• What beach features polished glass from an underwater landfill? What happens when
28,000 rubber duckies get dumped in the ocean? Here’s 15 of the weirdest things ever to
wash up on shore 15 – Doritos
• In 2006, a container fell off a ship headed to Central America and washed up on a North
Carolina beach. • That container contained thousands of
bags of Doritos, because this is a beautiful world we live in.
• Apparently, the chips were still sealed and totally safe to eat.
14 – Ice • No, ice in water isn’t incredibly unusually.
• But 10-foot-high icebergs washing ashore in Boston Harbor was more than a little unusual.
• A historic winter in 2015 was the explanation for the massive ice chunks, which were considered
a once-in-a-lifetime event. 13 – Bombs
• The thing about dropping bombs on boats is that if they miss, they just kind of hit
the water. And if they hit the water, they may not detonate.
• And if they don’t detonate, they just kinda stay there.
• And then a couple of kids start posing with it, thinking it’s a buoy, when actually
it’s a 70-year-old death device that was meant for a German U-boat.
• This actually happens all the time. 12 – Cocaine
• In case you ever wondered if cocaine is trafficked by sea, here’s your answer.
• About 800 pounds of cocaine washed up on two different beaches in Norfolk, England
in February 2017, in what is actually a fairly common occurrence.
• On the street, that cocaine would have been worth about 62 million dollars.
11 – Thousands of Coffee Cans • Normally, coffee in water is a good thing.
• Sealed cans and vacuum-packed containers of coffee is a different story.
• Although the beach combers who took home pounds and pounds of Café Bustelo coffee
when it washed up in Florida are probably fine with it just the same.
10 – Glass Pebbles • In Fort Bragg, California, there is a
popular tourist beach aptly named Glass Beach. • There, millions of little polished glass
pebbles wash up on shore. • But why, you ask? Nearby is an old trash
dumping site formerly used for glass dumping. Over time, the glass was shaken loose, polished
by the water and sediment, and washed ashore. • So it’s basically pollution, but it
sure looks cool. 9 – Lego Statues
• Giant fiberglass Lego figures have washed up on shores many times in recent years, and
they all seem to have a common thread. • They all have the words “NO REAL THAN
YOU ARE” on their torsos. • It turns out these are part of a guerrilla
art project by someone by the name of Ego Leonard. This is widely thought to be a pen
name, since that name could be arranged to spell L, Ego, or LEGO.
8 – Love Letters from World War II • There were 57 letters in a box that washed
up on a beach in New Jersey, and they were not dry.
• But the mother and son that found the letters actually went about drying and preserving
the letters, and actually returned them to who they were addressed to. At least, the
ones that were still alive. 7 – A Grand Piano
• Not only did the piano wash up on shore, but it was the shore of a RIVER.
• The East River in New York City, in fact. It’s speculated that the piano showed up
either because it fell off a truck, or because someone threw it in on purpose.
• It didn’t make any sound when it washed up, but it showed surprisingly little actual
damage consider it was in the East River. 6 – Sports-Themed Fly Swatters
• Alaska has basically no major sports teams. • So when a crate full of flyswatters with
sports team logos on them showed up, it probably seemed like a pretty cruel joke.
• That said, if you live in Alaska and you like sports, that probably means you can pick
whatever team you want. Or just sell them on eBay as “shipwrecked fly swatters.”
5 – Rubber Duckies • Over 28,000 rubber duck toys were lost
at sea in 1992, and they’ve been turning up all over the world ever since.
• In fact, marine scientists have been tracking the movement of the toys since they were lost,
and have actually discovered new ocean currents and tendencies from tracking them and discovering
the places they wash up. • So it was a plus for science.
4 – E. T. • Never mind the reason someone would make
a life-size E.T. figure, why would somebody steal it? And if you were going to steal it,
why would you dump it in the ocean? • Whatever the reasoning, that’s exactly
what happened. And then it actually washed up and the original owner was contacted.
• But not before it prompted an emergency call to the police – the person who found
it thought they’d discovered a washed-up dead body.
3 – Hundred-Year-Old Whiskey • Aged whiskey is a valuable commodity.
• But 110- year-old whiskey from a shipwreck? Maybe you drink that at your own risk.
• The Stuart was a trade ship that set sail from Liverpool, England in 1901, and didn’t
get very far before going under. • Its wreckage turned up on the coast of
Wales, including some of the thousands of bottles of whiskey it was carrying. The wreckage
was buried, and has remained there until it was dug up just a few years ago.
2 - Bananas • A pair of Dutch islands seem to be a hotbed
for random stuff to wash up. Once, it was thousands of sneakers. Another time, aluminium
briefcases. Before that, it was a bunch of sweaters.
• Another time, thousands of bananas. They fell off a crate coming from Cuba and showed
up on the shore, apparently still edible. 1 – Human Feet in Shoes
• Between 2007 and 2016, no less than 16 running shoes have washed up on beaches in
British Columbia, Canada with decomposed human feet still inside.
• It is still a mystery where the feet are coming from, but the most common theory is
that they are from suicides. • Foul play hasn’t been ruled out either,
but authorities say it’s an unlikely explanation. Which of these would you be most surprised
to see on the beach? Let us know in the comments and we’ll pin our favorite to the top.