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'Metal Starfish' Found Near Rhode Island

Ermintruder

The greatest risk is to risk nothing at all...
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http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2017/08/mysterious-metal-starfish-found-off-coast-of-rhode-island/

Mysterious Metal Starfish Found Off Coast of Rhode Island
Paul Seaburn August 14, 2017
As fans of Lost will attest, it’s not a good idea to lift a hatch, open a strange door or move an odd object without having some idea of what might happen next. That could be the reason why residents and government officials are in no hurry to remove a seemingly unmovable starfish-shaped metallic object foundabout 10 feet offshore at low tide on East Beach in Westerly, Rhode Island.

The story is as strange as the alleged find itself...
 
I remember when this story appeared last year(?). I thought it was mentioned here on FTMB, but I can't find proof that it was ...
 
The presumed answer to that semi--rhetorical question of "is it rusty?" has to be 'no', in the sense that a rusty 'metal starfish' would probably look quite like a conventional starfish

5308db2f-89ef-4d20-81cc-957d246b3dc5-medium36x25_Westerly1.jpg

http://cbs6albany.com/news/offbeat/...m-rhode-island-beach-still-unclear-what-it-is

I thought it was mentioned here on FTMB, but I can't find proof that it was ...

Precisely. I searched FTMB every-which-way, and could find nothing posted about it.

The oddly-offhand reports in the media, and the lack of pictures, makes me skeptical. And interested.

EDIT
This doesn't look even slightly like a biological starfish. This looks like a sand casting of a mechanical wheel-hub (not a meshed gear-face) or the stengthening spars on a bell-cast gearbox exterior.

Why does this somehow seem like a cargo culture encountering technology for the first time, and bio-associating what it sees?
 
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I did some background rummaging online when I first saw this story. Here's what I remember ...

The metal object was consistent with a stand or frame used to hold sensors / instruments for measuring and / or recording data on currents. I recall finding a photo of such a base frame online which was a close match for this object.

I recall there being some ambiguity about which federal agency used such devices. Candidates / suspects included NOAA and USGS. At the time, nobody seemed to want to move the object until and unless they checked with its owners / users.

As I remember it there wasn't much mystery about what the object was, but nobody could explain why such a sensor base had been placed so close to the beach at so shallow a depth.
 
I too noted the potential transgression, but elected to rise above it, in the sure & certain knowledge that there was no possible inference of smut or innuendo from our learnéd colleague, due to his delicate nature and tender disposition.

ps for the avoidance of doubt, @maximus otter , the 'metal starfish' is also unlikely to be a chocolate one, wrapped in silver paper...

pps nor would it be a Mr Patrick Starfish, who comes up on PNC as residing at 120 Conch Street, Bikini Bottom, Pacific Ocean.... although, he does have known associates from the Atlantic
Patrick_Star.png
 
Another photo and some further speculation (google-translated from Bengali) from this Bangladeshi news site:

Viper device

13th August, 017 Sunday, 04:16 PM

New time.com

The mystery has been made about an unknown metallic object on the coast of the Rhode Island of the United States. Recently unknown metallic objects were found to be around 10 feet below the east coast of Westerly. Locals say so, it can be a veneer device.

But the thing that created panic among locals is that it is not always seen or seen. It also runs automatically. Many people saw the unknown metallic object as it swept along with the sound.

Many people who came to swim said that they were made because of the stainless steel made of that item. It also has several metallic legs. Many people saw them from the front because they were tightly installed in the sea.

East Beach Association President Peter Brookman said, he has no idea about the unknown object. That's why he sent a picture of the object to several experts. But they did not get any answers as yet. But a reply from a local researcher from the local University of Rhode Island seems to be reasonable to him.

The researcher said that the object is probably the engineer of the US Army engineer. During the dredging project it can be used to monitor the flow and sediment flow.

But Brooklyn's question is, in that case, the army did work only at local level. Moreover, their activities could be seen at the time of setting up. None of which [rest of paragraph not translated].

Some people say that this object may have a relationship with Time Travel. Because of this, maybe a machine like a bhojabajee disappeared after seeing it.

small20170813101618.jpg
 
More general conjecture (and some specifics) but also a lot more pictures http://www.myrecordjournal.com/Arch...d=1626114324125964_1626121920791871#gallery-3

I feel more than a bit cheated by this story.

Why was this originally touted as being a starfish? It appears to have bolts through its legs...

weswatermystery-ws-081117-04

Brockmann has served as lead detective on the case for much of the summer, trying to determine what the object, with its eight metallic legs capped with concrete, is and where it came from. His work has included consulting with the Stonington harbor master, soliciting information from local fishermen, and talking with oceanography professors at the University of Rhode Island. To date, the best guess is that the object is the base of an acoustic Doppler current profiler, a device used by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and others to monitor currents and sediment flow.

I want a full refund on this one....just what the hell was the original reporter wanting to do??
 

