Man buys astronaut's abandoned storage unit and is completely 'bewildered' at what he found

There have been countless stories over the years of folks opening up abandoned storage units and discovering something a little unexpected inside.

Some are a treasure trove of fantastic finds. Others not so much.

But one YouTuber, who was inspired by Storage Wars to purchase a unit for himself, couldn't believe what he found.

In a video that has been viewed almost 7 million times, Charlie - who goes by @penguinz0 - explained: "I used to watch Storage Wars with my dad and thought it'd be a cool thing to do in the real world."

He admitted that he didn't expect much from the $2,800 unit, but thought it would be 'fun to just go for it.'

Little did he know that the storage unit he'd purchased used to belong to an astronaut and what he found inside was 'f***ing nuts.'

YouTuber Charlie purchased a storage unit for $2,800, not realising it had previously belonged to an astronaut (YouTube/@penguinz0)

The video shows Charlie opening the door to the unit to find piles of cardboard boxes, crates and trash bags.

Amongst the contents were comic books that the YouTuber and his friend estimated to be worth about five bucks each, a stack of board games and a toilet.

But, then they came across some pretty cool clues to its previous owner that left them 'bewildered,' including a photograph of a NASA spaceship, documents from a flight awareness programme and various space missions, and a collection of astronaut patches.

They even found a box labelled 'critical space item' and a letter addressed to 'team members,' thanking them for their contribution to the space programme.

While the astronaut's identity remains unknown, they found an envelope that suggests his name was Joseph.

Inside he found a load of space memorabilia, including photographs, patches and a letter thanking the astronaut for their contribution to the space programme (YouTube/@penguinz0)

Further findings including signed baseballs and a vintage Rolex led the pair to conclude that the unidentified astronaut was 'the coolest guy to ever live.'

"This unit has been crazy," they said. "A f***ing astronaut storage unit. That is nuts."

But they're not the only ones to get lucky with an abandoned storage unit.

Charlie found a vintage gold Rolex amongst the treasure (penguinz0/YouTube)

Taking to social media, Storage Wars auctioneer Don Dotson shared that a man once bought a storage unit containing a locked safe for $500.

Of course he will have hoped for a good return on his investment, but when the man opened the safe, he discovered a rewards he could have only dreamed of.

Dotson explained that inside the safe who stacks of packages covered in paper.

Those packages contained a whopping $7.5 million in cold hard cash.

"$7.5 million inside of a unit, I don't think you'd forget it, but maybe you were just in a position where somebody else was in charge of it, I don't know," he said.