The Mystery Of The Mercury Mariner Stuck Inside Syria’s Abandoned Embassy In D.C.

Geopolitics is a blood sport. There is no two ways about it. Syria knows this better than most, as it passes its 13th year of a brutal civil war. That conflict saw the country abandon its US embassy all the way back in 2014, along with one lonely SUV.

The story comes to us from automotive YouTuber Doug DeMuro. He’s noted the decaying state of the Syrian embassy site in Washington D.C., watching as nature has slowly begun to take over the former site. Over multiple visits, he noticed something strange. Something that only a skilled intelligence agent—or a true car enthusiast—would pick up.

Amidst the detritus and weeds sits a single vehicle. A lone Mercury Mariner, standing watch over a parking lot long forgotten.

Syria abandoned its embassy in Washington DC in 2014, during the Syrian civil war, and nobody has been back since. The whole place is now an overgrown mess.

They also abandoned this Mercury Mariner in the parking lot, and it hasn’t moved in a decade. I think of it often. pic.twitter.com/XfzmdJmWZY

— Doug DeMuro (@DougDeMuro) July 22, 2024

Naturally, given a prompt like that? I decided to spend the better part of my workday trying to track down every detail possible about this car.

So what do we know about this Mercury Mariner? The model was in production from 2004 to 2010, for the 2005 to 2011 model years. This appears to be a first generation model from 2006 or earlier, as it has the more rectangular headlights and the original style front bumper. We don’t know its exact age, nor anything about its registration, since we don’t have its license plate number. What we do know is that Doug is not quite on the money in one regard. The car does appear abandoned, but it has moved in the last decade.

Let’s build up a timeline here. The State Department ordered the embassy closed in March 2014, giving Syrian diplomats until the end of the month to leave. A Google Street View photo taken in June that year shows an empty parking lot—if you look straight on. But if let the Google photo car go a little further down the road and look back, you can see the Mariner hiding behind a bush.

In fact, go back to 2007, and there’s a shot that I reckon might show the Mariner. It’s tenuous, though, because Google’s Street View photos were remarkably poor resolution at that point.

I’ll admit this is tenuous. But I reckon that back end looks a lot like the SUV we’re looking for.

At this point, it’s worth noting that while the embassy was in active use, its gardens were well maintained. The main frontage of the building was readily visible from Wyoming Avenue. However, in the wake of the embassy shutdown, plants were left to grow uncontrolled. Today, the building is completely obscured from view from the street.

But back to the Mariner. In November 2016, Google Street View shows us the Mariner parked on a section of the parking lot paved in red brick. The SUV sits roughly in line with the third window from the left on the building immediately behind it. The shot is blurry, and we can’t see the license plate. The windows and sunroof appear closed. That will become relevant later. A photo taken on June 2017 shows the vehicle still parked in the same position.

Things get more interesting in 2018. Street View photos from October that year show multiple vehicles in the parking lot. We see a woman in casual dress next to a white SUV, along with a white Ford pickup truck with a load in the bed.

A man is also visible in the parking lot, standing behind a bush. If you click around, there’s what looks like a Honda in there too. The Mariner has moved to a new parking spot by the leftmost window. Frustratingly, we can’t see the Mariner in detail, including the status of the sunroof.

It appears the 2018 photo may show the Mercury Mariner in its current resting place. A 2022 Street View photo shows the vehicle in the same spot, the parking lot now overgrown with weeds. The Mariner is looking rather sad and dusty, with its sunroof popped open. It’s the only car in the lot that we can see.

The scene looks much the same in the shot provided by Doug. The Mariner sits amongst tall weeds, parked by the same window with its sunroof open. Given it’s pictured in the same position, you could assume it’s been abandoned in that location since sometime 2018 or so.

“That was in early March,” Doug told us, regarding his photo of the Mystery Mercury. “But I have a friend who lives closely, and I’ve seen it there every single time I’ve been in D.C. going back years,” he says.

There’s just one thing bothering me. The Mercury doesn’t look abandoned in the slightest in Doug’s shot from earlier this year. Unlike the Street View images from 2022, the paint looks shiny and clean. You could argue that rainfall has something to do with that, but I’m not entirely convinced. I’ve never left a car outside for more than 6 months without it getting dirtier than a pig’s hind legs.

Other details don’t quite check out, either. There seems to be quite a contrast between the tire tread and the sidewalls. Almost as if the tires have been treated to a shine treatment at some point. The headlights are also in remarkable condition, as clean and clear as the day they were made. The fact all the tires look like they’re still holding some air is worth noting, too.

There are a lot of questions to be answered here. Whose Mercury is that? What was it used for, and why has it been moving around in the years since the embassy closed? How bad does it stink inside after years with the sunroof left open? Who even controls the embassy now? And who were those randoms walking around inside in 2018?

There’s one agency that can settle this. The US State Department is in charge of matters like these, so I’ve reached out to them for comment. Here’s hoping they can shed some light on the Mystery Mercury and the Syrian embassy that was. Alternatively, if you worked at the embassy or otherwise know what’s going on, you can reach me with your insider knowledge by email. You can remain anonymous if desired.

It would be one thing if the Mercury had been sitting abandoned since mid-2014 when the embassy closed. But there’s clearly something marginally more interesting going on here, and I want answers. You’ll get them here at The Autopian as soon as I have them.

Image credits: Google Street View, Doug DeMuro

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