History Main / SaharanShipwreck

** The [[VideoGame/{{Portal}} Aperture Science Labs]] research vessel ''Borealis'' is slated to appear in Episode 3 ([[RealSoonNow whenever it finally comes out]]). It disappeared from its dry dock one night, [[PortalCut as did large parts of its dry dock]]; teaser art shows it [[spoiler:lodged in an ice canyon who-knows-where]].

* The very beginning of the first stage of the first game of the ''VideoGame/MetalSlug'' franchise has the wreck of a submarine in what seems to be land with no sea on sight.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFTRy2yEDn0 This]] music video takes this trope and gives it a CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming.

* Appears in Louis Sachar's classic novel ''Literature/{{Holes}}''. No, it's not in the Sahara, and it's not a ship. It's a small two-person rowboat several miles from Camp Green Lake. It provides shade from the brutal sun, as well as some jars containing moldy peaches, which are later used to carry water. [[spoiler: It also contains Zero, who has run away from Camp Green Lake.]]

* As noted in ''Literature'', the ''Literature/{{Dragonlance}}'' setting features quiet a few of these due to changes in geography after the Cataclysm.

* Another spacecraft burried beneath the sands of a desert is what kick-starts the plot of the first ''VideoGame/{{Homeworld}}'' game.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsjGlKMcEQk&NR=1 This]] music video takes this trope and gives it a CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming.

* There are a number of rusted, wrecked barges in ''VideoGame/{{STALKER}}: Call of Pripyat'' in previously low-waters that have now turned into swamps and marshes. [[ThrivingGhostTown One is used as a 'town' of sorts]], and others are hiding places for other Stalker gangs, or Stalkers trying to find somewhere to rest, away from the [[EverythingTryingToKillYou weather, wildlife, or random blowouts/emissions]].

** An argument could be made for the ship mast seen in the LostWoods of ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry2DiddysKongQuest'', although it may just be there as a "spiritual resting place" for the [[PaletteSwap ghost version]] of the boss you fought earlier.

* Franchise/{{Fallout}}:

* One of the earlier establishing shots at the beginning of ''FistOfTheNorthStar'' is of an oil tanker ''embedded in a skyscraper''. A definite sign that you're going to see some serious shit.

* Part 2 of the FiveEpisodePilot of ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales'' involved searching for a Spanish galleon in the middle of a desert. It had gotten there in the first place because of a torrential rainstorm that floods said desert every hundred years.

* Invoked in the movie ''Film/{{Fitzcarraldo}}'' (also from Creator/WernerHerzog, the director of ''Aguirre'') where the titular mad rubber baron moves a steamship through mountains and jungles in order to put it on an unreachable river. The movie's [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/Fizzcarraldo.jpg?uselang=es prop ship]] was later abandoned in the Peruvian jungle after filming was completed, making it also a RealLife version of the trope.

--> Ajax: I don't know how he did it, but I know HE did it!"

* Used symbolically in ''Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanAtWorldsEnd'' where Jack Sparrow's version of IronicHell has him pulling one of these, as a pirate the worst place for him to be would be in the middle of a desert. Not that this minor setback [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome stopped him]].

* ''Film/LawrenceOfArabia'' is dumbfounded to see a ship sailing through the Sinai desert. It actually means he's reached the Suez Canal and safety.
** The funny thing about this is that ancient versions of the Suez Canal have been constructed and reclaimed by the desert before, in ancient human history. If the Suez Canal of today were to be abandoned, it would eventually sand in.
* An interesting inversion is seen in ''Film/{{Waterworld}}'' during the expedition in the diving bell - a submarine is seen having crashed into the side of a skyscraper in the flooded city.
* The plot of ''Film/{{Sahara 2005}}'' involves a literal shipwreck in the Sahara which is supposed to be loaded with Confederation gold coins of UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar.

* The plot of ''Literature/{{Sahara}}'' by Creator/CliveCussler involves a literal shipwreck in the Saharah- a ''Confederate Ironclad''. Really.
** Its ''cargo'' is the most surprising thing. [[spoiler: It's the corpse of Abraham Lincoln. The one shot at Ford's theater was an unwitting double. Also, shitloads of Confederate gold.]]

