History Main / DerelictGraveyard

Compare GhostShip. See also TheBermudaTriangle and SaharanShipwreck. If the vehicles are awaiting disposal and not just left there, you're DownInTheDumps. If you're looking for a graveyard for ''humans'', chances are you're looking for CreepyCemetery or BigBoosHaunt, although there's certainly room for overlap.

* ''Film/TheDarkSideOfTheMoon'' has one on the moon's surface, of all places, filled with ships from the Age of Sail to the present day.

* ''Anime/{{Transformers}}'':

* The first episode of ''WesternAnimation/MegasXLR'' had Kiva fighting Glorft patrol among the wreckages of Earth Coalition ships from Battle of the Last Stand.

* At the beginning of ''WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaid'', Ariel and Flounder recover objects from a graveyard of sunken ships inhabited by a shark. Later, [[OneWingedAngel the now gigantic]] Ursula creates a whirlpool that exposes several of the damaged ships. Prince Eric boards one of them and uses it to dispatch Ursula.

* As well as numerous fictional depictions as a Derelict Graveyard, the BermudaTriangle and in particular the Sargasso Sea have real-world reputations for being perilous areas littered with the wrecks of ages.
** Although apparently the only reason the Bermuda Triangle accumulates shipwrecks is because so many shipping lanes pass through it. Statistically, it's actually safer than the rest of the ocean.
* Large concentrations of sunken ships can occur in Real Life. Naval battles are one reason (such as "Ironbottom Sound" off Guadalcanal, rumored to be lined with the hulks of so many sunken ships a magnetic compass is useless, as nearly a dozen major naval engagements were fought by the US and Japan in a relatively small strip of water between Guadalcanal and Tulagi in 1942 and 1943, with heavy losses and tremendous loss of life each time), mass scuttlings another, such as when the German High Seas Fleet was [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutter_Sound scuttled at Scapa Flow]] at the end of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI.
* The area off Cape Hatteras in North Carolina is referred to as "The Graveyard of the Atlantic" with good reason, having a remarkably high shipwreck density; partially because of the ever-shifting sandbank known as Diamond Shoals, and partially because of German U-boats during two World Wars.
** Also the hurricanes and other storms which regularly sweep through the area.
** Bikini Atoll was the site of [[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Operation_Crossroads several atomic bomb tests]] involving a "fleet" of derelict ships, many of which now lie in shallow waters on the bottom.
* Collections of semi-functional machines are maintained for all sorts of reasons, such as the US Military's "Boneyard" of decommissioned aircraft in Tucson, Arizona.
** Or the Mothball Fleet at Suisun Bay, California.

* The China Lake Naval Air testing facility was like this for decades. Starting in WWII, it was used to develop weapons, and obsolete vehicles were brought in to be used as testing targets. Over decades of testing quite a number of airplanes, tanks, and jeeps were simply left in the surrounding desert because they became obsolete even for use as targets. However after a while people realized that many of the derelicts there had weathered the ages extremely well, and that many were among the last of their kind and thus were hauled off to museums.

* Pearl Harbor has a small graveyard of sunken ships, the ''USS Arizona'' and ''Utah'', that have remained there since the Japanese attack on the harbor during World War II. there is also an LST from the West Loch Disaster and a pair of Japanese midget submarines, though one was buried as fill during the construction of a landside pier.
** The ''Arizona'' is an actual graveyard. 1,100 dead sailors still remain in the submerged wreck, and survivors are being buried there as well.

* ''VideoGame/Splatoon2'''s Salmon Run mode takes place in a restricted ocean zone, full of polluted water and rusting debris. Among the wreckage that can be found here are the remnants of a hydroelectric dam, a derelict ship marooned on a sandbar, and curiously, the ruins of a space shuttle that seems to have crashed into the sea millenia ago. This area, of course, appears to be completely uninhabited -- barring the territorial mutant Salmonids that make these waters their home.

** In the ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS07E20TheChangingFaceOfEvil The Changing Face of Evil]]", what's left of the USS ''Defiant'' and 310 other allied ships become part of a large derelict graveyard in the Chin'toka system.

** In the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E26S4E1TheBestOfBothWorlds The Best of Both Worlds]]", Wolf-359 (after the battle with the Borg) only looks like a derelict graveyard: it's really a bunch of very recently smashed ships, though Star Trek's ExpandedUniverse went on to have the site of the battle declared a memorial and maintained as a derelict graveyard. Ironically, the ship models from this scene were reused in "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E7Unification1 Unification, Part 1]]" for another derelict graveyard which was being used as a source of Vulcan ship parts for the Romulan invasion.

