He Died in the Captains Chair

It's the wish of many a fine fisherman, to keel over while sitting in the boat or holding a rod - and it looked like maybe someone had gotten their wish, when a sponge diver near Archer Key,  Florida, USA discovered this skeleton. 

Did he die while waiting for that elusive big fish?

According to media reports, the diver  called authorities,  and a detective traveled to the site, which was about 200 metres offshore in  about a metre of water. They saw the skeletal remains, which lay nearby a long-sunken fishing boat.  The chair and “skeleton"  was retrieved, but  it was quickly established that what looked like a gruesome find was in fact a hoax. 


“It looks pretty real,” A Sheriff's Department spokesman said, “but if it was real, the skeleton would have fallen apart long before it had time to accumulate all the algae that was on it.” “We removed it from the water so we don’t get any more calls about it in the future,” he added.


Monroe County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Becky Herrin said this is probably the first time they found a fake skeleton.

A few years ago they received a report of bodies in the water, “and when we went out to the boat we found out they were mannequins, so that’s kind of similar,” she said.