MYSTERY SOLVED?

Online Sleuths Think They’ve ID’d Baffling Viral Beach Object

The public was warned not to go near the massive metal cylinder when it washed ashore.

Amateur sleuths think they may have found the true identity of a mysterious, massive metal object that washed up on a beach in Australia over the weekend. The cylinder inexplicably appeared on Green Head beach in Western Australia on Sunday, prompting police warnings to the public to avoid going near the unknown artifact while authorities worked to determine its provenance. Now a space archeologist has backed a theory first floated by a Reddit user that the object could be a fuel cylinder from the third stage of India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle after noticing a striking resemblance. “When rockets are launched, the fuel tanks drop off and the fuel is expended and generally fall over the ocean, as this one did,” Dr. Alice Gorman of Flinders University said. “It looks like it has been on the seafloor for some time, becoming a habitat for marine animals like barnacles. A storm probably dislodged it, allowing it to be swept to shore.”