Photo: Mustang Island State Park
A "very strange" item from a sunken German ship from World War II washed up on the Texas coast.
A Mustang Island State Park ranger named Eric shared a video on Instagram on Wednesday (May 10) addressing the insane amount of seaweed washing up on the shore. Before the video ended, however, he pointed to something else that washed up — a rubber bale that was on board a German ship in January 1944 during World War II.
"This bale of rubber washed up from a German cargo ship that was sunk in 1944 off the coast of Brazil. It was sunk by America," Eric said as he walked toward the object, which is about the size of an average ottoman. "This is just a bale of rubber for some supply issues that Germany was shipping all over the world, and it washed up here 70-something years later."
These bales have been washing up since 2020, MySanAntonio reports. Padre Island National Seashore shared some footage of these bales washing up on the Texas coast in April 2022, saying they came from a ship called the SS Rio Grande, which also carried tin, copper, cobalt and crude rubber bales. It was spotted by the USS Omaha and USS Jouett and they ultimately opened fire on the ship until it sank. The crew aboard the SS Rio Grande abandoned ship after trying to sink it themselves. All of the cargo wound up on the ocean floor. These bales, which weigh about 200 pounds, likely broke apart and floated to the ocean's surface before getting swept up in the North Brazil Current and making their way along the South and Central American coasts, the Yucatan and now the Gulf of Mexico, the news outlet reports, citing officials with PINS.