Maybe you've heard of the National Archives, and maybe you haven't.

But to kind of put it simply, the National Archives are where the government keeps its stuff.

The archives hold all kinds of stuff.

They hold big important items, like the Declaration of Independence,

the Constitution, things you probably want to keep a copy of.

As the agency says, it is the nation's record keeper, and the record is meant to be a public

document of the nation's history.

Anyone can put in a request and view the holdings.

Researchers, writers, history buffs.

All sorts of people visit the National Archives.

But every once in a while, a visitor might come and get sticky fingers.

They might leave with a valuable item that belongs to the archive.

The items that are at the National Archives, their federal records, which means their records created

for the American people and for others to use and so they don't belong to you and they

belong here and they belong for everybody to use.

We take these things serious. I'm Dylan Thuris and this is Atlas Obscura,

a celebration of the world's strange, incredible, and wondrous places.

Today, we're talking to Mitch Yackelsen. He is a historian, an academic, and he's turned into a sort of archival bounty hunter.

It is a cat and mouse game with him and historical criminals.

Now take us on a tour of the country's records and some of the very strange things held in.

And we talk to him about how he hunts down ice. the very strange things held in.

And we talked to him about how he hunts down items stolen out of the archive, how he finds

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