10 Incredible Things Mankind Has Managed To Lose

9. A Bunch Of Nuclear Weapons

Michelangelo Merisi Da Caravaggio Nativity With St Francis And St Lawrence WGA04193
By United States Department of Energy [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Think of a list of items that should never be absent-mindedly misplaced, and if a nuclear bomb isn't on it then you're doing it wrong. Yet the United States has managed to do just that, more than once. The occurrence even has its own sassy codename, Empty Quiver.

A total of six nukes have gone missing on Uncle Sam's watch. Two of them vanished when the B-47 carrying them disappeared over the Mediterranean, for example. Another one was on an A-4E Skyhawk when it rolled off the deck of an aircraft carrier in 1965.

So there are nukes lying at the bottom of the ocean, unrecovered, just waiting for an octopus-themed supervillain to find them.

And those are just the ones we know about. In the breakup of the Soviet Union, thousands of nuclear weapons were stranded in former Soviet Bloc countries like Ukraine, and you just know the Russians never got them all back.

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Ben Counter is a fantasy and science fiction writer, gaming enthusiast, wrestling fan and miniature painting guru. He was raised on Warhammer, Star Wars and 1980s cartoons that, in retrospect, were't that good. Whoever you are, he is nerdier than you.