Metal seats found washed up on Jersey Shore beach trigger series of wild theories online
- Matthew Jacob, 27, told DailyMail.com he was in the seaside resort of Margate last Tuesday when he came across the four rusty metal chairs
- The chairs washed up on shore on December 19 and were later retrieved by local police, although it remains unclear at this time where the chairs came from.
- Jacob has been sharing the mystery with his TikTok followers since making the discovery that has racked up more than 12 million views
A row of chairs washed up on a Jersey Shore beach has sparked a series of wild theories.
Matthew Jacob Perry, 27, told DailyMail.com that he was in the seaside resort of Margate last Tuesday when he came across four rusty metal chairs.
He said a storm had passed recently and he was checking out the surf conditions when he found the chairs. After the discovery, he said he immediately looked for more debris in the area and then called police.
Matthew Jacob, a New Jersey actor living in Los Angeles, posted the mysterious discovery on his TikTok and the footage has since gone viral.
It has been that way since his post almost a week ago collected over 12 million views, 1 million likes and over 42,000 comments.
He shared on his TikTok how “shocked” he was when he first discovered the seats: “Did I just find airplane seats from the ocean?”
A close-up of the corroded metal chairs that washed up on the shore of the seaside town of Margate, New Jersey on December 19
Jacob has been sharing the mystery with his TikTok followers since making the discovery that has racked up more than 12 million views
“The last few days have been crazy for me,” Jacob said.
He said it all started when he was in New Jersey, during a break from filming the upcoming movie 'Killing Castro' with Al Pacino.
Jacob looked at the waves and saw what he thought was a tree branch in the distance.
But as he got closer, he discovered they were seats and tried to find more areas along the shoreline.
He told DailyMail.com that he saw “US patents” on the armrests of the seats and now believes the seats came from a flight or from a man-made reef from the 1980s, when materials such as subways and ships were used.
“I put it on TikTok and it just went crazy,” he said.
Wanting to get his followers involved in the mystery, he posted, “I want to hear what you guys think.”
And the response was staggering.
Matthew Jacob, 27, is an actor living in Los Angeles but originally from New Jersey. He will appear in a movie with Al Pacino called 'Killing Castro'
Some suspected they could have come 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 prompted one person to say: 'I was on flight TWA 800 and remember being there' – a reference to the deadly 1996 crash off the coast of Long Island.”
Another said partially. “I'm pretty sure it's the TZB 900.”
While one suggested: 'I'm pretty sure this is a 2011 Kia Soul.'
When police arrived, they picked up the chairs and said they needed to investigate further. They told him it could have come from “a train, bus or some sort of car from a man-made reef years ago.”
Lieutenant Joe Scullion of Margate Police said NJ.com'the seats have been stripped to the metal and there is nothing left of cushions, seat belts or buckles that would indicate they came from a plane crash.'
After some further research, it turned out that decommissioned train car seats are typically stripped down to their metal parts and taken out to sea and dumped to help build artificial reefs.