* ''Literature/StarTrekDestiny'' begins with Earth's second starship, the NX-02 Columbia, [[http://images.wikia.com/startrek/images/f/f7/Columbia_in_desert.jpg being found on the surface of a remote desert planet.]]

* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOracleGames'' involves a pirate crew that somehow shipwrecked into a desert. Apparently, they beached themselves so hard that the front end of the ship ''punched through the ground'' and now sticks out in ''Subrosia''.
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword'' gives us the Sandship, which used to be a seafaring vessel until the seas dried out and filled with sand. At least, until you activate the Timeshift Stone on board...
* Happens in the original ''[[VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiSuperstarSaga Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga]]'' with the pirate ship in the middle of Teehee Valley.

* ''VideoGame/PokemonXDGaleOfDarkness'' has the S.S. Libra. In this case, you actually see how it got there in the beginning of the game. It was dropped there by Shadow Lugia. Unlike most of the examples, the Libra was dumped in the Eclo Wastes far more recently than most ships described by this trope, and aside from Cipher and Snagem interlopers, there's only one local on board. Cipher looted the Pokemon on the ship during their attack, and the human sailors were thrown overboard. Your visit to the Libra is the first time anyone could get a good glimpse of what happened to it.
* There's an infamous wreckage of a ship in the salty, dried-up lakebed known as Shimmering Flats in ''WorldOfWarcraft''. After much WildMassGuessing to its origins, the location is one of several obvious choices to be ''re''flooded in the new expansion.
* The party actually uses one of these as their main transportation in ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVIII'', after using magic to get it back to sea. Strangely for a fantastic setting, its pretty clearly stated to be a receding coastline issue- they get it back to sea by using magic to "get the area to remember when there was ocean there".
* In ''VideoGame/{{Crysis}}'', a frozen ship is found on a mountain. [[spoiler:Aliens put it there. Sort of]].

* Early on in ''VideoGame/UnchartedDrakesFortune'', Drake and Sully stumble upon an abandoned Nazi U-Boat stuck miles upriver in the middle of the jungle. Sully's explanation that it floated up there then got stuck isn't ''entirely'' implausible but still quite unlikely[[note]]Which fits, because ''Uncharted'' runs on "plausible but unlikely"[[/note]].
--> '''Sully''': I don't know, Nate. Something about this seems kind of...hinky.\\
'''Nate''': Hinky. [[SarcasmMode You act like you've never seen a German U-Boat in the middle of the jungle before]].

* [[UrbanLegend According to legend]] this has happened in real life, if you believe the lost civilization types. There are supposed to be lost ships from Atlantis in the North African desert and in the Atlas Mountains, as well as a famous [[HornyVikings Viking longship]](!) in the deserts of the American southwest with skeletons still at the oars.

* Appears in Louis Sachar's classic novel ''{{Holes}}''. No, it's not in the Sahara, and it's not a ship. It's a small two-person rowboat several miles from Camp Green Lake. It provides shade from the brutal sun, as well as some jars containing moldy peaches, which are later used to carry water. [[spoiler: It also contains Zero, who has run away from Camp Green Lake.]]

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

* One of the most memorable images to come out of ''Series/DoctorWho'': a red London bus in the middle of an endless desert. (It came through a dimension door.)
* The opening credits of ''Series/FatherTed'' show a stranded ship, some way inland, ostensibly somewhere on Craggy Island, with no clue as to how it got there. The real ship, the ''MV Plassey'', was washed ashore on Inisheer (off the West Coast) after a bit of what locals call "soft weather" in 1960... Indeed, it has moved again once or twice over the decades, when storms are heavy enough.

** There's also the remains of a ship somehow in a cave, early in ''BowsersInsideStory''.

* The Crystal Desert of ''GuildWars: Prophecies'' contains several derelict Margonite ships from a time when the area was still known as the Crystal Sea.

* The plot of ''Film/{{Sahara}}'' involves a literal shipwreck in the Sahara which is supposed to be loaded with Confederation gold coins of UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar.

* The plot of ''Sahara'' by Creator/CliveCussler involves a literal shipwreck in the Saharah- a ''Confederate Ironclad''. Really.