Evolutionary science tells us we all came from the sea, and climate science tells us we will all return to the sea after Antarctica melts and Miami turns into Venice (with way more Cuban restaurants). It's both easy and popular to ignore these scientific pronouncements, but there's still a part of the human psyche that's always fascinated by crazy shit getting pulled out of the water that makes up 71% of the Earth's surface. Here are some of our favorite examples.
LAME SHARKS, CAUGHT BY RAD BOBCATS
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Among all the other weird stuff going on in Florida, a bobcat catching a shark wouldn't normally rate much notice, but thanks to photographer John Bailey we got amazing photo evidence of the least likely battle between predators ever conceived. Florida's Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission declared the photo entirely probable and believable, saying that bobcats were known for hunting anything they could catch and that the shark was known to inhabit shallow waters. Come to Florida, where running away from a gigantic bobcat will only expose you to vicious shark attacks!
GIANT LEGO MEN
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Four different times on four different beaches, spanning the world from the Netherlands to Japan, eight-foot tall Lego figures have washed ashore bearing a sinister grin and the mysterious t-shirt message NO REAL THAN YOU ARE. Is this the work of ancient aliens? Probably yes, but it's also maybe the work of pseudonymous Dutch artist Ego Leonard, who specializes in giant Lego figures, is not very good at English, and in some cases had his name and website spelled out on the back of these figures. The smart money is still on ancient aliens.
ANCIENT GREEK COMPUTERS
![04 Apr 2012, Athens, Greece --- April 4, 2012 - Athens, Greece - The famous ''Antikythera Mechanism'' is the earliest preserved portable astronomical calculator.The ''Antikythera Shipwreck'' exhibition takes place at National Archaeological museum in Athens. All antiquities recovered in 1900-1901 and 1976 from the legendary shipwreck off the islet of Antikythera, South of the Peloponnese will be presented for the first time in a temporary exhibition. The recovery of the shipwreck itself was the first major underwater archaeological expedition. It was undertaken by sponge divers with the assistance of the Greek Royal navy(1900-1901). The wreck is dated aproximately in 60-50 BC. (Credit Image: © Aristidis Vafeiadakis) --- Image by © Aristidis Vafeiadakis/ZUMA Press/Corbis]()
In 1901, an archaeological expedition to the Greek island of Antikythera pulled a random chunk of rusty garbage that happened to look like a gear out of a ship that wrecked 200 years before Christ. After seventy years of archaeologists looking at that rusty garbage and thinking "boy, that sure looks like something," x-ray analysis proved that it was in fact an analog computer of a level of sophistication that wouldn't be matched until at least the 14th century. The Antikythera Mechanism ended up revolutionizing our understanding of ancient Greek science and technology, and modern reproductions show that the device functioned perfectly according to existing Greek mathematics and astronomy.
SNACKS! AWESOME!
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What's the best way to motivate people to clean up the beach? Try kicking a cargo container full of delicious airtight Doritos off a freighter and having the still-sealed bags wash ashore. Citizens of Hatteras Island in North Carolina displayed a heroic commitment to the environment after a still-unidentified cargo container came ashore leaking thousands of Cool Ranch, Spicy, and Original Nacho bags intended for overseas. Were these Dorito cleanup crews lucky or unlucky that the container wasn't bound for Japan and thus loaded with Asian-exclusive flavors like Wasabi Mayonnaise, Winter Crab, and Italian Seafood?
DESIGNER FOOTWEAR
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Ever wonder how Nike can get away with charging $500 for shoes that feel like wearing snow tires? Next time, try wearing a cheaper brand of shoe after it's been floating in the ocean for three years. Of the surprising number of running shoes that have been lost at sea, the most famous was a load of Nikes that fell off the boat off the coast of Northeast Canada in 1990 and were still showing up in wearable condition on Asian shores in 1994. Spills of shoes are so frequent, and shoes so buoyant and durable that scientists often use them to track ocean currents.
DESIGNER FOOTWEAR CONTAINING FEET
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On the other hand, maybe don't jam that soggy Air Jordan onto your foot just yet, especially if you live in British Columbia. Over the years, there have been ten cases of single sneakers washing up on Canadian beaches with nasty surprises inside, and theories ran wild as to their source. A foot-obsessed serial killer? Shipwreck victims? And considering that some of the shoes seemed to be ones only sold in Asia, is it possible these grisly surprises floated all the way across the ocean? Eventually, all but one foot was traced to local missing persons and suicide cases, and police decided that foul play wasn't necessarily involved: a corpse in the ocean tends to lose things like feet and limbs after a while.
