26-07-2025
I found brass caps cleaning out an elderly person's home and ChatGPT can't solve what they are... can you?
A collection of miniature brass caps found by someone while cleaning out an elderly person's home left them and even ChatGPT stumped.
The baffled person shared their unknown find to Reddit 's hit 'What is This Thing' forum where users post a series of peculiar discoveries asking for answers from others.
The user shared several images of their findings, including a picture of the caps neatly placed on a bright yellow mat with cut outs for each one.
There were also open spaces on the foam board that appeared to at one point hold another object.
What perplexed the user even more were the 'colored plastic rings' on the inside of the mystery caps.
'I found a case of these small little brass caps that seem to screw onto something that had been taken out of the case,' they wrote.
'Each of the little caps has a colored plastic ring retaining some sort of transparent window at the tip of the brass cap.
'They also are not recognized by either Google lens nor ChatGPT or Copilot.
'There are no marks anywhere on the brass caps or the case. Do any of you know what these could be / could be attached too?'
Other users quickly cracked the code and revealed what the caps are for - laser pointers.
'Laser pointer caps, shoots different shapes,' one replied to the post.
Another wrote: 'Laser Pointer set, missing the pointer.'
'Laser point caps, each one shoots a different shaped laser pattern, dollar sign, hearts, etc,' said someone else.
'Laser pointer images indeed,' a user commented.
While many simply solved the mystery, others got nostalgic from the post after linking the discovery to their childhoods.
'Every 90s kid rushing to leave a comment,' one said.
'Ugh bringing me back to childhood, where's the smiley face,' wrote another.
Someone else wrote: 'I feel old now… we had those lasers in jr high.'
To this day, the debate remains on who created the very first laser pointer, with many crediting Albert Einstein for the original concept.
Laser pointers were first released to the public in the 1980s starting with just a simple, red-colored illumination.
They really took off in the 90s, often used for overhead projector presentations in school settings.
