Buzz
Each day, the oceans relentlessly strike countless shores. Among the typical assortment of shells and sea debris, curious and unusual objects often wash up. There’s always the obligatory monstrous carcass and real creatures so odd that even experts struggle to identify them.
The most unusual beach finds are often human-made. From massive fragments of foreign docks to entire hordes of Garfields, beachcombing is like a lottery drawn by the sea.
10. Giant Sunfish
In 2019, a couple was walking along a beach in South Australia. As they approached the Murray River, something unusual caught their attention. Near the river's mouth lay a massive object. Initially, they assumed the strange fish was a hoax. But it was very real (and very deceased).
It's easy to see why they believed it was a prank. Sunfish, for those unfamiliar, are truly peculiar. Their fins are located far too close to their tail, they have beaks, and their eyes seem perpetually surprised.
Moreover, this particular fish was enormous and certainly not a local resident. Known as the oceanic sunfish, it roams across the globe but rarely makes its way to South Australia.
Earlier that same month, another species washed up on California’s coast. Known as the hoodwinker sunfish, it shattered the myth that this species only lived in the southern hemisphere. Most sunfish are known for their sheer size, but swimmers needn’t worry—they feed primarily on zooplankton and jellyfish.
9. Ice Tsunamis
North American coastlines occasionally encounter vast walls of ice. Though named ice tsunamis, these events do not possess the speed or destruction of true tidal waves. In reality, when large blocks of ice accumulate along the shore, it’s referred to as an ice shove. This chilly phenomenon occurs at the edges of large lakes, typically when spring arrives and winds push the broken ice outward.
Some of these shoves don’t just stop at the shoreline. When enough ice piles up and powerful winds are at play, the ice can overwhelm barriers and spill onto roads. A massive shove in 2001 stacked ice 4.9 meters (16 feet) high along the shores of Alaska’s Chukchi Sea.
The ice sheets also have a fascinating impact on the rocks at the bottom of lakes. As the frozen layers expand and contract with temperature shifts, they shift massive boulders toward the shore. This process forms what are called ice-push ramparts, which can span up to 1.5 meters (5 feet) across.
8. Monster Driftwood
In 2010, Phillip Lachman and his daughter took a walk along the beach in Washington. Lachman, a retired teacher from the nearby town of La Push, brought his camera along. That turned out to be fortunate, as they stumbled upon an extraordinary piece of driftwood. When logs are this size, they are called drift logs.
The tree was never measured, but it was so large that it towered over Lachman’s daughter, who posed for a photo next to it. She stood 183 centimeters (6’0″) tall. A park official from nearby Olympic National Park confirmed that finding such a massive drift log was rare, even in an area known for its towering forest trees.
It was likely brought down by a winter storm, floating down a river before finally washing ashore. It wasn’t a simple case of drifting into place—experts suggested that strong winds must have been involved in pushing this monster to the beach. While the exact species of the tree could not be identified, it was probably a Douglas fir, Sitka spruce, or Western red cedar.
7. Rare Jellies
Holly Horner, a professional wildlife photographer, had spent 45 years walking the beaches of Brigantine, New Jersey. In 2018, she encountered something she had never seen before: a bright turquoise creature, round and edged with feather-like tendrils. It appeared to be a jellyfish.
Several of these creatures washed up on the shore, sparking curiosity among beachgoers. However, scientists were already familiar with the blobs. Known as blue buttons, they aren’t jellyfish but are related to the Portuguese man-of-war. Each button hosts a predatory colony working together to paralyze its prey. Fortunately for swimmers, they lack the dangerous sting of their Portuguese relatives.
What was strange about the blue buttons in New Jersey was that they are not native to the area. Researchers believe they were drifting along the Gulf Stream when Hurricane Florence swept them off course. Sadly, most likely perished in the following weeks when the water temperature dropped to levels they couldn’t survive.
6. The Wolf Island Creature
In 2018, the sea left an enigmatic discovery on the shore. The creature washed up on the beach of Georgia’s Wolf Island National Wildlife Refuge. Jeff Warren stumbled upon the remains and took photos. Once he shared the images with the media, they sparked a fierce debate among scientists.
Some experts speculated it could be a previously unknown species or a familiar animal so decomposed that it was nearly unrecognizable. Others, however, doubted it was ever alive. The decomposition appeared too tidy—there were no torn skin, injured limbs, or exposed organs. Therefore, they argued, the Lochness-like creature was likely a hoax.
If this was some elaborate prank, it was staged in the perfect place. The area is known for legends surrounding a mythical creature called the Altamaha-ha Monster. The photographs seemed to match artistic representations of the creature, but the one crucial piece of evidence—the body—had mysteriously disappeared.
