Found a phone in my garden - isolated property - shit scared

[ScarredBunny]

Name changed for this - Sorry if this seem trivial, I know people are dealing with far bigger things at the moment.

I found a phone lying on the ground, about 5 yards from my house.

We live in an isolated property about a mile away from the first road. We have not have any visitors , maintenance people for many weeks (obviously). Delivery drivers, yes, but they would not have any reason to go to this part of the garden/couldn't access it during daytime without us seeing something.
At first I assumed it belonged to one of us, but no!
Phoned the police, have a ref./case number, etc. but they're busy and will get back to us when they can.
The police said to take the phone indoors and wait for their call/visit.

I am worried that the next visit is going to be from whomever the phone belongs to.
The phone is dead as a dodo but I assume it still can be found?

What should do?

we find random stuff in our garden from time to time, I think carried and dropped by birds.

This. I would expect it to be crows.

Secret phone option - presumably OPDH would t let her get as far as phoning the police!?

I'm pretty sure on an iPhone it needs to be turned on and connected to the internet to track the location. Mine definitely does.

It will give the last location

Could it be a fox or something of the like that's picked it up and dropped it in your garden?

Can you charge it up?

Also, who is in your house? How old are your kids?

This is scary really, how far are you nearest house,?
Maybe someone chucked from car when passing your road?
Kids? I once saw a phone in our street, it was smashed into pieces so I presumed somebody did it on purpose.
It was there for few days, no one picked it up...

Someone in the houses secret phone I’d say

Sometimes you can track the last location of a phone even if it’s dead

Is it just you and dp in the house? Kids? Grandparents? Others? Dogs?

Is your garden surrounded by fields? How close is the road to where it was found?

Plug it in again and wait.

Is your dp trustworthy? Any ofher odd things happened? Drugs? Crime?

Are you sure it doesn't belong to someone in your household?

Oh, and I would charge it up and see if I could find any information from it.

Ah sorry Slith I'm hopeless with double consonants

We have fences and if someone was fly tipping they would have to be amazing at throwing for it to land there. I don't want to go into details too much but it would be very peculiar for a throw to land in that spot.

I will try charging it for longer but I think I will put it outside far from the house tonight.

The secret phone theory: this kind of phone is out of our price range really, so probably not.

Do you have a charger that fits the phone? My first step would be to charge it up and see what you can access

Completely normal to be concerned op.

If you tried to charge while still damp inside chances are it has fried it.

You could try putting in rice for a couple of days until the police come to pick up. I wouldn't try to switch on again. Best outcome is they find out who it belongs to and why it is in your garden.

I found a dead iphone in the park - checked on google - the best thing to do seemed to be to plug it to charge so the owner could trace it.
It charged and a message appeared on the screen saying the phone had been lost with a landline to call. I called the landline and returned the phone.
Happy ending for all
It appears that you can send a message to appear on your phone's screen if you lose it - but only if it is charged and turned on.

put it in a plastic bag and lock it away in the microwave.
the microwave with "shield" it and prevent it from giving off any signals.

sim card in it op?

I'm assuming that is what you are more concerned about

I googled it and apparently there is still a signal for location even on a dead phone.

A phone needs power to emit any type of signal.

I can't see anyone breaking in to retrieve it realistically

Don't charge it - it's bloody wet

I would be worried as well. Not much you can do but make sure you have the house locked up well and leave nothing on show. Do you have any security lighting?

Do you ever seen paragliders in your area? Wondering could someone have been paragliding or similar and have dropped it?! Might explain why it is dead too? Although I expect it would have smashed I suppose!

You are right to be concerned OP.

I really wouldn't put it up the garden again. You have reported it to the police and tbh it is better to know how it got there than to live in ignorance.