In May 1990, the container ship Hansa Carrier was caught in a sudden storm midway between Seoul, South Korea, and Seattle. Storm waves swept 21 40-foot cargo containers, five of which held more than 61,000 Nike sneakers, into the Pacific Ocean. In the process, thousands upon thousands of Nike Air Jordan 5s, totaling more than $7 million in value in today’s dollars, were knocked off board.
Over the ensuing months and years, the untied sneakers would wash up on the shores of Vancouver, Oregon and Hawaii, among other locales. In effect, the “Great Shoe Spill of 1990,” as it was later dubbed, became an ideal natural experiment for oceanographers looking to study the currents of the Pacific.