History Main / SaharanShipwreck

* The map "Ghost Town" from ''VideoGame/WorldOfTanks'' features two large, stranded tanker ships in the middle of a desert. Wily light tanks or brave tank destroyers can use these beached vessels as hard cover for an attack or to perform scouting missions. It is heavily implied that Ghost Town is located somewhere in the vicinity of the real-world Aral Sea as mentioned in the Real Life folder. A hidden EasterEgg includes a road sign which suggests the map is placed very near the real-world GhostTown of [[http://uzbek-travel.com/about-uzbekistan/places/muynak/ Muynak, Uzbekistan]].

* ''Webcomic/{{Suihira}}'', on [[http://www.suihira.com/comics/2262070/3-ferus-page-8/ this page]], specifically.

* Many shipwrecks along Namibia's [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeleton_Coast Skeleton Coast]], such as the ''Eduard Bohlen'', are now a long distance from shore due to changes in the coastline over the years.

While [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wadi_Al-Hitan parts of the Sahara actually were once part of the Mediterranean Sea]], this was well before ships (or even humans) existed and thus a literal Saharan shipwreck is exceedingly unlikely.

* VideoGame/DigitalDevilSaga has a cruise ship in a desert, there's no bodies of water in the Junkyard ''period'', and only it started to rain during the game's events. Many characters had expressed confusion about it, including the fact they even knew what a ship was - more evidence that the Junkyard wasn't what it seemed.

* The map "Ghost Town" from ''VideoGame/WorldOfTanks'' features two large, stranded tanker ships in the middle of a desert. Wily light tanks or brave tank destroyers can use these beached vessels as hard cover for an attack or to perform scouting missions. It is heavily implied that Ghost Town is located somewhere in the vicinity of the real-world Aral Sea as mentioned in the Real Life folder. A hidden EasterEgg includes a road sign which suggests the map is placed very near the real-world GhostTown of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mo%CA%BBynoq Muynak, Uzbekistan]].

The fact that the ship has run aground can mean a lot of things about the desert or setting. Mundane explanations include [[GaiasLament receding shorelines due to climate change]] or a typhoon/tropical storm/tornado. Weirder possibilities include but aren't limited to: a TeleporterAccident, TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt having come [[AfterTheEnd and gone]], the captain being [[EpicFail that bad of a navigator]], the place where all the stuff the NegativeSpaceWedgie sucks up gets dumped, or any of a hundred other possibilities.

* In Creator/MargaretWeis and Creator/TracyHickman's original ''Literature/DragonLance'' trilogy, the heroes at one point travel to Tarsis, a large port city, in order to find a ship. It turns out they were working from a rather old map, and the Cataclysm a couple of centuries previously had made some fairly drastic changes to the geography. There isn't just one Saharan shipwreck, but a whole port full of them.

* There's a brief shot in the Special Edition of ''Film/CloseEncountersOfTheThirdKind'' which shows the wreck of the Cotopaxi, a ship that disappeared in the BermudaTriangle, in the Gobi Desert.

[[caption-width-right:350:Anybody know where the ocean is?]]

* In ''Film/LawrenceOfArabia'', Lawrence is dumbfounded to see a ship sailing through the Sinai desert. It actually means he's reached the Suez Canal and safety.[[note]]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.[[/note]]

* In ''Creator/MargaretWeis'' and ''Creator/TracyHickman'''s original ''Literature/DragonLance'' trilogy, the heroes at one point travel to Tarsis, a large port city, in order to find a ship. It turns out they were working from a rather old map, and the Cataclysm a couple of centuries previously had made some fairly drastic changes to the geography. There isn't just one Saharan shipwreck, but a whole port full of them.

'''Nate:''' Hinky. [[SarcasmMode You act like you've never seen a German U-Boat in the middle of the jungle before]].

* ''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 Pokémon 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.

* ''Film/{{Oblivion}}''. Creator/TomCruise's character rides a motorbike across a sea turned desert, with the wrecks including a nuclear submarine with [[NukeEm all its missile hatches open]]. In this case the disappearance of the ocean is actually plot-related.

* ''Film/{{Oblivion 2013}}'' is set in 2077 after Earth was devastated by an interstellar war. The destruction of our moon led to tsunamis wiping out most of the land. At one point we see the hero riding his CoolBike across a plane with lots of shipwrecks sticking out of the ground.

** Happens in the original ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiSuperstarSaga'' with the pirate ship in the middle of Teehee Valley.

[[folder:Webcomics]]
* ''Webcomic/{{Suihira}}'', on [[http://www.suihira.com/comics/2262070/3-ferus-page-8/ this page]], specifically.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFTRy2yEDn0 This]] music video.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/3de2840cee3533ca753c83608b569772.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:There was a sea here. [[VideoGame/SilentHill2 It's gone now.]]]]

* From ''SpaceBattleshipYamato'':

* In the Creator/OgdenNash poem "I Can Hardly Wait For the Sandman", he describes a dream in which he was walking through a desert when he came across one of the ''Mary Celeste'''s lifeboats. And if he hadn't woken up at that point, he'd probably have solved the [[StockUnsolvedMystery mystery of what happened to her]].