BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. – It started with a post on the private Facebook page, “Wake up Cocoa Beach,” according to News 6 partner FLORIDA TODAY.
Samantha Barrick asked, “Hey, does anybody know what this used to be? It’s near (SR) 528 in the river!”
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Attached was a photo of a rusted, barnacled circle of metal protruding from the Banana River.
“A fish trap,” someone wrote. “Florida’s Stonehenge” was another reply. And yet another: “It was built to retrieve a rocket that landed in the river.”
Three strikes.
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Finally, fishing guide Captain Alex Gorichky of Local Line’s Guide Service stepped in to solve the mystery.
“They were used as bomb targets/aids for training pilots,” he wrote. “There are several around. Another two are located on the north side of 528 in the No-Motor-Zone.”
Just south of the Beachline and east of the channel, the structure protrudes from the Banana River. A close inspection reveals rusted, corroded steel panels, and jagged, gnarled metal covered in barnacles.
Information about it is scarce. A Google search turns up only a few hits.
Lagoonier, a fishing charter page, confirmed what Gorichky wrote: “One of the more prominent features of the Banana River near Cape Canaveral is a World War II relic simply referred to as the bombing target, during the height of World War II American fighter pilots from the Banana River Air Station (now Patrick Space Force Base) dropped non-live ordnance on these makeshift targets.”
Another site, called The Hull Truth, a boating and fishing forum, noted there is another target just north of the Haulover Canal in the lagoon.
A little more detail could be found thanks to Florida State University’s libraries in a thesis titled: “From Mosquito Clouds to War Clouds: The Rise of Naval Air Station Banana River.”
It stated: “The Air Bomber Training Unit moved to Banana River because of its isolation and the large number of available target ranges in the area. The group brought with it 19 planes, mostly Beechcraft SNBs, and began training almost immediately. Bombing runs were conducted over both the water and land. Water targets were at various points in the Banana River, Sykes Creek, in the Atlantic Ocean, and later in Lake Okeechobee.”
No one from Patrick Space Force Base could immediately be reached to comment.
While the structure is known to fishermen and boaters in the area, it is pretty much an unknown relic to most Brevard residents.
“From a distance, it looks like a row of pelicans sitting on the water,” observed George “Surfing Santa” Trosset, who recently took FLORIDA TODAY photographer Malcolm Denemark to the site for photos and this story.
It’s just another artifact from the Space Coast’s unique past, abandoned in place.
But at least the mystery of the strange circles in the Banana River in Cape Canaveral has been solved.
Denemark is a veteran, award-winning visuals journalist for FLORIDA TODAY. Follow him on Instagram @malcolmdenemark. Support his work by subscribing at floridatoday.com/subscribe.
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