Residents and authorities in Western Australia are perplexed by the appearance of a massive metal cylinder that washed ashore on a local beach.
According to The Independent, the object was first noticed by locals near Green Head on July 16. Concerned citizens promptly alerted the Western Australia police, who cautioned beach visitors to steer clear of the potentially hazardous item.
“We want to reassure the community that we are actively engaged in a collaborative effort with various state and federal agencies to determine the object’s origin and nature,” WA police said. “The object is being treated as hazardous until the origin of it can be established. People in the area should keep a safe distance.”
As of now, authorities have refrained from providing any explanations or hypotheses regarding the object’s origins. They have only stated that they do not suspect it to be from a commercial aircraft. Police have also advised against jumping to conclusions until their investigation is complete.
Despite official silence, speculation runs rampant about the origins of the object. Some rumors tie it to the vanished Malaysian MH370 flight, while others entertain theories involving UFOs.
Reported by the ABC, authorities have concluded that the object is harmless and does not present any danger to the local population.
The Australian Space Agency has joined efforts to identify the mysterious object. In a tweet, they suggested it “could be from a foreign space launch vehicle.”
Green Head local Garth Griffiths explained that “a local lady and her partner discovered it just floating on the edge of the water and dragged it out with their four-wheel drive.”
Described by Griffiths as a “semi-cylindrical object made of light carbon fibre material like lightweight resin.” The object is encrusted with barnacles and measures approximately eight feet in diameter and eight to 10 feet in length.
Under police supervision since 8:00 a.m. Monday, the object attracted the attention of numerous locals the previous night, as noted by Griffiths.
“It was a great social evening. It was a lovely, still night, the kids were digging sand castles around it,” he said. “At any stage, there could have been 20 to 30 people there.”
Experts speculate that the object might be a component of India’s moon satellite launch, potentially the fuel tank from the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket. The most recent successful PSLV mission occurred in April 2023.
“When a rocket launches, there’s usually multiple stages and often the first few parts separate before entering orbit, so if it is space junk, it is from the early parts of a rocket launch as there’s no evidence of the scorching patterns you would see on things that have re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere,” Australian National University astrophysicist Brad Tucker said.
Just three weeks prior to this discovery, another enigmatic object was spotted floating near North Beach in Perth in June.
In that incident, personnel from the Australian Defense Force were called in to deal with the missile-shaped object. It turned out to be a marker marine flare, a device used by sea vessels for distress signaling.
Despite uncertainties surrounding the cylinder’s source, experts express little surprise at the public’s keen interest.
“It is very interesting though,” Alice Gorman, an expert in the field of space archaeology, told The Guardian, saying the object “is a way regular everyday people can get close to space, as often these things turn into souvenirs. People like to keep some space junk.”
Gorman also commended the police for their precautionary measures in keeping the public at a distance from the object, expressing concerns that it might have contained hazardous materials.
“A lot of rocket fuel is actually quite toxic, even though this one’s been around for a while, and clearly it hasn’t killed off any of the things growing on it, that precaution is justified — a lot of rocket fuels are not very friendly to living things,” she said.
Nevertheless, the peculiar object continues to captivate locals such as Griffiths, who approached the situation with a light-hearted demeanor.
“Our shire might need to bill Boeing or Lockheed or someone for dropping space junk on our beach,” he said.
