In late October 2016, the residents of the tiny Bahamas island of Man-O-War Cay found a mysterious object had washed up on their beach.
Taller than a person, conical in shape with a large spike at the end, it looked unmistakably like some sort of missile. “People were curious of course, the kids were excited to see something so large on the beach,” local resident Mailin Sands said.
It had washed up right in front of the holiday home of Prof Janine Maddock, who was back in the US at the time and spied it from a CCTV camera at the top of her house. “I got an email from a local person – saying look what’s rushed up in front of our beach,” she said.
From pictures she was sent, Prof Maddock identified it as the nose cap section of a Trident II D5 missile. She told the story after hearing the news of a reported misfire of a UK Trident missile last June.
Prof Maddock initially thought it may have come from the UK missile, although the US Navy confirmed the object had come from one of their tests.