From large amounts of WWII ammunition to the carcass of a colossal sea creature, here are
10 strangest things washed ashore: Number 10 Live Bombs from WWII
Seventy years after WWII came to an end, 87 live bombs ended up in Hampshire, on the southern
coast of England.
At the time of the discovery, in 2011, the moon was closer to the Earth than it had been
in almost two decades.
The gravitational effects of the so-called Supermoon generated very low tides which brought
the previously undisturbed bombs to the shore.
The Mark I high-explosive mortars measured 4 by 20 inches.
The Royal Navy claimed a find of such magnitude was unprecedented.
Explosives expert Lt. Commander Al Nekrews warned members of the public not to handle
the explosives themselves, should more be discovered, as years of corrosion had made
them highly unstable.
The bombs were stacked by the Navy around 1,000 feet from the shoreline and a wide exclusion
perimeter was set around them.
They were wired together in groups of ten and detonated in high tide, so that the water
absorbed the shock generated by the explosions.
Number 9 Doritos Due to an overturned cargo container, thousands
of bags of Doritos washed ashore in North Carolina’s Outer Banks.
As a result, humans and seagulls were treated to an abundance of free chips.
The birds feasted on the bags that were already open while humans went for the bags that were
intact.
Because of the bags’ airtight seals, the contents were still unspoiled.
Some of the locals criticized the reaction to the spill, as people reportedly didn’t
seem as preoccupied with cleaning up the federally-protected beach as they were with getting free junk
food.
Nevertheless, the littered area was eventually cleared of the bags.
Number 8 Dead Birds In 2011, thousands of dead birds were found
washed ashore on Wasaga Beach, in Ontario.
Botulism has been determined as the primary cause of the mass die-off which resulted in
anywhere from 5,000 to 6,000 dead birds being scattered along the 2-mile stretch of land.
The fatal disease is caused by toxins produced by bacteria which dwell at the bottom of the
lake.
After fish become infected, they die and float to the surface.
This turns into a deadly feast for the waterfowl which are quick to prey on them.
Afterwards, stormy or windy weather brought them to the shore.
The rise of botulism in recent years has been attributed to a combination of increasingly
oxygen-deprived conditions, gradually warming waters and higher levels of bacteria.
Number 7 Motorcycle In 2011, an earthquake struck Japan that would
come to be known as the most powerful disaster of its kind to ever hit the country.
It generated a massive tsunami that measured over 24 feet at its highest.
Thousands of lives were lost.
The disaster caused also tens of billions of dollars in property damage.
Ikuo Yokoyama lost his house and three members of his family in the disaster.
The tsunami also swept away his van, which he was using to store, among other things,
his Harley-Davidson motorcycle.
About a year later, a man named Peter Mark stumbled upon the van on a remote beach on
Graham Island.
The currents had taken the storage unit more than 3,000 miles away, to British Columbia.
Mark found the Harley Davidson inside.
Apart from some rust, it was mostly intact.
When news of the find broke in the media, a Haley-Davidson representative paid for the
motorcycle to be repaired and transported back to its rightful owner.
Number 6 ET In 2011, a beach goer from Portsmouth called
the police after spotting, what appeared to be, a body in the water.
When they arrived at the scene, the authorities were shocked to find that it was actually
a life-size ET replica, very much like the one from Steven Spielberg’s movie.
It had been taken from the house of Margaret Wells during a robbery.
Wells’ daughter had created the one-of-a-kind alien model as part of a stage makeup course.
The replica eventually made its way back to Wells, who told a media outlet ‘There’s
only one in the whole of England and that is mine, I always knew ET would come home.
Number 5 Friendly Floatees More than two decades after they fell off
a cargo ship, children’s bath toys are still turning up around the world.
In 1992, a container with 29,000 Friendly Floatees, toys consisting of yellow ducks,
red beavers, blue turtles and green frogs, spilled into the North Pacific Ocean.
From that point on the buoyant bath toys have been found in Alaska, Scotland, Newfoundland,
Hawaii, South America, Australia, the Atlantic Ocean and even encased in Arctic Ice.