MONTAUK MONSTER
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When confronted with such a hideous creature as that which washed ashore near Montauk, New York, scientists have only one question: is that a raccoon? Despite local rumors suggesting the Montauk Monster escaped from the nearby Plum Island Animal Disease Center, scientists soon identified the creature as a raccoon that was missing its upper jaw and generally having a pretty rough time of it. While a few researchers insist that it was either a diseased coyote or just a composite fake of other animals, local citizens know only one thing: it was delicious.
GLOBSTERS
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The Montauk Monster was far from the first terrifying creature that washed up on the shore and turned out to be just a regular gross dead thing. The term "globster" was coined after a ten-ton six-armed eyeless hairy glob-monster washed ashore in western Tasmania, sparking international interest in what seemed like the newest and most horrifying animal from a part of the world already rich in horrifying animals. Killjoy scientists later proved the "sea monster" and many other similar "creatures" were just badly decomposed part of a whale's corpse, putting the brakes on what might have become a promising tourism industry in western Tasmania.
TERRIFYINGLY HUGE EYEBALLS
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Sometimes we don't even get the entire sea monster washing up on the beach, sometimes we just get pieces of them that prove the rest of the sea monster is too big and scary to even think about. In October 2012, Gino Covacci was walking on a Fort Lauderdale beach (possibly trying to escape a bobcat) and stumbled across an eyeball the size of a Domino's Pasta BreadBowl. Much like you would if you stumbled across a Domino's Pasta BreadBowl, Covacci immediately wrapped the eye in plastic and called the police. Scientists determined that the eye came from a swordfish weighing roughly 1400 pounds, and even today Mr. Covacci lives in fear that one day that swordfish will come back looking for his missing eyeball.
REAL ACTUAL COMPLETE GIANT DAMN SQUIDS
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Thirty terrifying feet of a giant squid might be something you came across if you were strolling along a Spanish beach in 2001. At least five giant squids washed ashore on the Spanish coast in 2001 and 2003, during the same time that survey boats were studying the ocean floor with a series of sonic blasts. Scientists soon put two and two together, but to make sure it was the sonic blasts that were doing it, they gathered some 200 regular-size squids and blasted them with 160 decibel sounds then chopped them up to see if that messed them up at all. Researchers proved beyond a doubt squids hate deadly sonic blasts, but may have forgotten three important facts: 1) squids are among the most intelligent invertebrates alive, 2) the largest known squid specimen is some ninety feet long and weighs over a ton, and 3) they just killed two hundred of these squids' adorable baby cousins.
LAME SHARKS, CAUGHT BY RAD BOBCATS
Among all the other weird stuff going on in Florida, a bobcat catching a shark wouldn't normally rate much notice, but thanks to photographer John Bailey we got amazing photo evidence of the least likely battle between predators ever conceived. Florida's Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission declared the photo entirely probable and believable, saying that bobcats were known for hunting anything they could catch and that the shark was known to inhabit shallow waters. Come to Florida, where running away from a gigantic bobcat will only expose you to vicious shark attacks!
GIANT LEGO MEN
Four different times on four different beaches, spanning the world from the Netherlands to Japan, eight-foot tall Lego figures have washed ashore bearing a sinister grin and the mysterious t-shirt message NO REAL THAN YOU ARE. Is this the work of ancient aliens? Probably yes, but it's also maybe the work of pseudonymous Dutch artist Ego Leonard, who specializes in giant Lego figures, is not very good at English, and in some cases had his name and website spelled out on the back of these figures. The smart money is still on ancient aliens.
ANCIENT GREEK COMPUTERS
In 1901, an archaeological expedition to the Greek island of Antikythera pulled a random chunk of rusty garbage that happened to look like a gear out of a ship that wrecked 200 years before Christ. After seventy years of archaeologists looking at that rusty garbage and thinking "boy, that sure looks like something," x-ray analysis proved that it was in fact an analog computer of a level of sophistication that wouldn't be matched until at least the 14th century. The Antikythera Mechanism ended up revolutionizing our understanding of ancient Greek science and technology, and modern reproductions show that the device functioned perfectly according to existing Greek mathematics and astronomy.
