Although our knee jerk response to a question we don't know the answer to typically involves googling it, the truth is that this solution doesn't quite work for every situation.
After all, search engines are only effective when we actually know what we're supposed to be looking for. If we come across something that we have no frame of reference for, the best we can do is a vague description. And more often than not, the results you get from something like that are disappointing, to say the least.
Fortunately, we're about to see that obscure objects and vague descriptions are often the lead that Reddit's r/whatisthisthing community has no problem turning into the gold of knowledge.