** In [[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS1E1Caretaker the pilot episode]] of ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'', the crew first meet Neelix scavenging the starships brought from all over the galaxy by the Caretaker. Neelix gets rather touchy until he's reassured they're not interested in his junk. As with ''TNG'', we also see the space-battle aftermath version in "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS3E25S4E1Scorpion Scorpion]]" (involving the Borg, ironically enough) and the HonestJohnsDealership version in "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS6E5Alice Alice]]". In "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS6E16Collective Collective]]", the Delta Flyer gets caught in a MegaMawManeuver by a Borg cube, the interior of which contains several other captured spacecraft whose technology is awaiting assimilation.

Compare GhostShip. See Also TheBermudaTriangle and SaharanShipwreck. If the vehicles are awaiting disposal and not just left there, you're DownInTheDumps. If you're looking for a graveyard for ''humans'', chances are you're looking for CreepyCemetery or BigBoosHaunt, although there's certainly room for overlap.

* The ''Series/BabylonFive'' spinoff ''Crusade'' has an episode that features an UNDERGROUND derelict graveyard of spaceships. The Alien race on that planet had been luring other alien ships there for centuries, so they could kidnap the crews and perform medical experiments on them in hopes of finding a cure for a bio-engineered disease.
* ''Series/BlakesSeven'': In "Dawn of the Gods", the Liberator is drawn into an UnrealisticBlackHole, only to find themselves on a platform littered with the derelict remains of spacecraft stripped for their [[MadeOfIndestructium herculanium]] by the VillainOfTheWeek. James Follett, who wrotes the episode, would [[RecycledScript use a similar premise]] in his radio series ''Radio/{{Earthsearch}}''.

** In ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', Wolf-359 (after the battle with the Borg) only looks like a derelict graveyard: it's really a bunch of very recently smashed ships, though Star Trek's ExpandedUniverse went on to have the site of the battle declared a memorial and maintained as a derelict graveyard. Ironically, the ship models from this scene were reused in the "Reunification" two-parter for another derelict graveyard which was being used as a source of Vulcan ship parts for the Romulan invasion.
** In the ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS07E20TheChangingFaceOfEvil The Changing Face of Evil]]" what's left of the USS ''Defiant'' and 310 other allied ships become part of a large derelict graveyard in the Chin'toka system.
** In the pilot episode of ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'', the crew first meet Neelix scavenging the starships brought from all over the galaxy by the Caretaker. Neelix gets rather touchy until he's reassured they're not interested in his junk. As with TNG, we also see the space-battle aftermath version in "Scorpion" (involving the Borg, ironically enough) and the HonestJohnsDealership version in "Alice". In "Collective", the Delta Flyer gets caught in a MegaMawManeuver by a Borg cube, the interior of which contains several other captured spacecraft whose technology is awaiting assimilation.

** It's sequel ''VideoGame/SunlessSkies'' has the Flotilla, which can be found near the Avid Horizon in Albion. [[spoiler:This aggregate of roped-up ships are floating on the water that spilled from the Unterzee into the Heavens after the Horizon's gate were opened. Three different communities live on those decommissioned ships.]]

* In the opening scene of ''Film/DeepRising'', before we switch to the main plot the creatures are seen travelling through a deep sea ship graveyard, some of them hundreds of years old, ''all of which they presumably attacked, ate all the people on it, and sank the ships afterwards''. There are even the remains of whale skeletons besides the derelict ships.

** [[Franchise/PiratesOfTheCaribbean Port Royal]] in ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'' featured Isla Del Muerte from the first movie and a second area filled with shipwrecks when Sora and co return to the world.

* ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' has Korlus and [[spoiler: the far-side of the Omega-4 Relay]]. The former is a planet-sized landfill, the latter an AsteroidThicket made up of derelict ships [[spoiler: lacking the IFF transponder that tells the relay to send a ship through safely instead of shooting it. ''If'' you can get past the black hole flanking its exit point.]]

** The Wario Shipyard in ''VideoGame/MarioKart7'' takes place in an underwater place with many wrecked ships.

* The episode "Magnetic Rose" of ''Anime/{{Memories}}'' takes place in one.

[[folder:Films — Animated]]

* At the beginning of ''WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaid'', Ariel and Flounder recover objects from a graveyard of sunken ships inhabited by a shark. Later, [[OneWingedAngel the now gigantic]] Ursula creates a whirlpool that exposes several of the damaged ships. Prince Eric boards one of them, and uses it to dispatch Ursula.
* ''WesternAnimation/HeavyMetal'' segment "B-17". After bailing out of his B-17 bomber, the pilot lands on a tropical island and finds it filled with crashed airplanes. Unfortunately, the pilots of those planes are still around, and they're angry zombies.

[[folder:Films — Live-Action]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* In ''Webcomic/QuentynQuinnSpaceRanger'', [[http://www.rhjunior.com/QQSR/00006.html the pirates are going for the old "Sargasso of space" trick, which would produce this in due course.]]

