Police in the Ohio city of Norwalk are trying to solve a bizarre mystery following the discovery of a heart found inside a Ziploc bag.
The odd organ was spotted sitting in a field by paramedics in late August and has since become the subject of an investigation to determine its nature and origins.
Strangely enough, one of the EMTs who initially discovered the heart simply disposed of it in a nearby dumpster, apparently thinking that a random bagged organ found lying in the grass was no big deal.
Fortunately, more inquisitive authorities managed to recover the now-twice abandoned organ and have handed it off to experts in the hopes of learning more details about the mysterious heart.
Officials concede that they currently have no idea if the heart was from a human or an animal, although they believe it was 'fresh' when it was found back in August and may have been frozen prior to that.
Additionally, they admit that, until they know more about the heart, it's impossible to say if it is attached to a crime of some kind, since police have not received any reports of a missing heart.
Authorities are currently having the heart tested for preservatives, suggesting that it could have been somehow pilfered from a place that housed organs for future transplants.
But that is just one possible source for the heart, Sgt. Jim Fulton of the Norwalk Police Department told reporters at Cleveland TV station WOIO, noting that "it could have come from a funeral home, an autopsy. There's endless possibilities."
There is hope that media attention about the case will provide authorities with new clues about the unexplained organ, but they may be trying to get blood from a stone as the original owner of the heart clearly stopped talking a while ago.
And we're guessing that whoever got their hands on it after that isn't particularly interested in reporting their lost heart.
Source: WOIO Cleveland