Has a 17th century ship washed up on the shores of St. Augustine, Florida? Fact-checking viral claims

The Flying Dutchman from the films

Photo: iStock

In October 2024, a rumor circulated that an 18th-century ghost ship washed ashore near St. Augustine, Florida. This alleged event occurred after Hurricane Milton made landfall on October 9, 2024. Social media posts, including a notable post from the Facebook page Casper Planet, featured an image of an old wooden ship stranded on a sandbar. The post attracted widespread attention and claimed a completely intact 17th-century ghost ship had emerged from the sea.

However, the photo was NOT It's more of a prop that was used in one of the best Disney films of all time.

Origins of the rumor

The image was uploaded on October 16, 2024 by Casper Planet with the description “18th century ghost ship washes ashore in Florida after Hurricane Milton.” The article explained the ship's enigmatic appearance when it was said to have emerged from the depths of the ocean. Locals and experts were stunned by the historic ship's unexpected arrival as the Category 4 storm raged across the Atlantic.

In a short time, the post received 1,700 comments and 2,200 replies. Many users expressed doubts about the claims. Reactions ranged from doubts about the authenticity of the image to complete disbelief. “Yeah…it's absolutely not because of the water in or near St. Aug,” one commenter said. “Is this really real or an AI-generated post?” another person asked.

Image identification

After further research, it was discovered that the post's image was included the Flying Dutchmana prop ship from the Disney series “Pirates of the Caribbean”. The ship made its debut in the 2006 film “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest,” the second installment in the series. According to several Disney fan blogs, the Flying Dutchman was on display off the coast of Castaway Cay, a private island in the Bahamas, from 2006 to 2010.

This identity was confirmed through reverse image searches using TinEye and Google Images. When compared to other internet images and films, it became clear how similar the ship in the Casper Planet article was to the Flying Dutchman. Images of the ship taken between 2006 and 2010 were widely featured on sites such as YouTube, Flickr and TripAdvisor.

Credibility of the source

Casper Planet is known for producing humorous and satirical content. The page's info section states: “Delivering the Snews that don't matter directly to your Snews feed. Did we say this is satire? satire, satire, humor, satire and opinion; Names and places are fictional.” This warning makes it clear that the entries are not to be understood as true news.

It has already been established that the Casper Planet material is satirical. The website has previously made outlandish claims, such as an image of Mickey Mouse dropping a child at Disneyland. To achieve a humorous effect, these stories are usually based on fictional or exaggerated elements.

Diploma

The satirical Facebook post that sparked the ghost ship rumor was the source of disinformation and conjecture on social media. The story that a 17th-century ghost ship washed up in St. Augustine during Hurricane Milton is unsupported by any evidence. Instead of a real 18th-century ship, the focus of the debate was a well-known propeller ship, the Flying Dutchman The Pirates of the Caribbean.