Burying the Evidence: nine out of every 10 time capsules go missing

A story from my dad that is probably the typical fate of such things: They were doing renovations (in the 1960s) on our then 280 year old farm house (in southern Germany). Cutting up the the wooden beam that had been a door lintel for firewood, suddenly there was a shower of paper confetti. Someone in the distant past had bored a hole, inserted a paper scroll and plugged it. Ooops. But what difference did that make, really, to the unknown individual who wrote and stashed the scroll?

Some years later, my dad was building a new house. We kids were allowed to play in the unfinished house. Scribble and write on drywall that would be painted anyway, etc. Well, 50-ish years after that, renovations were done, and behind some paneling they found a letter to future readers by early teenage me! Happily they sent me a picture of it. I had no recollection of writing it.

I remember a quote from Bruce Sterling in Wired some years ago:

"Real futurism means staring directly into your own grave and accepting the slow but thorough obliteration of everyone and everything you know and love."

The sufficiently distant future is a place where you (and they) won't be. Time capsules can be seen as a cry into this abyss.

Just a few weeks ago I helped dig up and relocate several time capsules. These are short term ones, they were all buried / will be opened within 10 years - but in just that short of a timeframe, there was worry that the place we buried them would soon become inaccessible.

Even at that, it took more than a year after learning about it for anyone to bother recovering them, even though plenty of people know where they are and all you need is one regular shovel. They aren't really anyone's top priority. Any why should they be? The whole point is for them to be forgotten. If you already know what's in there, you don't really need to keep a physical capsule at all.

I often wonder what happened to the time capsule that we planted back in elementary school... I distinctly remember it being planted near the flag pole. Unfortunately that school closed a decade ago, and was torn up. I guess it could still be there, but its likely been crushed or pilfered.

Speaking of Valley Forge... it is known - but not advertised - that there is a time capsule placed there during a ceremony in 1878. If you ask a park ranger, they will admit to its existence but generally, they would rather it remain in obscurity to prevent someone from digging it up in the middle of the night.

So far, there are no plans to open it and there is no documentation on its contents. How long until this time capsule is forgotten too?

What would your ultimate prank time capsule look like?

"Missing" is too general since it includes "stolen".

Tell me about "forgotten" time capsules. About some interesting finds made hundreds or thousands of years in the future.

It didn't vanish. The Department of Timeline Corrections just needed to

With vanishingly few exceptions, those of us who leave an impression on the future won't do so by hoarding memorabilia, but by fucking.

Don’t worry. They’ll turn up one day.

Not bad. 10% of my stuff that I bury doesn't show up again. Only ever really been poor little Mr. Church we buried before the weekend and showed up this morning. He isn't purring yet but he'll recover.

That means they've just become extended release capsules

[dead]

I don’t like the unnecessarily snarky tone of this article. It distracts from the main topic.