Dad checking odd-looking ceiling in new house discovers $45,000 — his response leaves rightful owner baffled

Coming across a treasure unexpectedly seems like something that only happens in movies. But one man from Utah experienced that in real life when he moved into his new house. Josh Ferrin, an artist and author, was looking for a place to set up his tools and other equipment when he saw a panel in the ceiling in the garage's back. When he checked what was in there, he was surprised to find boxes of cash hidden away in the attic, as reported by ABC News.

It happened hours after Ferrin purchased the house for his family and was planning to set up his "man cave" in the back of the garage. But then he noticed an access panel on the ceiling. "I thought, maybe this could be a little hidey-hole that had been finished and my kids could go up there and play," he recounted. He was able to find a ladder and climb up. Although the place was dark, he could spot an old and dusty box there. "I grabbed the thing, it was heavy. I thought it might be holding down some pieces of wood or something." He was surprised when he realized the box was filled with dollar bills. "I opened it up, freaked out, closed it, locked it in the trunk of my car and called my wife to say, 'You are not going to believe what I just found in our attic.'"

At first, Ferrin thought that the box had around $800 to $1000. But then he climbed up the attic again and found 7 more boxes. "It took me, my wife and my father three hours to unroll all the money and sort it by denomination." The family stopped counting after they hit $40,000. "I'm human and immediately I thought of all the things we really needed the money for, but I believe in doing what is right and you can't dwell on those sorts of things when it's not your money." Ferrin decided to return the money to its rightful owner, but a few people in his family disagreed. "What were you thinking? It was your house! It's your property!" people told him.

However, Ferrin and his wife decided to return the money to the rightful owners. "This is the first step in a journey for us. There was no way I could start this new chapter in our lives in this house by doing something so wrong." He added, "I've got two boys and we teach them to be honest and to do what is right and I knew this was a teachable moment that I would never get back again. So I thought we would have fun with it." The dad pointed out, "We would do something courageously honest with it. Something awesome. It's been a great thing for us and our kids."

Ferrin remembered that the previous owner, Arnold Bangerter, had passed away in the house and named it to his sons. The man worked for the Department of Fish and Game and had been saving the money for more than a decade when he passed away. "I'm an artist and an author, so I know what it's like to work on something for a long time and to want to see it come to fruition," Ferrin expressed. "I felt like I got to peek into this guy's life and to write a chapter in his life that he didn't get to see completed in his own time. I get to be a part of this man's life and that's cool."

He eventually got in contact with one of Bangerter's sons, who had no idea that his dad had saved up so much, as reported by Dawn. "He grew up in hard times, and people who survived that era didn't have anything when they came out of it unless they saved it themselves," the son, Kay Bangerter, revealed. Ferrin went on, "I can see him putting that money away for a rainy day and it would have been wrong of me to deny him that thing he worked on for years."