Some people say that this object may have a relationship with Time Travel. Because of this, maybe a machine like a bhojabajee disappeared after seeing it.


Well nobody's seen that bhojabajee since..
 
Well quite.

Tried search-engining it and the best I've come up with is:

Meaning of 'bhojabaji, bhojabidya'
n magic; jugglery, hocus-pocus, conjuring; illusion (saṃsara eka bhojabaji). bhojabajikara n. a juggler, a magician, a cojurer [sic].
 
Also, don't starfish generally have only the five legs / arms?
This is exemplified by Patrick above, who is beyond doubt, the real star of Bikini Bottom.

Any eight-legged starfish would be...an octo-thing. In fact, this damn creature looks in reality to be a highly-inanimate octopod.

a cojurer [sic].
...they're courting disaster. Case dismissed.
 
It appears to have bolts through its legs...

It's not the most elegant engineering is it? Positively Meccano-esque in fact. Presumably the bolts are there so the 'top bit' can be bolted onto the base that's fixed on the sea bed then removed again. So it being some sort of measuring equipment would seem plausible.

Right - it's making sense now.

Yep, sort of...but we'll get to the bottom of the mystery by and by: "softly, softly, catchee bhojabajee", as they say.
 
Patrick Starfish has been living a lie.
Not at all. If he wishes to grow an extra arm at some point in the future, it is nothing that a group of well-adjusted cartoon marine friends couldn't cope with.

Next someone will tell me that Spongebob Squarepants (cf Bob L'éponge in some jurisdictions) is just made of expanded plastic polymer, and isn't really a biological entity from the Poriferae phylum
I must admit, his shape does look a little..unnatural to me. I'd say he has had work done at the very least.:sherlock:
 
For comparison's sake, there's some info, with images, about underwater sediment flow measuring kit here:

Jan15event_crop_curves_500.png
 
Yep: 'Time Travel'? More like 'slime travel', ho ho! *ahem*.

I'd still like to know exactly what the Westerly object(s) is/are, whether to do with silt and sediment or not.
 
For comparison's sake, there's some info, with images, about underwater sediment flow measuring kit here:

View attachment 8902
Umm....that's what could be called a stick-in-the-mud. Well, a metal stake-in-the-sediment. With a tripod base, weighted-down by stones.

I'm going to interpret the circular/square top as sonar reflectors (so, the underwater equivalent of an above-surface positional buoy or obstruction, with its radar corner reflectors). To give cartesian (or even just relative) positional co-ordinates. The small hoop-loops will be for handling/movement via shackles or pins. And the large broken twig is probably an optional extra.

Missing is any vertical graticule, unless it relies upon a presented measuring stick or propophotometric sedimental situationing.

I don't think it could chase you: certainly, not very fast. Even if it was ever possessed by demons, or controlled by alien tractor beams.
 
Umm....that's what could be called a stick-in-the-mud. Well, a metal stake-in-the-sediment. With a tripod base, weighted-down by stones. ...

The photo in post #21 shows a sensor and base that were overturned and partially buried. Here's what the apparatus looks like without the mud and debris ...

AMT_rust_500.jpg

 
I bet you all think Meccano is made in a factory. It actually is born under the sea, swims across the Atlantic, and used to be harvested in a bay off the North Wales coast by trawlers crewed with diddymen. Since membership of the EU, however, giant French ships have seriously reduced the stocks and the Liverpool trade has now ceased.

http://www.meccano.com/?locale=en_UK
 
Also, don't starfish generally have only the five legs / arms?

There are many species of starfish. As a former diver, I have often seen sunstars in British coastal waters and they have many legs. I looked it up today: there are around 1,500 species of starfish. 5 arms is the most common, but different species may have 6, 7, 10, 15, or up to 50 arms.

Back to the original post, my first though on seeing the photo was it was a base or stand for something. In fact, my second thought was the base of an office chair, although the later photos soon disproved this hypothesis.

What is interesting about this story, to me, is not that a stand, typically used in the sea, has been found... in the sea, but the way that it has been reported and the way that people have responded. There was an immediate association with "federal agencies" which immediately led to the hint that it is sinister (because no one trusts "federal agencies"); there were reports of it zooming about like some weird underwater UFO or drone; there was an assumption that it was stainless steel when no one had got close enough to it to analyse it; there were references to "panic" when no one hds been affected, let alone harmed, by it in any way.

These are lessons that all Forteans should take on board. If the discovery of a metal base or stand in the environment where it is typically used (and when the seas are full of junk and detritus) leads to this response, how reliable is any report of something more extraordinary?
 
Yes, it's extraordinary that an object that might arouse curiosity in passers-by has somehow mutated into the star (geddit?) of a newspaper non-story which has continued to evolve in all sorts of strange directions based on...nothing much.

Worth storing in the old memory bank for future reference, for sure.
 
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