Seashells, seaweed and the odd piece of driftwood are all standard seaside finds. But a Jeep, an unexploded bomb, hundreds of plastic eggs or a fleet of brand-new motorbikes? That’s a different story. From the bizarre to the downright baffling, beaches around the world have played host to some truly unexpected wash-ups.
Ready to see what the tide brought in? Click through this gallery for weird things found on beaches around the world...
In December 2025, vast quantities of bananas started washing up on beaches along the West Sussex coast after shipping containers – mostly filled with the fruit – fell off a cargo ship near the Isle of Wight. Of the containers that fell overboard eight carried bananas, two were filled with avocados and one contained plantain, while several others were empty.
To date, seven containers have washed up in Selsey, two at Pagham Harbour and two at Bognor Regis. The rest remain unaccounted for and the coastguard is using aircraft to scan the area in order to find them.
Sydney’s Northern Beaches were left baffled in January 2025 when white and grey balls washed ashore, forcing nine beach closures. Tests found hydrocarbons, fatty acids and E coli, later linked to soap scum, cosmetics and traces of pharmaceuticals and animal waste.
The source remains unknown, with possible culprits including sewage leaks, stormwater runoff and maritime pollution. While the beaches have reopened, the investigation continues – so locals might want to watch their step before taking a dip.
Looking like something from another planet, this bizarre sea creature washed up on Step Beach in Fairhaven, Australia, in January 2024. The person who found it shared photos in the Field Naturalists Club of Victoria Facebook group, hoping to solve the mystery.
Experts suggested it was likely a sea tulip – a strange marine organism with a bumpy, sponge-like surface. These creatures grow in a variety of colours and typically live at depths of up to 262 feet (80m), anchored to rocks by a long stalk, much like an underwater flower.
In October 2023, this brightly coloured and beguiling creature was discovered on the sand at Porth Dafarch beach, Anglesey. Discovered by dog walkers, it may look pretty, but this sea creature is in fact deadly.
It's a Portuguese Man o'War, a type of jellyfish with tentacles that carry venom-filled sacs used to paralyse fish and other marine creatures. Although rare, experts say increasing numbers of exotic organisms like this could appear along the British coast due to rising sea temperatures.
Before the pandemic, many of Hong Kong’s 7.4 million residents were already used to wearing face masks due to pollution and health concerns. But when COVID-19 hit, mask usage surged – and so did the number of discarded masks washing up on Hong Kong’s beaches.
Since surgical masks are made from polypropylene, a plastic that breaks down very slowly, environmentalists have raised concerns about the threat to marine life.
Unfortunately Hong Kong isn't the only place where disposable face masks have been discovered. This photo shows a beach in California. According to local organisation Heal the Bay, face masks and PPE washed up on a number of California beaches after a storm in December 2020.
Sydney's normally scenic Collaroy Beach was closed to the public during 2018 after a huge build-up of kelp on the shore. The smelly mass formed a potentially dangerous 'seaweed wall' that was nearly seven feet (2.1m) tall.
During the icy depths of winter, Lake Michigan becomes the stage for a rare natural phenomenon – perfectly shaped ice balls floating in the water and piling up along the shoreline.
The frozen orbs form when chunks break off from larger ice sheets and are worn smooth by the waves. One of the most dramatic occurrences took place in January 2017, when thousands of these icy spheres accumulated on the beach at Port Sheldon, Michigan.
Marooned jellyfish are a common sight on beaches around the world. But in May 2017 mega swarms of the creatures, including the large barrel jellyfish, covered beaches in Wales and other parts of the UK.
The unusually high numbers were due to warm weather increasing plankton and drawing the gelatinous creatures inshore. In Queensland, Australia, a beach was described as looking like 'bubble wrap', when masses of blue blubber jellyfish carpeted the sands.
Children on Germany's North Sea island Langeoog thought the Easter bunny had come early in January 2017, when thousands of colourful plastic eggs floated onto its sandy beaches.
The eggs, which contained little toys, had washed ashore from a Danish freight container that had lost its contents in stormy weather. Locals, including children and tourists, congregated to help with the clear up.
