What the Heck Washed Up on a New York Beach

What the heck washed up onto a New York beach and where did it come from? That's the question Sheila Roo and her friend are asking after finding a large piece of machinery.

Roo discovered the machine part washed up onto the shore in Mantauk Sunday. "We've had lots of shipwrecks, some downed planes,and int'l-bound planes fly overhead all the time," she shared on the Facebook group Weird Secondhand Finds That Just Need To Be Shared.

There were lots of guess as to what it is - a ship winch, drill bit, a part off a plane engine or even a flux capacitor.

Derek Jensen doesn't think it came from a plane. "Too much heavy metal on it," he wrote. "It’s probably an anchor windlass, the gear engine that pulls up the anchor. My guess is that it has been there for awhile."

The general consensus is it's an old capstan windlass, including from Chelsea, a marine archaeologist.

It's sad to think it came from something that sunk. Hopefully no one was injured or killed when it went down.

It shows the power of water; to be able to wash something that heavy onto the beach.