* ''Anime/DoraemonNobitaAndTheCastleOfTheUnderseaDevil'' have Doraemon and gang exploring a shipyard underneath the Bermuda Triangle, where ships of both humans and Mu origin litters it's surface. Turns out those ships were destroyed by the robotic {{Sea Monster}}s of Poseidon's army.
* ''Anime/DoraemonNobitasDriftsInTheUniverse'' has a scene where Doraemon, Nobita, and their new friends Lian and his team of space cadets ends up in a spaceship graveyard, filled with floating wreckage of various alien ships. Stopping over to investigate, the later find out the reason behind the derelicts' existence when they're assaulted by an entire horde of power-consuming parasites that comes at them in entire swarms.

* An entire level of ''[[VideoGame/{{Gradius}} Gradius Gaiden]]'' is made entirely of huge wrecked ships... all of which [[ContinuityNod were once bosses in previous games!]]

* In ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', Wolf-359 (after the battle with the Borg) only looks like a derelict graveyard: it's really a bunch of very recently smashed ships, though Star Trek's ExpandedUniverse went on to have the site of the battle declared a memorial and maintained as a derelict graveyard. Ironically, the ship models from this scene were reused in the "Reunification" two-parter for another derelict graveyard which was being used as a source of Vulcan ship parts for the Romulan invasion.
* In the pilot episode of ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'', the crew first meet Neelix scavenging the starships brought from all over the galaxy by the Caretaker. Neelix gets rather touchy until he's reassured they're not interested in his junk. As with TNG, we also see the space-battle aftermath version in "Scorpion" (involving the Borg, ironically enough) and the HonestJohnsDealership version in "Alice". In "Collective", the Delta Flyer gets caught in a MegaMawManeuver by a Borg cube, the interior of which contains several other captured spacecraft whose technology is awaiting assimilation.
* Several spaceship graveyards show up in the third season of ''Series/StarTrekDiscovery'' as an aftermath of the Burn.

* ''VideoGame/SupremeCommander'' is similar, though most wrecks don't last all that long due to ever-busy engineers reclaiming them for mass. Most missions in the game, starting near the end and in just about always in ''Forged Alliance'', also start the player in the midst of a ruined base or city to provide ample resources to jump-start your economy/military.

** The Derelict Frigate of ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime''.
** And the ''GFS Valhalla'' in ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime3Corruption''.
** Not to mention the Wrecked Ship section of ''VideoGame/SuperMetroid''.

** Arguably the first three worlds of ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry2DiddysKongQuest''. First there's a ship that's in mint condition except for a hole torn into the hull, then there's a ship that's been torn in half and is sitting in the middle of a swamp. And then there's the half-submerged ship in ''lava''...
** Gloomy Galleon from ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong64'' also had a large number of wrecked ships.
** The Lost Mangroves, the first world in ''[[VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountryTropicalFreeze Tropical Freeze]]'', are loosely based on the Bermuda Triangle and as a result feature a ridiculous number of shipwrecks (mostly of more modern, UsefulNotes/WorldWarTwo-looking battleships rather than the {{pirate}}y masted ships of previous games), crashed planes and abandoned submarines. One of the secret levels at the end, Crazy Clouds, features a whole graveyard of crashed planes on the side of a [[FloatingContinent floating mountain]], with a few stray propellers and other bits still, [[TemporaryPlatform barely]], airborne.

** ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' has a few derelict graveyards of ''nuclear cars'' - a few stray shots can start a spectacular chain reaction. Meanwhile the town of Megaton is built from the hulls of planes salvaged from a nearby airbase, not to mention other assorted vehicles. Also, Rivet City is built on a beached aircraft carrier, which in turn houses many derelict planes. The ''Point Lookout'' DLC has numerous derelict boats, including a Chinese spy submarine that is part of one of the side quests.

* Just about any preserved railway will have one or more long sidings filled with rusting locomotives and rolling stock, awaiting their turn for restoration. Some may well have been bought from the Barry Island scrapyard mentioned above.
** There are pictures of the sidings at Horsted Keynes (now part of the Bluebell Railway) showing that long before their sale to the preservation movement, they were used to store locomotives awaiting overhaul or scrapping.

* In the Secondary Phase of ''Radio/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy1978'', Ford Prefect and Zaphod Beeblebrox come across an abandoned spaceport on the planet Brontitall where most of the craft are so old they can literally fall apart by someone looking at them. There is one notable exception, where [[AIIsACrapshoot the AI crew]] has kept passengers in a millennia-long state of suspended animation... because their programming won't let them take off without the required consignment of lemon-soaked paper napkins.