Some were even spotted floating over the site where the Titanic sank, 17,000 miles away
from the spill.
It’s true that the 29,000 plastic pollutants can impact the ocean negatively, but, in the
time since they fell in the ocean, the toys have become unintentional educators.
Oceanographers have tracked their movements and learned more about the currents of the
North Pacific Gyre and the Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch found within.
Number 4 Lego On February 13, 1997, a huge quantity of Lego
pieces fell off the Tokyo Express container ship.
A huge wave, described by the captain as a ‘once in a 100-year phenomenon’, struck
the ship and violently tilted it.
As a result, 62 shipping containers full of 4.8 million pieces spilled into the ocean.
Lego bricks have since been turning up on various beaches, particularly in Wales, Ireland
and southern England.
Ironically, many of the pieces were nautically themed.
Interestingly enough, this isn’t the only strange phenomenon involving Lego washing
ashore.
Giant Lego sculptures have been sporadically found in the sea or on beaches, ever since
2007.
A Dutch sculptor and street artist, who goes by the name Ego Leonard, is known for making
giant fiberglass replicas of Lego figurines.
They usually weigh about one hundred pounds and measure 6 to 8 feet in height.
His works typically feature the words ‘No Real Than You Are’ written in capitals on
their torsos.
The first ‘Ego Leonard’, as the giant sculptures have come to be known, was recovered
from the sea near the Netherlands.
Since then, Ego Leonard’s sculptures have been found on Brighton Beach, in the UK as
well as on beaches in Florida and Los Angeles.
One was even found floating on the Danube.
The sculptures were placed in art museums or in front of landmarks.
Number 3 Gigantic Eyeball In 2012, a man in Florida stumbled upon a
gigantic eyeball that had floated onto the sand of Fort Lauderdale.
Knowing that it might be of interest to someone from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation
Committee, he took it home and put it in his refrigerator.
The eyeball, which was slightly larger than a softball, didn’t belong to some colossal
sea monster, as it was initially reported.
Wildlife authorities identified it as belonging to a very a large swordfish, one that might
have weight almost 1,400 pounds.
Finding a fully intact eyeball, which has been separated from other body parts, is exceptionally
rare.
There was evidence of clear, straight-line cuts around the tissue, which means that someone
had deliberately cut it out.
Number 2 Bag of Human Hands On March 8, 2018, a fisherman made a gruesome
discovery on an island in the Amur River, in Khabarovsk, Siberia.
He initially saw a human hand sticking out of the snow, and, although startled, he kept
searching the area expecting to find a corpse.
Instead, what he soon discovered washed ashore was a bag containing 54 severed human hands.
The authorities were contacted and rumors started circulating that they were evidence
of the work of some vicious serial killer or criminal organization.
Investigators subsequently reassured the public that the hands had probably been kept in a
forensics lab for identification purposes and had been improperly disposed of.
Number 1 Mysterious Creature on Seram Island On a remote Indonesian beach, a local man
discovered the remains of a gigantic creature washed ashore.
37-year-old Asrul Tuanakota, a resident of Seram Island, Indonesia, initially thought
that he had seen a boat wreck.
Then, when he got closer he saw a 50-foot-long carcass that looked like it belonged to a
massive marine monster.
After the discovery, as rumors of a new unidentified species started spreading, researchers arrived
at Hulung Beach to examine the remains.
They determined that the creature was, in fact, a large decomposing whale.
The exact species would be determined following a DNA analysis but the fin whale and blue
whale were the primary suspects.
The animal had been dead for anywhere from a few weeks to several months.
Whales have bacteria in their guts which produce gas.
The bacteria kept on reproducing after the whale died and had inflated several segments
of the carcass like a balloon.
Therefore, instead of sinking to the bottom of the ocean, the animal ended up on the beach.
The advanced stage of decomposition made identifying the cause of death nearly impossible.
Even though the gases surrounding the carcass are noxious and foul smelling, inhaling them
isn’t really a health risk.
However, researchers stated that swimming in the water near the carcass wasn’t advised.
Thanks for watching!
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