A row of seats found washed up on a Jersey Shore beach have triggered a series of wild theories.
Matthew Jacob Perry, 27, told DailyMail.com that he was in the beach town of Margate last Tuesday when he stumbled across four rusty metal seats.
He said a storm had recently passed and he was checking out the surfing conditions when he found the seats. After the find, he said he immediately went searching for more debris nearby, and then called the police.
Matthew Jacob, an actor from New Jersey who lives in Los Angeles, posted the mysterious find to his TikTok and the footage has since gone viral.
Since his post nearly a week ago, it has garnered more than 12 million views, 1 million likes and over 42,000 comments.
He shared on his TikTok how ‘spooked’ he was when he first discovered the seats: ‘Did I just find plane seats from the ocean?’
A close-up of the corroded metal seats that washed up on the shore in the beach town of Margate, New Jersey on December 19
Jacob shared the mystery with his TikTok followers since he made the discovery that has garnered more than 12 million views
‘The last day couple of days has been insane for me,’ Jacob said.
He said it all started when he was in New Jersey on a break from filming the upcoming movie ‘Killing Castro’ with Al Pacino.
Jacob was looking at the waves he saw in the distance what he thought was a tree branch.
But, when he got walked closer he discovered it was seats, and tried to find more parts along the shoreline.
He told DailyMail.com that he saw ‘American patents’ on the arms of the seats and now believes the seats are from a flight or from a man-made reef from 1980 when materials like subway cars and ships were used.
‘I put it on TikTok and things just went crazy’, he said.
He wanted to get his followers involved in the mystery and posted: ‘I want to hear what you guys think.’
And, the response has been staggering.
Matthew Jacob, 27, is an actor who lives in Los Angeles but is originally from New Jersey. He will be appearing in a movie with Al Pacino called ‘Killing Castro’
Some suspected they could be from flight TWA Flight 800 which crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near East Moriches, New York, after exploding 12 minutes after takeoff from John F. Kennedy Airport.
The theory triggered one person to share, ‘I was on flight TWA 800 and remember sitting there’ — a reference to the deadly 1996 crash off the coast of Long Island.’
Another said, in part. ‘I’m pretty sure it’s the TZB 900.’
While someone suggested, ‘I’m pretty sure that’s from a 2011 Kia Soul.’
When cops turned up, they picked up the seats and said they would need to investigate further. They told him it may be from ‘a train, bus or some type of automobile from a man-made reef years ago’.
Lt. Joe Scullion of the Margate police department told NJ.com, ‘the seats are stripped down to the metal with nothing left from cushions, seat belts or buckles that would indicate they came from a plane crash.’
After some further research, it was found that decommissioned railcar seats are typically stripped down to the metal parts and taken out to sea and dumped to help build artificial reefs.