We have a category called “Finds” here at PetaPixel, and never does it apply more literally than when we chance upon one of those long-lost-camera-shows-up-x-years-later-with-photos-still-intact stories. Today we have one of those astounding stories for you, featuring a camera lost three years ago that was fished out of Lake Tahoe just last week.

When fisherman Stephen Garnett reeled in a shiny object last week, he initially thought it was a smartphone. Upon closer inspection, however, he found he had discovered an old digital camera.

Not knowing what to do with it, he brought it home to his wife Jamie, a photo enthusiast, who was stunned to discover five years worth of photos still intact on the memory card. 1,065 photos taken between 2006 and 2011 were found on the card, which had spent the last three years between 150 and 200 feet underwater.

The rest of the story goes the way most of these great finds go. Garnett took to Facebook and posted a couple of photos from each year to her feed, in addition to getting in touch with the lacrosse team shown in some of the photos.

The persistence paid off when the owner, Jana LeVitre, came forward to claim the camera as hers. Apparently, she had lost it while sailing and is thrilled, and more than a little dumbfounded, that her memories are on their way back to her.

“What are the chances that she could find… the owners of something like that?” she told KTVN Channel 2. “It’s just surreal. I just can’t believe it and to think that it wasn’t found by scuba divers. It was actually reeled in by a guy who thought he caught a fish. That just makes it even cooler.”

(via Yahoo News)