SNACKS! AWESOME!
What's the best way to motivate people to clean up the beach? Try kicking a cargo container full of delicious airtight Doritos off a freighter and having the still-sealed bags wash ashore. Citizens of Hatteras Island in North Carolina displayed a heroic commitment to the environment after a still-unidentified cargo container came ashore leaking thousands of Cool Ranch, Spicy, and Original Nacho bags intended for overseas. Were these Dorito cleanup crews lucky or unlucky that the container wasn't bound for Japan and thus loaded with Asian-exclusive flavors like Wasabi Mayonnaise, Winter Crab, and Italian Seafood?
DESIGNER FOOTWEAR
Ever wonder how Nike can get away with charging $500 for shoes that feel like wearing snow tires? Next time, try wearing a cheaper brand of shoe after it's been floating in the ocean for three years. Of the surprising number of running shoes that have been lost at sea, the most famous was a load of Nikes that fell off the boat off the coast of Northeast Canada in 1990 and were still showing up in wearable condition on Asian shores in 1994. Spills of shoes are so frequent, and shoes so buoyant and durable that scientists often use them to track ocean currents.
DESIGNER FOOTWEAR CONTAINING FEET
On the other hand, maybe don't jam that soggy Air Jordan onto your foot just yet, especially if you live in British Columbia. Over the years, there have been ten cases of single sneakers washing up on Canadian beaches with nasty surprises inside, and theories ran wild as to their source. A foot-obsessed serial killer? Shipwreck victims? And considering that some of the shoes seemed to be ones only sold in Asia, is it possible these grisly surprises floated all the way across the ocean? Eventually, all but one foot was traced to local missing persons and suicide cases, and police decided that foul play wasn't necessarily involved: a corpse in the ocean tends to lose things like feet and limbs after a while.
MONTAUK MONSTER
When confronted with such a hideous creature as that which washed ashore near Montauk, New York, scientists have only one question: is that a raccoon? Despite local rumors suggesting the Montauk Monster escaped from the nearby Plum Island Animal Disease Center, scientists soon identified the creature as a raccoon that was missing its upper jaw and generally having a pretty rough time of it. While a few researchers insist that it was either a diseased coyote or just a composite fake of other animals, local citizens know only one thing: it was delicious.
GLOBSTERS
The Montauk Monster was far from the first terrifying creature that washed up on the shore and turned out to be just a regular gross dead thing. The term "globster" was coined after a ten-ton six-armed eyeless hairy glob-monster washed ashore in western Tasmania, sparking international interest in what seemed like the newest and most horrifying animal from a part of the world already rich in horrifying animals. Killjoy scientists later proved the "sea monster" and many other similar "creatures" were just badly decomposed part of a whale's corpse, putting the brakes on what might have become a promising tourism industry in western Tasmania.
TERRIFYINGLY HUGE EYEBALLS
Sometimes we don't even get the entire sea monster washing up on the beach, sometimes we just get pieces of them that prove the rest of the sea monster is too big and scary to even think about. In October 2012, Gino Covacci was walking on a Fort Lauderdale beach (possibly trying to escape a bobcat) and stumbled across an eyeball the size of a Domino's Pasta BreadBowl. Much like you would if you stumbled across a Domino's Pasta BreadBowl, Covacci immediately wrapped the eye in plastic and called the police. Scientists determined that the eye came from a swordfish weighing roughly 1400 pounds, and even today Mr. Covacci lives in fear that one day that swordfish will come back looking for his missing eyeball.
REAL ACTUAL COMPLETE GIANT DAMN SQUIDS
Thirty terrifying feet of a giant squid might be something you came across if you were strolling along a Spanish beach in 2001. At least five giant squids washed ashore on the Spanish coast in 2001 and 2003, during the same time that survey boats were studying the ocean floor with a series of sonic blasts. Scientists soon put two and two together, but to make sure it was the sonic blasts that were doing it, they gathered some 200 regular-size squids and blasted them with 160 decibel sounds then chopped them up to see if that messed them up at all. Researchers proved beyond a doubt squids hate deadly sonic blasts, but may have forgotten three important facts: 1) squids are among the most intelligent invertebrates alive, 2) the largest known squid specimen is some ninety feet long and weighs over a ton, and 3) they just killed two hundred of these squids' adorable baby cousins.