
No removing belts or shoes.
And as for bag checks, what bag checks?
With fewer items removed, fewer items were left behind.
TSA AGENT 1: Alright. How ya doing? We're going to meet you at the back door.
JUAN: When the office opens up here at 8:00 in the morning,
we come downstairs with the bin or bins,
and we start turning them over to the Port of Seattle.
-MICHELLE: Good morning! -TSA AGENT 1: Hi, good morning, Michelle.
-MICHELLE: How are you guys? -TSA AGENT 1: I'm good. How are you doing?
MICHELLE: Wow, you got a lot of stuff for me today.
-TSA AGENT 1: That's right. -MICHELLE: Alright, come on in.
JUAN: The most common items that I've seen left behind at the security checkpoints
are usually laptops, gaming consoles, iPads.
7478.
MICHELLE: I guess we're moving to the laptop. Okay.
One of the most unusual items that I've picked up through the lost and found
was actually today. It was a tortilla press.
7582. Because you never know when you want a quesadilla, right?
MICHELLE: Yeah.
We have to check each one of the items, especially with the clothing.
JUAN: And 6847.
-MICHELLE: Okay, so let's check the pockets. Sorry.
JUAN: There's something in there.
NARRATOR: In a typical travel year,
nearly $1 million is left behind at TSA checkpoints, in cash!
JFK Airport takes the cake with over $98,000!
MICHELLE: With the bags as well, we have to go through it.
A lot of books. Oh…
If we get like a perishable item inside those bags,
we have to take them out, it can only stay there for 24 hours.
TONY: You can imagine a bag with a banana that sits there for a month,
it's not going to be pretty.
MICHELLE: Aw… I know, sometimes you can't help but to feel sorry
for the mama who's traveling with this baby.
NARRATOR: Going through all these items is a process.
-MICHELLE: Okay. -TSA AGENT 2: You got it?
-Alright, we'll see you later. -MICHELLE: See you later guys.
NARRATOR: And sometimes, that process bears…
-MICHELLE: Oh, my gosh! -NARRATOR: Unusual fruit.
MICHELLE: There's actually fish inside!
(plane engine)
(indistinct chatter)
MICHELLE: Alright, so this bag actually came from TSA.
But there's no name on it, so let's see if we can find a name.
Okay, lots of goodies, treats. (gasps) Oh, my gosh.
There's actually fish inside, like real fish.
Why would… This is why we have to check.
It's smelly, smelly fish.
And I don't know why they put that in.
So… Sorry, we'll have to dump this right away.
These items need to go out from the bag,
and we have to dispose of them, unfortunately
because it's really perishable items.
I'm interested to find out what's inside this bag.
Looks like rice that is from the bottom of the pot.
This might be like spices.
Oh, what's in here? I think this is garlic chives.
Okay. Sorry, they will all go here.
Ah ha! Medication.
There is a medication here, which gives me a clue who it belongs to.
Yep, there's a name, so we can search for the owner.
I'm assuming they were supposed to do sushi with that fish,
but sorry, have to go in there. And that's about it for this bag.
FIATELE: When we receive lost and found bags,
everything has to be registered from inside out.
MICHELLE: Hopefully, the name on this medication
will lead us to the owner of the bag.
NARRATOR: Raw fish is just one of the many strange, lost items.
(flush)
The Dublin International Airport has seen a left behind toilet,
life-sized mannequin, and headstone!
(indistinct)
NARRATOR: Pittsburgh International Airport has its own laundry list of unusual items.
ELISE: When items are left throughout the common areas of the terminals,
they are then turned into us at the information desk.
We store those items for 30 days and try to make every attempt to reach the owner.
Some of the strange items that we have seen over the years,
a pair of souvenir alligator heads, a rice maker,
a carpet steamer, diving equipment, false teeth,
a 2500-page Vietnamese to English dictionary,
that was very thick, about this thick.
-JOE: We got all those bracelets. -ELISE: If they are then unclaimed,
we send them offsite in preparation for the auction.
-LEE: Hey, Tony. -TONY: Oh, hey, Detective Lee.
NARRATOR: Before the Seattle Airport even thinks about an auction,
they let an actual detective take a stab at finding owners.
LEE: You got any good stuff for me this month?
TONY: Yes, actually I do.
Our policy is to hold onto items for 30 days.
