Whale fossil...In 1978, Gary Johnson from California noticed a large rock sticking out of the ground with a bone pattern in it near his backyard. Thinking it could be an important find, Johnson called in an expert to evaluate it. However, the expert said it had no value. Then, the stone sat in the backyard for over 35 years until February 2014, when Johnson was watching the news and saw a huge piece of a 12-million-year-old sperm whale skull found just a few hundred yards away from where he found the stone. Johnson called another expert, a paleontologist at the Natural History Museum. This time, he was lucky. The paleontologist estimated the fossil to be the 14-16 million years old remains of a very rare baleen whale.

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