Seafloor mystery: Cameras vanish from railcars sunk 23 miles off Georgia, state says

Mysteries thrive on the Atlantic Ocean seafloor and somebody or something wants it to stay that way at an artificial reef off Georgia’s coast.

Cameras placed in two subway cars submerged off Ossabaw Island, near Savannah, have vanished, making it impossible for the state to know what played out as the railcars hit the seafloor in December.

The discovery was made Tuesday, July 30, when state divers made their first return to the site, 23 miles from the coast.

“To be clear, we have no idea what happened to the cameras,” Tyler Jones, with the Georgia Coastal Resources Division, told McClatchy News.

“This week was the first opportunity we’ve had to get back to the cars and survey them. We found Tuesday that the cameras were missing. We aren’t sure what happened to them, but it’s possible they broke free of their mountings and got loose in the sea.”

It’s also possible someone took them, he said. Three cameras were mounted in underwater housings — a GoPro, Nikon KeyMission 360 and Insta360.

“The cameras’ footage was going to be used for education and outreach,” Jones said. “We thought it would be a cool (virtual reality) experience to watch the MARTA cars go down from inside.”

An ask for help solving the mystery was posted July 31 on Facebook: “If anyone has seen them, let us know — we promise not to ask about any fishy business,” Coastal Resources Division officials wrote.

The 72-foot-long railcars were pushed from barges on Dec. 22 to be part of a growing artificial reef, the state reports.

They were donated by the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority and stripped of any material deemed hazardous to sea life.

“We expect corals, sponges, and other encrusting organisms to form on the railcars,” state marine biologist Cameron Brinton said in a Dec. 22 news release.

“The relief and structure of the cars will provide a habitat for fish to spawn and find refuge, which can be sparse off Georgia’s coast due to the low-sloping, sandy geology of the near and offshore undersea environment.”

Approximately 1,000 tons of discarded concrete culvert pipe and 200 tons of concrete power poles were also dropped at the site, officials said.

This story was originally published August 2, 2024 at 5:18 AM with the headline "Seafloor mystery: Cameras vanish from railcars sunk 23 miles off Georgia, state says."