-Three tablets here. -LEE: Okay.
TONY: What we would call high value items,
say a laptop or a tablet or cell phone, jewelry,
we will turn those over to the police.
LEE: Many years ago with lost and found,
because I have some experience with computer forensics,
I felt that my skills would help get some property back to folks.
-TONY: See you next month. -LEE: See you next month.
LEE: I just try to do an additional check
to try to get the property back to the owners.
One of the easiest things is checking 'em for stolen status.
Lost and found just doesn't have the ability to do that,
so we check to see if these items have been reported stolen.
Let's see if there's a SIM in there. It looks like it might be a foreign SIM.
Over the years, because of people's concerns over security and everything,
it makes it a lot harder sometimes to actually get property back to folks.
And unfortunately, I'm not able to read it.
It's one of those SIMs that I'm just not able to read.
So with this particular phone, I'm pretty much at a dead end.
The serial number is not reported stolen.
I'm not able to get any phone number off the SIM card.
Alright, so…
It is kind of frustrating that, you know,
we'll have a $2,000 laptop sitting there, and it's not reported stolen,
we don't have a name, and we start running out of options.
All right, so this is one that came in last month
that I still haven't had a chance to get to yet,
and we've got a lot of different pieces here.
And between these we should be able to hopefully…
get a name that we can get a phone number on.
NARRATOR: Sometimes, losing your luggage is out of your control.
It looks like a lot of… Bozeman must have had a weight balance issue,
-so they didn't send a lot of bags. -GUEST 3: Okay.
KEVIN: When you're out at the airport,
and your bag doesn't come off the baggage claim,
we know that that feeling is really hard.
CLERK 2: I'm gonna call the gate to see if they have it.
When a bag is not able to be identified to a guest,
the airports will continue to try and find the guest for the first five days.
On the sixth day, the bag is then tagged to be sent here to Central Baggage,
where we will begin a more intensive search.
There's a tag with a name.
There is some sense of ownership on our part
that we didn't necessarily care for that item like we should have.
I'm sorry that your baggage didn't get to go with you.
We have it here, and we certainly want to get it back to you.
KEVIN: It's in our nature to want to rectify that situation.
This is a left onboard item. As of right now, we have yet to find the owner.
A photo album that was given from what we believe a wife to a husband.
We nicknamed the gentleman on the front the pointing guy,
because throughout the whole entire book,
all he is doing is pointing every which way at every item.
KEVIN: A left behind item is a little bit different than a checked item
because we don't necessarily know who that item belonged to.
MICHELLE: So we created a found report,
hoping that the guest had submitted a lost report.
As of right now, there was no trace results,
which means that nothing in our system matched the two of them.
We actually pulled out every single photo,
hoping that there was something written on the back of one of them.
No luck there.
In one of the photos towards the back, there is a boat,
which is registered within the state of Washington.
And so, I ended up calling the state of Washington
to see if I could get any vessel information.
-But doesn't this look like him? -(VO): What's next for us
is we're hoping to actually use the power of social media in our favor.
AGENT 5: That looks like Lake Chelan.
And so we just hope that everyone can help us
try and figure out who the pointing guy is.
Checked baggage, on the other hand, has a better chance of making it home.
KEVIN: The amount of times that we're unable to reunite
a checked bag with a guest is very small, we're talking a fraction of a percent.
NARRATOR: Across all airlines,
the chance of never getting your bag back is less than half a percent.
But with billions of people traveling every year, that half a percent adds up.
We're talking over a million bags worldwide.
Many of them end up here. (car honks)
DEWAYNE: My name is DeWayne Griffith.
My job here at Unclaimed Baggage is transportation specialist,
I go all over the country, coast to coast, picking up lost luggage from airlines.
I'm picking up luggage on a weekly basis. A lot of miles, a lot of hours.
I listen to a lot of podcasts, I listen to a lot of talk radio,
probably too much sometimes.
Sometimes just music.
Sometimes, I'm amazed by the number of bags that we get.
(brakes hiss)
Every day, I open dozens.
It depends on the size. It depends on what's in the bag.
I usually open dozens.
Poncho, kitchen ware, masks, lots of cologne, lots of shoes.
JENNIFER: We're at Unclaimed Baggage,
and we're a retail store in Scottsboro, Alabama,
and we work and partner directly with the major airlines,
and we sell unclaimed baggage.
