Did A Ship From 1700s Wash Up On St. Augustine, Florida Shore? Fact Checking Viral Claims

A rumor circulated in October 2024 claimed that a ghost ship from the 1700s washed ashore near St. Augustine, Florida. This alleged event occurred in the aftermath of Hurricane Milton, which made landfall on October 9, 2024. Posts on social media, including a notable one by the Facebook page Casper Planet, featured an image of an old wooden ship stranded on a sandbar. The post garnered significant attention, claiming a fully intact 1700s ghost ship emerged from the ocean.However, the photo was NOT of any ghost ship from 1700s, but rather a prop used in one of Disney's best movies all of time.

Origins of the RumorThe picture was uploaded on October 16, 2024, by Casper Planet with the description, "1700s Ghost Ship Washes Ashore in Florida After Hurricane Milton." The article explained the ship's enigmatic look as it was said to have surfaced from the ocean's depths. Locals and experts were perplexed by the historic vessel's unexpected arrival as the Category 4 storm pounded the Atlantic.

In a short amount of time, the post received 1,700 comments and 2,200 replies. A lot of users voiced doubt about the assertions. Reactions varied from doubting the picture's veracity to expressing complete incredulity. "Yeah... that absolutely isn't the water in nor near St Aug," a commentator said. "Is this really real or an AI generated post?" another person asked. Although the myth went widespread, reliable reports verified that no ship of the kind washed up at St. Augustine after Hurricane Milton. On October 18, 2024, a Google search for "St. Augustine ghost ship after Milton" produced just a refuting the theory, but no other pertinent results. Image IdentificationAfter more research, it was discovered that the post's image included the Flying Dutchman, a prop ship from Disney's "Pirates of the Caribbean" series. The ship made its debut in the 2006 motion picture "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," the second installment in the franchise. From 2006 until 2010, the Flying Dutchman was on exhibit off the shore of Castaway Cay, a private island in the Bahamas, according to several Disney fan blogs. This identity was confirmed via reverse image searches using TinEye and Google Images. When contrasted with other internet images and films, it was clear how similar the ship in the Casper Planet article was to the Flying Dutchman. Pictures of the ship that were shot between 2006 and 2010 were widely displayed on websites like YouTube, Flickr, and TripAdvisor. Source CredibilityCasper Planet is known for producing humorous and satirical content. The page's Info section states: "Delivering the Snews that doesn't matter directly to your Snews feed. Did we say this is satire? Satire, satire, humor, satire and opinion; names and locations are made up." It is made clear by this warning that the entries are not meant to be taken as true news. It has already been established that Casper Planet's material is satirical. The website has previously made outlandish claims, such a picture purporting to show Mickey Mouse dropkicking a kid at Disneyland. For humorous effect, these stories usually rely on made-up or exaggerated elements. ConclusionThe satirical Facebook post that started the ghost ship rumor was the source of its disinformation and social media conjecture. The story that a ghost ship from the 1700s washed up at St. Augustine during Hurricane Milton is unsupported by any evidence. Instead of a real ship from the eighteenth century, the image at the core of the debate featured a well-known prop ship, the Flying Dutchman, from The Pirates Of The Caribbean.