PORT ARANSAS, Texas – A vacation to a Texas beach turned into a history lesson for one family who made a smelly discovery.
Amanda Ward told KSAT she and her family were hanging out on Saturday afternoon on Port Aransas Beach between mile markers 7 and 10 when they spotted a mysterious object.
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“We thought it was a rock at first but my mother-in-law said it looked like it had skin on it,” Ward said. “We went close to it and sure enough it had layers and layers of a stretchy tan-colored material wrapped around it. There were barnacles and clams and algae growing on the box as well.”
Ward’s sister-in-law posted the mystery box to TikTok in an effort to figure out what it was.
@maddmaxican Mystery box covered in clams with a horrible stench. #gulfofmexico #texascoast #Port #clams #rubber #mysterybox ♬ Monkeys Spinning Monkeys - Kevin MacLeod & Kevin The Monkey
“We were widely speculating what was in it. Treasure, jewels, maybe even a lost Amazon package,” said Ward. “Finally someone came by with a knife after a bit of a crowd had gathered. We cut right through the middle of the box to find that it was just layers and layers of this rubbery latex-like material.”
It turns out the family had discovered a rubber bale from a sunken WWII-era German warship.
According to a Facebook post from Padre Island National Seashore, the rubber bales started washing up on beaches in Texas and Florida in 2020. Before that, they were mostly seen on beaches in Brazil.
Rubber bales like this one started washing up on Texas and Florida beaches in 2020, but before that, they were washing...
Posted by Padre Island National Seashore on Wednesday, March 30, 2022
“In January 1944, the SS Rio Grande, a German blockade runner, was carrying tin, copper, cobalt and crude rubber bales when she was spotted by the USS Omaha (a cruiser) and USS Jouett (a destroyer) off the coast of Brazil,” the PINS post states. “Realizing that they had been spotted, the crew of the Rio Grande abandoned the ship and its cargo after purposely trying to sink (ie scuttle) it. The Omaha and Jouett fired on the Rio Grande until it sank, sending all its cargo to the ocean bottom where it was resting until recently.”
A Marine Environmental Research report notes that some of the bales that washed up in Brazil were stamped with “Product of French Indochina,” further proof that the bales came from the sunken ship.
“The region was a large producer of rubber, especially during WWII. French Indochina was dominated by the Japanese during WWII, which resulted in cargoes of natural crude rubber being carried by German ships,” the report states.
Ward said the family eventually left the bale where they found it.
“It was over 200 lb and we couldn’t move it off the beach,” Ward said. “Through Tik Tok and our own research, we were able to discover what it was. It may not have been worth anything monetarily, but to us, the experience was so cool and invaluable.”
“Even though it wasn’t a pirate’s treasure or something we still got to touch a piece of history and it was extremely exciting,” said Ward.