Wallet Disappeared for More Than a Decade: The Mystery of the ‘Ghost’ Hidden Under the Hood of a Ford!
A strange discovery has sent shivers down the spine of the online community and the auto mechanics: a wallet missing for more than 11 years was unexpectedly found… under the hood of a 2015 Ford Edge, after the car had traveled more than 150,000 miles. This event was immediately dubbed by many as the “Ford ghost mystery”, and the story quickly spread at a dizzying speed on Facebook and TikTok.
Chad Volk, owner of LC Car Care in Lake Crystal, Minnesota, was replacing the cooling fan of his car when he encountered a problem: the airbox did not fit properly when reinstalled. When he removed it to check, Volk was surprised to find an old leather wallet stuck tightly between the engine parts, covered in dust and traces of time. “I had to sit down to open the wallet,” Volk told KARE 11, “because I thought I would find some forgotten gadget or tool.”
Inside, Richard Guilford’s Ford Motor Company employee ID card gleamed with old metal. Volk immediately knew this was no ordinary item. Without hesitation, he used Facebook to track down Richard, now retired and living in Petersburg, Michigan. Their first conversation took place via text message:
“Is this your wallet?”
“Oh my gosh, found it in the car?” Guilford replied, sounding both surprised and delighted.
Richard Guilford recalled the day he lost the wallet: around Christmas 2014, while repairing Ford Edges at the Michigan plant, he was wearing a T-shirt and had the wallet in his pocket. When he bent down to check the electrical system, the wallet slipped out of his pocket and… disappeared. Although he and his colleagues searched everywhere, in thousands of cars, the wallet remained missing for 11 years.
Inside the wallet, in addition to the $15 in cash that was still intact, there was also a $250 Cabela’s gift card, intended to be used to buy Christmas presents for the children, along with several expired lottery tickets and old documents. The strange thing is, according to Cabela’s confirmation, the gift card was still valid, leading many to believe that the wallet had some mysterious “lucky magic.”
Some believe that this is not just a coincidence, but a “conspiracy of fate,” as the wallet seemed destined to travel hundreds of thousands of miles, surviving time and different car owners. “We call it the ghost wallet,” one netizen commented, “it seems to be following its owner for more than a decade.”
However, another opinion believes that the story is just a coincidental phenomenon that has been exaggerated, the kind of “viral news” that social networks love to share. They emphasized: “The wallet fell under the hood, the car was sold through many states, that explains why the wallet appeared after a long time. No need to think about ghosts or fate.”
Volk and Guilford held an emotional video call, where Richard held the wallet, laughed and shook his head: “I never imagined that after 11 years, it would still be there. I thought I lost it forever.” Volk joked: “I will have to start looking under the hood more, maybe I will find the next treasure.”
The story quickly became an online phenomenon, with thousands of comments: some praised the luck, others wondered about the “ghost” hidden in the engine, others sarcastically said this was just a “harmless PR trick”. Regardless, the story of the wallet still makes people believe in strange things that exist in real life, where a seemingly inanimate object can travel hundreds of thousands of miles and return to its owner.
So is this a miracle in real life, or just a “coincidence exaggerated”? How many “mysteries under the hood” are there waiting to be discovered? Readers, would you dare to check your old car that has not been opened for many years?
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