Queenslanders are no strangers to bizarre beach phenomena, and sea foam is one of the most striking. This thick, soap-like froth often blankets the shoreline after storms, forming when dissolved organic matter in the ocean is churned up by powerful waves.
In March 2017, Cyclone Debbie created a spectacular display, with beaches closing as massive walls of white foam rolled in. In some towns, strong winds lifted the froth into the air, making it look as though it was snowing along the coast – a rare and surreal sight in the tropics.
Morning walkers were greeted with a curious sight in August 2017 when vast sections of a plastic pipe were washed up on the sands between Winterton-on-Sea and Sea Palling in Norfolk. The pipes, which reached lengths of up to 1,570 feet (478.5m) and had an 8-foot (2.4m) diameter, had come loose from Norwegian tugs bound for Algeria, following an accident with an Icelandic container ship.
Cyclone Debbie left a trail of destruction along the Queensland coast, battering homes and infrastructure with fierce winds and torrential rain. The storm ripped boats from their moorings, smashing them against rocks before they were swept ashore, leaving harbours littered with wreckage.
The powerful winds also uprooted massive trees, sending them crashing onto roads and beaches. Entire door frames, roofing sheets, and debris from buildings were lifted and hurled across the coastline, turning once-pristine beaches into chaotic wrecking yards.
A large red buoy was spotted lying on its side on a stretch of shore between South Forest and Coligny beaches on the island of Hilton Head, South Carolina, in September 2017. The US Coast Guard buoy was washed ashore during Tropical Storm Irma – it was later identified as Buoy No. 8 and had been carried about eight nautical miles (15km) to the beach by strong waves.
Hundreds flocked to Muriwai Beach near Auckland to catch a glimpse of this strange-looking object that washed up in December 2016. Nicknamed the Muriwai Monster, the mysterious find had locals buzzing until experts from the New Zealand Marine Sciences Society weighed in.
Their verdict? Likely just a hefty piece of driftwood encrusted with gooseneck barnacles. Not quite sci-fi, but still a fascinating reminder of the ocean’s ability to turn the ordinary into something extraordinary.
It's not just the ocean that reveals surprising finds – rivers can too. In August 2015, a megalodon tooth was discovered on the shores of the Kupa River near Pokupsko, about 37 miles (60km) from Zagreb, Croatia.
The megalodon, an ancient shark that lived 23 to 3.6 million years ago, is believed to have grown up to 59 feet (18m) long, making it one of the largest and most powerful predators in history.
The pristine white sands of Ao Prao Beach on Thailand’s Koh Samet were tainted by crude oil in 2013, after a faulty transfer between a tanker and a seabed pipeline spilled 50,000 litres offshore.
The spill left behind a thick film of oil on the beach, while a sizable slick floated just off the shoreline. A massive clean-up operation was launched, with soldiers and volunteers working to remove the hazardous waste and restore the popular beach.
In January 2012, Waihi Beach in New Zealand became an unexpected dumping ground for thousands of milk powder bags – washed ashore in the wake of a maritime disaster.
The culprit turned out to be The Rena, a cargo ship that struck an offshore reef in 2011, spilling 350 tonnes of oil and as many as 300 shipping containers into the sea. The wreck became one of New Zealand’s worst environmental disasters, leaving behind a surreal scene of scattered cargo along the coastline.
In 2011, a grand piano mysteriously appeared on a sandbar in Biscayne Bay, Miami, baffling locals and authorities. Speculation ran wild, but the mystery was solved when student Nicholas Harrington admitted to placing it there as part of a creative project.
While the authorities initially debated whether to remove it, they eventually left it in place, as it posed no environmental risk. For weeks, the weathered instrument became a viral sensation, attracting curious visitors and photographers before nature finally reclaimed it.
The devastating impact of an oil spill lingers for years, affecting both the environment and local communities. Pictured here are tar balls – sticky clumps of oil, sand and shells – washed up on Gulf Shores, Alabama, in 2010, following the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
Even years later, the spill’s effects resurfaced. In 2012, Hurricane Isaac churned up the seafloor, sending tar balls back onto the shores of Alabama and Louisiana, including Elmer’s Island.