This is a nice shirt. We have some nice clean socks.
Clean. These shoes look pretty good.
BRYAN: It all got started with my dad,
who was a ham radio operator back in the 1960s.
One day, a gentleman got on the radio and said,
"I have this big problem with unclaimed bags.
We have so many of them, we don't know what to do with them."
My dad, he said, "I think I see an opportunity there,
I may be able to help you."
My dad borrowed $300 from one of my grandfathers.
He borrowed my other grandfather's 1965 Chevy C10 pickup truck,
(car honks) and he headed up towards Washington, DC.,
and bought his first load of unclaimed bags from Trailways bus lines.
COMMERCIAL: ♪ You're not alone, when you're traveling Trailways ♪
And then we segued into the airline world.
('70s funk)
NARRATOR: Air travel in the '70s looked a little different than it does today.
The new 747 jet boasted spiral staircases, and smoking was permitted.
The alcohol was flowing, and meals were carved to order.
Sitting in coach was like going to the movies.
BRYAN: In the early '70s, it would've started with Eastern Airlines.
And they lost a ton of bags. That was our first airline.
And now, we work with pretty much all of them throughout the industry.
NARRATOR: In 50 years of going through other people's stuff,
they've come across some surprising items.
One of the most noteworthy to me is the 40-carat Colombian emerald.
It was in the toe of a sock, rolled up in the corner of a suitcase.
I don't think I'll ever forget it.
(back-up beeper)
NARRATOR: Today,
DeWayne is the guy delivering all this unclaimed baggage to Scottsboro.
And that's where this process begins.
-Hi, Ms. Deborah, here's your next bag. -Thank you.
JENNIFER: As they're opening the bag, going through their archaeological dig,
they're deciding if we're gonna sell it,
if we need to recycle it, or if we need to donate it.
And this is a nice surprise, ceramic heater.
We open bags, sort everything out,
send them to the departments where they belong.
Oh! That's nice! The Beatles. Yeah!
-A third of everything we get is recycled. -Nice pants, check the pockets.
More underwear, everything looks pretty fresh, that's nice.
JENNIFER: So, obviously, people travel with undergarments.
We never sell any used undergarments.
We're going to recycle those with fabric waste.
You will be amazed at how many people travel
with brand new and packaged underwear.
We'll price those and put them our sales floor to sell.
DEBORAH: It does feel like I'm stepping into somebody else's life.
Feel like this might be a ukulele.
And I like seeing where people have been.
(chuckles) Make sure it's in tune or out of tune.
(out-of-tune plucking)
The bags usually tell a story, and you never know what you're going to find.
And it's kind of an adventure, kind of, at times.
Sometimes it's a good adventure, and sometimes not.
So one of the most hair-raising things we found at Unclaimed Baggage
was a live rattlesnake.
One of our openers, as she was opening a duffel bag,
a live rattlesnake came slithering out of it.
I think that they released it out behind the building, yeah,
to let him live on, live another day. (laughs)
$100, able to get $100, a hand!
NARRATOR: In Pittsburgh, some of the most surprising unclaimed items are cars.
BOB: The abandoned vehicles are always the most popular items.
We're usually left with between 10 and 20 cars a year.
We contact the owners, the police contact the owners,
the Department of Transportation contacts the owners.
And if there's still no response from those folks,
then it comes to us for the auction.
JOE: $2500 on that little Nissan. $1000 bid, 12 and a half…
$1000, able to get 12 and a half, able to get 12 and a half,
able to get 12 and a half, give $1100 dollars on a Nissan. Down 12…
I think some of the cars can be left behind
if people are on maybe extended vacations.
JOE: $1000, $2000, three, four… four, four, five, five, six…
BIDDER 1: Yes, that's it!
ELISE: If the car doesn't have a lot of value,
they may not want to pay some of the parking fees,
or the towing storage fees that the airport would charge,
and they just simply abandon the car.
JOE: Seven grand, 71? Sold at $7,000.
NARRATOR: There are some left behind items that hold more of a sentimental value.
So… we got this bag a couple weeks ago,
and I'm gonna do a secondary research on it.
We've got this brown case here. Let's see what's in this case.
Oh, interesting.
(crowd chatters indistinctly)
We got this brown case here.
What we're looking at now is a Ace hardware bag with a brown box.
