We know more about the surface of the moon than we do about the ocean floor, and even with the best ocean-floor combing technology, it will take millennia to uncover even one-third of the secrets of the ocean. Mostly, all that washes up on beaches are stranded marine life, beautiful stones and pebbles and lots of plastic bottles and other man-made waste. However, the ocean becomes generous sometimes and brings something worth looking at twice, and if you are lucky, you may find something really amazing like these 10.
A Live Bomb
In October 2020, a 100-pound spherical ball covered in rust, mud and seashells appeared on the beach of Cape Hatteras Light Station in North Carolina. The ball was very beautiful and quite strange, and locals, including children, played around it and even took pictures. It wasn’t until someone noticed that it was an unexploded WWII bomb that the beach was closed, and the US Navy called in to explode it safely. Luckily, no one was injured, and now those kids get to see their photos close to one of the most dangerous explosives in the world.
A Megalodon Tooth
Hunting for shark teeth is a great hobby, but getting the teeth of the largest extinct shark that ever lived is a miracle. Megalodons are believed to have been three times larger than the largest great white sharks but went extinct over 3 million years ago due to global cooling. Some lucky people still find megalodon teeth on beaches and the really large ones can be a huge as 7 inches. One such lucky find was made by 7-year-old Foster Frazier in 2017 while hunting for shark teeth with his mother on North Myrtle Beach in South Carolina. The tooth was put on display in the Riverfront Museum in Illinois.
Huge Lego Men
Most kids have the chance to build their own Lego men, so they don’t expect to find an 8ft tall Lego man on the beach. Since the late 2000s, huge Lego men have been washing up on beaches worldwide from Florida to Japan. The mystery was solved when it was discovered that they were the creation of the Dutch artist Leon Keer. They still show up occasionally on different beaches with different messages, the most common being “No Real Than You Are.”
A Lost Ship
Back in the 1930s, after the prohibition and during the great depression, mobsters were having a great time in California. Since gambling and prostitution were both banned, mobsters preferred buying former oil tankers and converting them into gambling ships that would be docked of the coast of Coronado in international waters. The largest of the ships was the SS Monte Carlo, which sunk on New Year’s Eve and was left to rot. In 2016, the ship was uncovered after the El Nino storms and has since become an attraction on the beach.
A Missile
Unexploded bombs are not the only dangerous thing that washes up on beaches. Many missile testing sites are located in the ocean, and governments don’t seem much interested in following up on those that don’t explode, as it became obvious on the beach off the coast of Outer Hebrides Island in Scotland in 2010. The military intervened immediately and removed the bomb, so not much explanation was given about it.
A Military Drone
In March of 2021, the US military was called into the Boynton beach in Florida after a giant US military drone washed up. The officers yelled for the members of the public to move back, shouting that there was a bomb on the beach. It was clearly a very dangerous sight, although some members of the public had already gone close enough to get their perfect selfies. Once again, the threat was hurriedly dissolved by carrying away the dangerous drone.
Civil War Cannonballs
After hurricanes, strange things wash up onto the beach, especially in South Carolina. On Folly Beach, civil war cannonballs have been discovered on two different occasions. The first discovery was made in 2016, when six cannonballs washed up after Hurricane Mathew. After Hurricane Dorian in 2019, another group of beachgoers found two unexploded cannonballs on the beach again.
A War Plane
During WWII, many planes crashed into the sea, some from mechanical failure while others were just shot down by enemy fire. In May 2020, a couple of people walking down Cleethorpes Beach in the UK discovered the wreckage of one such plane. It was discovered that the plane crashed into the sea shortly after takeoff from Lincolnshire in 1944.
Brand New Motorbikes
Containers aboard cargo ships often fell into the sea and may have been pushed ashore after drifting on the sea for days, months, or even years. If it contained perishables, then beachgoers won’t have much to find except scrap metal. Some containers wash ashore with treasures, though, like one did in 2007 after the MSC Napoli cargo ship lost containers when it wrecked off Branscombe Beach in 2007. Thousands of new items, including BMW motorbikes and auto parts, were “picked up” by scavengers off the beach, and many were told that they could keep what they got.
An Entire Oil Rig
An oil rig is the last thing you hope to see when you go to the beach, but it happened on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland back in 2016. The oil rig was being towed through the sea when it broke off as a result of bad weather. The rig had 28o metric tons of crude oil and it was feared that it would cause an environmental disaster but it was contained before the oil spilt.
From mysterious giant Lego men to relics of the Civil War, beaches around the world have shown us that the ocean’s waves can be as unpredictable as they are powerful. Each item washed ashore carries a unique story, reminding us of the vast, interconnected world just beneath the surface—and sometimes, what lies beyond it.
Have you come across something strange or incredible on a beach? Share your own beach discoveries in the comments below! And don’t forget to subscribe for more intriguing tales of the unexpected. Who knows what other mysteries might be lurking on the shorelines around us?