In 2009, a rusted aerial bomb surfaced on a beach in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts – a stark reminder of the island’s wartime past. The area was a training ground for World War II pilots, and remnants of their exercises still emerge decades later.
In June 2017, another discovery made headlines – a 100lb (45kg) photo flash bomb, adding to the eerie collection of long-buried military relics hidden beneath the sands.
In January 2008, Dorset’s beaches were littered with heavy timber after the MV Ice Prince, a 328-foot (100m) Greek-registered cargo ship, sank in the English Channel. The vessel lost over 2,000 tonnes of its 5,260-tonne cargo before sinking, sending vast amounts of wood drifting toward the shore.
Worthing Beach was temporarily closed as heavy machinery was brought in to clear the debris, but not before opportunistic locals waded into the waves to salvage pieces for themselves.
In 2008, two World War II mines were discovered on Lusty Glaze Beach near Newquay, Cornwall, creating quite a stir among locals and visitors.
The rusted explosives were spotted at low tide, wedged between rocks, likely having been buried for decades before finally being revealed by shifting sands. Authorities quickly secured the area, and bomb disposal experts were called in to assess and safely remove the wartime relics.
In January 2007, Branscombe Beach, a stretch of shingle along the Jurassic Coast in Devon, became the site of a modern-day treasure hunt after the MSC Napoli, a 62,000-tonne container ship, was damaged in a storm and deliberately run aground.
Rough seas sent shipping containers spilling into the water, washing BMW motorbikes, car parts, wine barrels and beauty products ashore. Despite warnings from authorities, people flocked to the beach with vans and wheelbarrows to claim whatever they could before officials sealed off the area.
In July 2007, a World War II-era aircraft resurfaced on a Welsh beach, more than 60 years after crashing off the coast in 1942. Known as the Maid of Harlech, the plane went down during a training exercise when its engines failed, sending it into the sea. Remarkably, the pilot escaped unharmed, leaving the aircraft buried beneath the sand until shifting tides revealed its wreckage decades later.
The low tides on Morecambe Bay at Bolton-Le-Sands in England revealed a car wreckage, believed to be a Jeep Cherokee. The vehicle has become a local mystery, with many stories and theories explaining how it ended up stranded at the beach. Some say it is the abandoned Jeep of cocklers that tragically drowned close by in 2004, while other theories claim that the car has been lost since the 1980s.
In 1992, a shipping container carrying nearly 29,000 rubber ducks was lost at sea during a storm in the North Pacific Ocean. Ever since, these hardy little toys have been turning up on beaches worldwide, from Hawaii and Alaska to the UK and Australia. Their decades-long journey has fascinated oceanographers, who have used their movements to study ocean currents, wind patterns and plastic pollution.
During the 1980s, novelty plastic phones in the shape of the infamous lasagne-eating cartoon cat Garfield began appearing on beaches in Brittany. The mystery wasn't solved until March 2019, however, when a shipping container filled with the devices – washed up during a storm some 30 years before – was found in a sea cave.
The rusting wreck of the MV Panagiotis, stranded on the shores of this Greek island since October 1980, has long captivated curious visitors. Now a permanent fixture on the northwest coast, the skeletal remains of the ship draws thousands of tourists each year.
How the Panagiotis met its fate remains a topic of debate. One widely believed theory suggests it was a smuggling vessel, abandoned by its crew while fleeing the Greek Navy during a chase from Albania to Piraeus.
In the 1970s, the Osborne Reef off Fort Lauderdale, Florida, was created by dumping over two million tires into the ocean, hoping to form an artificial reef. Instead, the bindings eroded, and loose tires drifted, damaging natural coral rather than fostering marine life.
For decades, these rogue tires have been washing up on Florida’s beaches and even appearing as far away as the Carolinas and the Gulf of Mexico. Large-scale clean-up efforts began in the 2000s, with divers and military teams working to remove the tires, but the process has been slow and costly.