Photos, medals, military medals.
Inside the box, what we have are military medals,
a name tag, and a lot of pictures.
We've got a Naval Reserve Organization Association card,
and a Selective Services card.
Since those are all in one person's name, I'm gonna try and look him up.
So I've got one person in Kansas, they're 51,
so that would not be them
because the Selective Services card is going back to '55.
And then I have another person, but they're deceased.
We also have a photograph of a baby,
which has a date of 1987, and it also has her name on there.
Let's try the young lady that was actually on this picture.
We have her listed here as well.
I've been able to find several people that appear to be associated with this person.
I've placed several phone calls.
Yes, hi, Maryanne. My name is Tony.
So hopefully, one of these people know who this is and will call back.
-Looks like shirts. -NARRATOR: Back in Alabama,
a third of all the luggage Unclaimed Baggage receives is sold.
And it looks clean, but we'll launder it.
(rumbling)
(steam hissing)
EMPLOYEE: We're very proud of our laundry facility.
We are actually the largest in the state of Alabama.
We process more in one month than most of them do in an entire year.
It's just surprising what people take in their luggage. (laughs)
Dishes, silverware, water bottles, (laughs) there is a lot of those.
I guess the one that stands out the most, I've washed car mats.
Why somebody took that on their vacation, I don't know. (laughs)
NARRATOR: Electronics get the full work-up too.
The most we get in is usually headphones, stuff like that,
so it's really just getting all germs, everything, cleaned off.
After we clean them, we test them to make sure they're functioning.
JENNIFER: And from there, they're gonna data-wipe everything.
Our pricers will then price the merchandise
whether it's apparel, shoes, jewelry, accessories, electronics.
NARRATOR: The jewelry counter is where you'll find some big-ticket items.
CLERK 3: This diamond engagement ring appraised for a little over $10,000,
and we have it listed for a little over $5,000.
This is an emerald and diamond tennis bracelet.
We have it listed at a little over $14,000.
NARRATOR: But there are some things you can't put a price tag on.
In the '90s,
a shipping container showed up with a guidance system for fighter jets.
BRYAN: And it said, "Department of the US Navy, handle with extreme caution,
I am worth my weight in gold."
NARRATOR: The actual gold is authenticated,
appraised, priced, and put on the floor.
These look like they are diamonds,
but then I can also use my diamond tester, and it does test diamond.
This ruby ring is currently the most expensive item in the store.
(cash register ding)
The most expensive item we've ever sold in our store was a men's platinum Rolex.
(cash register ding)
It's just a pretty cool experience to come be a part of and see what all people lose.
Okay, lot number one, we have a whole lot of earrings…
NARRATOR: Some of the lost jewelry in Pittsburgh
has people scratching their heads.
ELISE: We are always surprised with how many wedding rings
are turned in to the lost and found,
mainly men's wedding rings, we're not sure why.
A lot of them are claimed,
but there are still a good amount that are turned over to us at the auction.
We also this year have a pair of stiletto heels that are brand new,
so I think that will maybe draw in the ladies. (laughs)
BOB: I think that people are interested in just seeing what items are left behind.
Hi, I lost a case of harmonicas. Is there any chance you guys have it?
Okay, let me go see if I can find it.
HARMONICA MAN: I grabbed it off the plane, and then I was coming here,
and I went outside to wait for my ride, and I just set it against the wall.
I thought for sure that it was gone.
Yeah. (laughs)
Thankfully, some kind soul decided to turn it in.
They were pretty intrigued by what was inside. (laughs)
Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
AGENT 6: You're very welcome.
(harmonica riff)
Yeah, they still work. (laughs)
NARRATOR: If you lose an item at one of Paris's airports,
it will eventually end up at the world's very first lost and found office.
Established by Napoleon in 1804, the Bureau of Found Objects
has received a human skull, a taxidermy lobster, and a saber from 1892.
This is one that came in last month.
NARRATOR: But in Seattle, some of the lost items end up with this guy.
LEE: The logo on here doesn't appear to go with any sort of school.
I'm looking for something that may talk about a particular school,
then I can know a particular city where that person lives.
When we go to get a name, a lot of times it helps if we have middle initials,
information like that, or a city will help as well.
What we have…
is a kid's Kindle Fire.
