A man in Germany had a Homer Simpson moment after a pencil was discovered in his head. Amazingly the four inch pencil had been lodged in his head for 15 years after a childhood accident.

Fortunately doctors in the city of Western city of Aachen were able to remove it from his head and he is now recovering from the unusual procedure.

He had been suffering headaches for years and the eyesight in his right eye was also deteriorating.

But he is not the first person to have a strange object lodged in his body.

Trees and plants

Two years ago, a 75-year-old Massachusetts man who was already battling emphysema, was hospitalized after his left lung collapsed.

But doctors, who thought they were dealing with a tumour, were amazed when they found out the cause: a pea plant was growing in his lung.

They speculated that Ron Sveden had accidentally swallowed a pea that went down the wrong way, down towards his lung where it began sprouting leaves.

A similar case occurred in 2009 when a Russian man was found to have a small fir tree growing inside his lung. Both recovered from their ordeals.

Dentures

Last November, a 75-year-old lady from Essex who suffered from Parkinsons, lost the top half of her dentures. Around the same time she was struck down with another illness which doctors diagnosed as a lung infection.

However they missed one crucial thing: her dentures were not just missing, they were inside her body.

Even though Nermin Keating's daughter had sought a second opinion, the first two doctors failed to realize that she had swallowed the dentures and it was only the third physician who spotted the offending false teeth at the bottom of her throat.

Cobblestones

After a fight with her boyfriend in 2006, a Chinese girl decided to vent her anger by swallowing 20 cobblestones.

She had assumed that they would pass through her body naturally. Unfortunately they were not only lodged in her stomach but also started knocking against each other.

Cutlery

Back in the 70s, doctors had to surgically remove 78 pieces of a cutlery from a woman's stomach. Yes 78! She later admitted that she liked eating cutlery. However she confirmed that knives were not part of her diet.

Each piece of cutlery had to be extracted individually and with extreme care.

Engagement ring

Romance with a twist! A man in the UK spotted an expensive engagement ring at a jeweller's that he could not afford to buy for his girlfriend.

But he had an ingenious plan. He swallowed the ring when the jeweller had his back turned. The jeweller however suspected that something had been taken and called police who ran metal detectors over the "shopper's" body.

He was placed in a cell until nature, er, took its course and the ring emerged. 

Door key

Go home, you're drunk! One inebriated college student in Bournemouth disagreed when that label was applied to him. So instead of going home, he swallowed the key to his lodgings.

Fortunately for him, the key unlocked the code to his digestive system and made it all the way out of his body a day later, which meant he also avoided a fine from his landlord in order to source a replacement key.

Needles, coins and necklaces

11 years ago French doctors treated a man who had a fondness for eating coins. 350 coins were found in his stomach but it wasn't the only delicacy he was fond of.

Doctors also found a needle and necklaces. The mass of objects which weighed over 5kg had actually forced his stomach down between his hips.

Magnets

An 8-year-old girl in the US suffered punctures to her stomach that resembled gunshot wounds after swallowing 20 marbles and 10 magnets.

She later said that she swallowed them because they looked like candy.