K'gari (formerly Fraser Island), off Queensland's coast, has a long history of shipwrecks, but the most famous is the SS Maheno, which ran aground in July 1935. Built in 1905, the Maheno operated between Sydney and Auckland before serving as a World War I hospital ship in Europe.
Decommissioned and sold for scrap, it was being towed to Japan when a cyclone snapped its tow chain, leaving it adrift until it crashed onto K'gari's shore. Today, its rusting remains stand as an eerie landmark, slowly disappearing into the island’s sands.
Fossilised woolly mammoth teeth occasionally wash up on beaches, providing a rare glimpse into the prehistoric world. At Zandmotor Beach in the Netherlands, these ancient molars have been found alongside other Ice Age relics, evidence that mammoths once roamed areas now buried beneath the sea.
Similar discoveries have been made in Alaska, Florida and the UK, where shifting tides and erosion have revealed mammoth teeth dating back over 100,000 years.
The empty egg cases of sharks often get washed up on UK beaches and can be found among the seaweed. Known as 'mermaid's purses', the tough, leathery-looking cases protect the embryo of sharks, skate and rays. Each one contains a single embryo. This specimen belongs to a catshark, also known as dogfish.
The remote beaches of Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic, have a stark and strange beauty – especially when whale bones lie scattered along the shore. These bleached remains occasionally wash up in the area, providing an easy meal for polar bears, Arctic foxes and scavenging birds.
While the sight may seem eerie, it’s a natural part of the ecosystem. In this harsh environment, every resource is used, and even a drifting carcass can sustain wildlife for weeks.
Known as egagropila, these strange hairy spheres are the remains of Posidonia australis, a seagrass also known as Neptune Grass that grows in large meadows around Australia's southern coast.
The fibrous remains of the foliage can often wash up on seashores in large round clumps, especially after stormy weather. Egagropila from Posidonia oceania, a species endemic to the Mediterranean, can also be found on beaches around Europe.
If you take a stroll along the beaches of the Cook Islands, you might find yourself surrounded by an unexpected sight – sea cucumbers. These slug-like creatures, often scattered across the shoreline, may not win any beauty contests, but they play a crucial role in the marine ecosystem.
Much like earthworms, they filter and clean the ocean floor, helping to maintain a healthy environment. The Cook Islands are home to around 14 species of sea cucumbers, some prized for their culinary value and others harvested for their medicinal properties.
These corkscrew-shaped egg cases, found washed up on beaches in Western Australia, likely belong to a Port Jackson shark. Their distinctive ridged design isn’t just for show – it helps secure them in rocky crevices, preventing them from drifting away or falling prey to predators.
Inside, a baby shark develops over six to 10 months before hatching and swimming off into the ocean. Once emptied, these spiral egg cases can be carried by the currents and occasionally end up on the shore.
A bunker on a beach isn’t something you expect to stumble across, but thanks to coastal erosion, that’s exactly what you’ll find on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent. These World War II concrete bunkers, once part of Britain’s coastal defences, have been slowly displaced as the island’s cliffs crumble into the sea.
Sheppey has lost around a third of its landmass since Roman times, and shifting landscapes have left these wartime relics stranded in odd places. The Warden Point Battery, for example, now sits at an unnatural angle, looking like it was dropped onto the beach from above.
This striking black-sand beach in Iceland becomes even more beautiful when huge hunks of sparkling ice are strewn across it. Known as Diamond Beach, it's located by the Jökulsárlón glacial lagoon in southeast Iceland.
Ice chunks from Vatnajökull, Europe's largest glacier, are regularly washed out to sea, polished by the waves and deposited on the beach where they glisten like diamonds. The ice pieces could be thousands of years old.
Unfortunately, washed-up plastic on beaches is far from a strange sight – but a bizarrely large number of worn toothbrushes were found at Genesta Bay in Queensland's Whitsunday Islands. These were collected by a skipper at eco-resort The Whitsunday Wilderness Lodge as part of its clean-up excursions.