On that Kindle Fire tablet, the parent had set up two profiles for the kids,
he just used initials for the children. We got a name and a middle initial.
PA SYSTEM: Did you lose something? File a lost item…
We might get lucky with this name.
I have different databases that I can use, and if it's a unique enough name,
I can try to track down the owner that way.
We only got one, let's give her a call.
Sometimes, the time zone can help me kinda pinpoint the region
and increase the chances that I'm actually getting the correct person.
Hi, this is Detective Donlan with the Port of Seattle Police Department.
Sometimes, there's enough breadcrumbs of items in a particular bag
that allows me to kinda track them down.
Yeah, yeah, Curious George is here, he's sitting on my desk.
Yep, so we got the Kindle, the backpack, the colorful backpack,
the Curious George, and we'll get 'em home.
NARRATOR: Curious George is lucky he'll make it home.
But at Unclaimed Baggage, millions of items end up in other people's homes.
Some of those items aren't what you'd expect.
It's amazing what people travel with.
WOMAN: About 20 years ago, they had this on a mannequin,
and I mean, "Oh," I said, "is that for sale?"
and they said, "Yes," and I said, "I want it."
This is a charm bracelet-- that I have been collecting charms for several years.
JENNIFER: One of the most interesting things
that we've gotten consistently over the years have been wedding gowns.
I can remember at least two full suits of armor.
We've had a number of kilts, a number of bagpipes.
BRYON: We actually had a camera show up
that was a camera for the space shuttle and had been on space shuttle missions,
and we got that back into the hands of NASA.
NARRATOR: For the Seattle Airport Lost and Found,
getting items back into the right hands is the goal.
MICHELLE: Okay, so we'll get the label.
That's a possible owner because it matches the medication.
We'll give them a call. Mrs. Kim? Oh, it's your mom?
Oh, gotcha. You know, we found vegetables and fish in there.
I did find a match for the bag with the raw fish.
Looks like they did file a lost report.
And unfortunately, it can't stay in the bag, so we have to throw them away. Okay?
The bag is confirmed with the owner, and they will pick it up tomorrow.
Alright, we'll see you tomorrow, Mr. Kim.
NARRATOR: At the end of the day, there are ultimately items that go unclaimed.
Many of them are donated to various organizations.
But some go to the dogs.
LEE: Our bomb canine unit uses some of the suitcases
and clothing items and even some of the cosmetics,
and toiletry items in these unclaimed bags
because they're able to then incorporate that into their training
for their bomb dogs.
JOE: Good morning again, ladies and gentlemen.
We'd like to welcome you all to the auction.
LEE: If the electronics are still in good shape, we can send them off to auction.
JOE: And lost and found from the airport accumulation for the…
We're here at Pittsburgh International Airport's annual auction.
JOE: We're getting ready to auction off all the lost and found
and items that were abandoned throughout the last year here at the airport.
Come on down, let's have a sale, sale time!
It's always interesting to see what items get left here.
BIDDER 2: I'm looking for hardware, either myself or for resale.
BIDDER 3: When I saw these lots of laptops,
I'm hoping to donate them to my civil air patrol unit.
BIDDER 4: Electronics, ear pods.
I would bid on that truck, but she'll kill me if I drive it home, so I can't do that.
BIDDER 5: That Mini Cooper seems like a nice car.
I'm gonna bid on it and see what happens.
JOE: The auction company will accept a money order,
cashier's check, certified check.
BOB: This year there's a Mini Cooper, and the pick-up truck,
so personally I'm interested to see what are the cars going for.
Those are always the big-ticket items here.
One of the cars we did have, it was a former Pittsburgh Steelers player.
He had since moved on to Chicago. His car was parked here in the lot,
and he just never responded and didn't come back and get his car,
so it ultimately went to auction. It was a Cadillac Escalade.
NARRATOR: At London's Heathrow Airport,
the unclaimed baggage gets auctioned off twice a month.
The difference here is there's no peeking in the bags before you bid.
Going once, anybody bid 15,000, going twice, anybody bid 15,000,
sold at $14,750.
NARRATOR: Out of all the left behind items,
the Mini Cooper brought in the most cash. But every single item was sold.
BIDDER 6. This is totally crazy,
I had not expected any kind of… this kind of stuff.
But being a big fan of the NFL and the Steelers,
I got a couple of game-worn jerseys.
