A couple of Michigan residents believe they have discovered the wreckage once manned by French explorer Robert de La Salle in the late 1600’s.

A recent report indicates that Kevin Dykstra and Frederick Monroe were on a Lake Michigan treasure-seeking mission in 2011 when they stumbled onto the find by accident. The two adventurers originally planned to hunt for $2 million worth of gold that had been rumored to fall off a ferry in the 1800’s.

“I didn’t go down there with the expectation of seeing a shipwreck — I can tell you that,” Dykstra told Live Science. The two explorers captured video of what they believe is La Salle’s ship “The Griffon,” which was lost in Lake Michigan in 1679.

However, some skeptics say they are not convinced the debris is the Griffon. Some historians believe it is more likely that the men found a scrapped tugboat that had been replaced by steam engine technology. Yet, Dykstra feels confident their discovery is legitimate.

"We researched online to find a 17th-century French Griffin, and the one we came up with, I over-layed on top of the photo [I took of the Griffin carving on the front of the ship] and it was really impressive," Dykstra told ABC affiliate WZZM. "So it's either a 100-to-1 odds that the front of the ship looks exactly like a griffin, and I don't know how that can happen by coincidence, and to know that the wood carvers that built the Griffin carved the likeness of a Griffin in the front of the ship, it kind of lends itself towards that."

Dozens of explorers have claimed to have found the Griffon throughout the years, but none of the discoveries were ever confirmed. Lake Michigan is a grave for an incalculable number of shipwrecks, with some 1,500 uncovered.

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