Strangest Things People Have Found Underwater

Publish date: 2024-05-09

War is expensive business, and the last thing that England wanted in World War II was to lose to the Nazis, just because they were strapped for cash. Before the Internet and world-wide banking, that meant silver and gold from the Empire had to be put on a ship and sailed around the world. That's super dangerous when Nazi U-boats are in the waters.

In 1942, the SS City of Cairo sailed from India, with 100 tons of silver to help out the war effort. Shockingly, they decided to sail without escort. To the surprise of absolutely no one, a U-boat found the ship and blew it to pieces. Oddly, the captain of the submarine felt super-bad about it, surfaced his boat, yelled to the survivors in life boats, "sorry for sinking you" and disappeared back under the water. Meanwhile, all those silver coins sunk to the bottom of the ocean.

For decades, $50 million of silver just sat at the bottom of the ocean, with only the fish around to use it. Finally, it was rediscovered (because fish are stingy and don't like to spend money), and the United Kingdom financed a team to grab it, probably with strict orders to take none of the coins for themselves. Upon retrieval, all the money was returned to England, melted down, and sold off. Too bad — if it was us, we probably would have made a Scrooge McDuck-style, coin-filled swimming pool.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7qL7Up56eZpOkunCBk3FubGejqb%2Biusaeqq1lpJ22r7PSZqeep6Chsm6yzq6lnWWlo7Gmvtaaq56qXw%3D%3D