2024-10-19 10:00:03
On Wednesday, rumors began swirling online about a “1700s ghost ship” that washed ashore near St. Augustine in the aftermath of Hurricane Milton.
Never mind that Hurricane Milton made landfall on Oct. 9, exactly a week before the alleged ghost ship sighting, and paying no heed to the fact that Milton made landfall on the opposite side of the state, the story managed to creep its way across social media platforms.
With more than 21,000 shares on the original post, it was clear that people had, once again, taken a bite of the apple only to realize it was an onion − the satirical kind, just to be clear.
While the claim is certainly a timely one with Halloween just around the corner, the unfortunate reality is that the source of the story, Casper Planet, is a Facebook page that writes fun (and completely fake) news stories in the same vein as The Onion.
In a follow-up “story” posted to its page Friday morning titled “Tourists Outraged After Discovering Non Existent 1700s Pirate Ship in Florida ‘Wasn’t Real’ All Along,” the page continued its fun with the story.
“Shockwaves rippled through the tourist community this week as visitors to Florida’s famed beach where the ‘legendary’ 1700s pirate ship washed ashore after Hurricane Milton discovered an inconvenient truth: the ship doesn’t exist,” read the post.
Augustine’s ‘1700s ghost ship’ may not be real, but it’s still a fun story
According to Casper Planet’s post, the ghost ship “emerged from the ocean’s depths as the Category 4 storm [Hurricane Milton] churned the Atlantic, sending the ancient ship onto the beach.”
The Gulf of Mexico is technically part of the Atlantic Ocean, but Hurricane Milton made landfall as a Category 3 storm near Siesta Key, which is on Florida’s central west coast.
Its path essentially bisected Florida as it cut across the peninsula, traveling east as it left Florida’s eastern coast as a minor hurricane near Brevard and Indian River counties, which is roughly 120 miles from the northernmost part of the area.
The satirical story used a fake quote from a made-up marine archaeologist to add to the story’s legitimacy.
“’This is unprecedented. To see a ship this old, in such good condition, simply appear out of the ocean during a hurricane − it’s both fascinating and chilling,’” said the completely fictional Dr. Andrew Clarke.
Real maritime archaeologist sheds light on why ‘1700s ghost ships’ aren’t a thing in Florida
NBC affiliate First Coast News spoke with Chuck Meide, the director of the Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program at the St. Augustine Lighthouse & Museum, who further debunked the story by shedding some light on what happens to most shipwrecks.
His first issue with the story was the ship’s depiction. While it appeared beaten and battered, it was still intact. Most of the wood from a ship hundreds of years old would have been eaten by “critters like ship worms.”
In the cases where some of the ship does survive, the lower part of the ship is typically the only thing to remain as it gets buried beneath the seafloor.
Hurricanes do occasionally cause ‘ghost ships’ to wash ashore
The plausibility of a hurricane causing a ghost ship to wash ashore is actually rooted in reality.
A 45-foot “ghost ship” washed ashore in Pensacola Beach on June 18 as Tropical Storm Alberto was brewing in the Gulf of Mexico. The boat, named Lady Catherine III, was battered, but no one was onboard, according to Weather.com.
It was eventually found out that the boat belonged to a Texas man, Michael Barlow, who had to abandon the ship earlier that month after running into the storm.
In 2017, another 45-foot sailboat called Cuki broke loose from her anchorage in Key West during Hurricane Irma. The boat floated more than 300 miles up Florida’s eastern coast before it ran ashore at Spessard Holland South Beach Park, according to USA Today.
The boat remained at Spessard Holland South Beach Park for two years before it was demolished. Its owner, Key West resident Jeffrey Sundwall, is imprisoned at the Jackson Correctional Institute in Malone, Florida. He was sentenced last July for sexual battery, cocaine possession, attempted obstruction of a criminal investigation and 20 counts of possession of child pornography.