(indistinct voices)
Nice and dirty, meaning they're game worn. (laughs)
I won six lots of jewelry. How much did I spend? $2600.
-$275 for five iPhones, that's not bad. -$8,000 which was actually our limit.
Why not go for the shoes, especially the red-bottom shoes.
I think it's still setting in that I actually won them.
BOB: Most years, the Airport Authority auction raises more than $150,000.
The money that's raised goes to the Airport Authority Foundation
which supports military scholarships, those types of things.
Yeah, this was our first time. Probably won't be the last though.
Oh yeah, I'll come back next year for sure.
Go home and play with our new toys.
(plane engine)
NARRATOR: An auction is one way to get rid of unclaimed baggage.
But at the Unclaimed Baggage Center,
there's so much lost stuff, it's impossible to sell it all.
At Unclaimed Baggage, you might think you'd find a lot of, well, baggage.
But that's not the case.
DIANE: Many years ago,
we started donating luggage to the Department of Human Resources,
and that actually came from a newspaper article
that had talked about foster children, and they were giving them garbage bags.
And so I remember just being taken by that article.
NARRATOR: Unclaimed Baggage decided to take matters into their own hands.
DIANE: We stopped all luggage going to the floor, anything that we sold,
and we started holding these for about two weeks.
And I can remember calling them and saying,
"We're on our way with our first load," and we filled the sidewalks.
We decided no children in our community
was going to go with a black bag ever again.
And then we started the decorating, we thought, "Hey, look, this is a gift."
So that's why we decided to start painting it.
NARRATOR: The last third of the luggage that ends up at Unclaimed Baggage
gets donated.
We get so much excess, there could be no way that we could sell it all.
And so we have found partners to get this product
into the hands of people that can use it.
The cosmetics that are in the bag, we can put those in the back…
I have a small charity organization,
and I've come to pick up some donations from Unclaimed Baggage.
Couple of years ago, a buddy of mine, both Navy Vietnam veterans,
were traveling down the road, and we saw a veteran,
he was homeless, and he didn't have a coat, and it was pretty cold outside,
so my buddy and I went and purchased a coat for him.
And then we decided that,
"Wait a while, maybe there's more people out there," so him and I went around,
looking for veterans or basically anybody that needed a coat.
My dentist up here informed me that,
"Hey, Unclaimed Baggage has a department that they donate stuff.
Why don't you talk to 'em?"
Then the whole thing just exploded 'cause now we had access to hundreds of coats.
Our charity became a distributorship if you will.
We found people who needed stuff,
we had a sponsor that would give that to us, and we just gave it out.
And that's how it is right now. That's what we been doing.
JENNIFER: I cannot begin to give you a number of…
tens of thousands of pairs of eyewear, probably each year,
comes through our store.
MAN: One year, we got 55,000 pairs of glasses and sunglasses from Unclaimed.
These are top-notch glasses and readers.
I mean, the readers, these folks on airplanes don't buy cheap readers.
JENNIFER: With all the giving that we do,
we do still have luggage available in store.
What would Unclaimed Baggage be without a few bags on the shelves?
(indistinct chatter)
MARYANNE'S MOM: Does it have a lot of little knickknacks in that brown box?
Yes ma'am.
MARYANNE: Yeah, it's my dad, and it has all these tiny little pins.
TONY: You got my voicemail?
MARYANNE'S MOM: No, this is my daughter's phone number.
Ah, okay.
MARYANNE'S MOM: I don't know how that even transpired.
TONY: There was a baby picture of her.
We saw the name, and we were able to look it up by the name.
We went through LinkedIn, and True People Search and everything.
-MARYANNE'S MOM: Wow! -The woman who called back
was actually the daughter of the gentleman that the box belonged to,
and he is deceased.
MARYANNE'S MOM: It wasn't me that left it, it was my son.
So thank you so much for returning…
'Cause that is a real memory thing. It was his grandfather's.
-TONY: Right. -MARYANNE'S MOM: And he really wanted it.
TONY: She asked that we keep the item for her for a few days until she gets here.
MARYANNE'S MOM: And we'll see you Wednesday.
Yes, ma'am. I'll be here bright-eyed.
NARRATOR: So what did happen to all the lost items we've been tracking?
What's the best thing about my job?
Seeing the joy in people's face when their item is returned.