TIME CAPSULE ARCHIVE · 2026-10-31
A bathtub fleet takes the long way round
A North Pacific cargo accident on 10 January 1992 released thousands of plastic bath toys. Their subsequent discovery on beaches gave oceanographers an unusual source of evidence about surface currents and the movement of floating debris.
The story behind the mystery
The passengers were bath toys! On 10 January 1992, a storm in the North Pacific sent a container of them overboard. The 28,800-strong cargo included yellow ducks, blue turtles, green frogs and red beavers. This was the Friendly Floatees spill, often remembered as the rubber-duck spill. [Firsthand account](https://www.oceanmotion.org/html/gatheringdata/flotsam.htm). When the toys reached Alaska, beachcombers' discoveries became evidence for oceanographers Curtis Ebbesmeyer and James Ingraham, helping them refine models of surface currents. A toy intended for a tiny bathtub had become a tracer in an enormous ocean. [Science Museum collection](https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co8063309/the-first-years-friendly-floatee-plastic-duck-1990-1992). The wonderfully human epilogue: London's Science Museum appealed on Sitka community websites for a duck and acquired toys in 2005. For their next long journey, the museum sensibly chose a box and an aeroplane. [Museum acquisition account](https://blog.sciencemuseum.org.uk/a-quacking-tale/).
How the world solved it
2 solved this capsule. 3 completed games; 67% success.
- 1 attempt: 0 solved
- 2 attempts: 2 solved
- 3 attempts: 0 solved
- 4 attempts: 0 solved
- Unsolved: 1
The soundtrack
Scott Buckley — Adrift Among Infinite Stars. A later, thematic accompaniment: Scott Buckley’s 2022 piano, synth and strings recording evokes a small object drifting through an immense world. It is not contemporary with the 1992 spill.
Listen on SoundCloud ↗Follow the evidence
- Ebbesmeyer and Ingraham (1994), Pacific toy spill fuels ocean current pathways research — original research
- Curtis C. Ebbesmeyer, Flotsam Oceanography — firsthand account, Ocean Motion
- Science Museum Group: recovered Friendly Floatee plastic duck, object 2005-395
- Alison Boyle, A Quacking Tale — Science Museum
- Ebbesmeyer and colleagues (2007), Tub toys orbit the Pacific subarctic gyre — original research