5. Human Urns
In 2019, a beachcomber brought his 14-year-old son, Maarten, along for a walk. Together, they discovered a funeral urn, the first of three found on the beaches of Katwijk and Noordwijk in the Netherlands. The other two urns were uncovered by a woman and a fisherman, respectively.
Maarten, the teenager, initially thought the urn might hold drugs. But upon opening it, they found it contained human remains. All three urns were labeled, which led investigators to trace them back to a crematorium in Germany.
German regulations surrounding human remains are very strict. It’s rare for permission to be granted for ashes to be kept in a private home or garden. Sea burials are allowed, but only with biodegradable urns, while the Dutch urns were made of aluminum.
The discovery of the urns sparked an intense debate about how they ended up on the beaches. Then, a Dutch shipping company admitted their involvement. The urns had been on one of their ships. Ideally, the ashes would have been scattered at sea, but an employee accidentally dropped the box containing the urns, and they fell overboard.
4. Frozen Turtles
Every November, a handful of turtles become stranded along New England shores. However, the 2018 incident was anything but typical. Hundreds of turtles washed up, many of them from the critically endangered Kemp’s ridley species. These reptiles had been trapped by a sudden cold snap, a deadly scenario for cold-blooded creatures that rely on warmth to survive.
Cape Cod alone counted 219 turtles in just three days. Only 46 of them were still alive, with the rest already dead. But then, on one of those days, something strange occurred.
On that Thursday, 82 turtles washed ashore. With the exception of one, they were all frozen solid. One researcher observed that their flippers were oddly positioned, as if they had been frozen mid-swim. The next day, Friday, temperatures slightly increased, and more turtles were found alive on the beach.
3. Garfield Phones
Garfield, the iconic cartoon cat, became a cartoon sensation in the 1980s. A company produced novelty Garfield phones that were immensely popular. Over time, however, the phones began mysteriously washing up along the coast of France. The Garfield invasion continued for decades, long after the phone craze had faded away.
In 2019, environmentalists finally uncovered the origin of the mysterious phones. A local man had known the story all along—except, to him, it wasn’t a secret. Realizing the mystery surrounding the phones, Rene Morvan revealed the truth behind the washed-up Garfields.
In the 1980s, Morvan and his brothers had been exploring a seaside cave when they stumbled upon a shipping container. Inside, they found a massive collection of Garfield phones and other items.
Morvan later brought the anti-litter group Ar Viltansou to the site, where they discovered both the plastic cats and the container. Historical records suggest that a local storm struck around the time the Morvan brothers found the cave, and it’s likely that the storm knocked the container off a passing ship and into the cave.
2. Tons Of Invasive Life
When the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami devastated Japan in 2011, vast amounts of debris were swept into the ocean. A year later, one such piece of debris washed up on the coast of Oregon. The Japanese dock, measuring an impressive 20 meters (66 ft) in length, was covered in a staggering 100 tons of sea life.
Though it might seem like a natural wonder, scientists were deeply concerned. The region was already struggling with invasive species, some of which were so aggressive they outcompeted native marine life. From an environmental standpoint, the tsunami dock was a potential disaster. It carried a diverse array of anemones, starfish, urchins, algae, crustaceans, worms, snails, mussels, and much more.
Many of the creatures had already made the dock their home before the tsunami struck. After being ripped from its moorings, the floating structure gathered more unwelcome residents while drifting across the open Pacific. Remarkably, the organisms survived the journey intact.
However, they were destroyed to mitigate the potential danger they posed to native species. The risk may still be realized, as some of the organisms could have detached from the dock earlier and already established themselves along the shores of Oregon.
1. The French Goop
The coastline of the English Channel lies along a busy shipping route, where oddities often wash up on shore. But none were as bizarre as the greasy clumps that appeared in 2017. Hundreds of yellow, spongy balls lined the beaches of northern France. They emitted a faint scent of paraffin wax, yet these goops didn’t melt under the sun, unlike paraffin.
Authorities quickly declared the spongy, yellow balls were likely harmless, although they couldn't definitively identify their composition. Pollution experts, on the other hand, were more cautious and advised the public not to handle the mysterious substance.
Given that tons of the goo covered miles of coastline, it’s likely that some beachgoers came into contact with the substance. Fortunately, no fatalities were reported. The only clue to its origin was that these fluffy balls seemed to be made from an oil-based product. One hypothesis suggested that it could be a form of boat exhaust grease that hardened upon coming into contact with the chilly seawater.
