Texas Shipwreck Yields 'CSI Adventure'

Insights into Texas' War for Independence may have just bubbled up from 4,300 feet below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. A mystery shipwreck 150 miles off the coast of Galveston—found carrying muskets, swords, and cannons—may have been transporting weapons and soldiers to help in the battle, the AP reports. But while most artifacts from the 200-year-old wreck are from Spain and Mexico, some look British, and scientists aren't sure what type of ship it is and where exactly it came from, the Houston Chronicle reports.

"It's really a mystery being put together," one of the salvagers told KHOU, calling the expedition, "a CSI adventure." Ceramic plates, anchors, clothing, glass bottles—including one sealed, full of yellow ginger—and even an intact leather-bound book were also recovered in the expedition by Texas A&M scientists using robot submarines. While it's also a mystery what sent the ship down, KHOU offers a clue: It hit the depths around the time that notorious pirate Jean Lafitte called Galveston home port. (More shipwreck stories.)