This was in 1935, and a lot of our modern crime-solving technology had yet to be imagined. I wonder how well investigators would do with this case today.
I have to use this video or lose it, so here it is.
On a beautiful beach somewhere along the Gulf of Mexico, a couple of bathers are blissfully unaware of the exceedingly large shark that’s coming their way. They don’t seem to hear the warnings shouted from whatever elevation this video camera was stationed. And the shark comes closer and closer…
They’re in luck, though. The shark is busy hunting a stingray and has no time for humans.
Just for the record: offshore waters are normally full of sharks. That’s where the fish are, so the sharks feed there. If the people in the water could see the sharks in the water, they wouldn’t be in the water anymore. Given the large number of people and sharks in the water at the same time, any shark attack must be viewed as a statistical anomaly.
Which is but little comfort to the swimmer whose leg gets bitten off…
I remember Roy Scheider in Jaws excitedly babbling, “We don’t even know how old sharks are!” And he was right–back when Jaws was made, nobody knew any reliable method for estimating the age of a shark.
This is one of those things that makes you wonder, “Why didn’t anybody think of this before?” They used a radiocarbon test to estimate the shark’s age. Usually this is a test that’s used by archeologists. I never heard of it being applied to living tissue–but there’s no reason I can think of why it wouldn’t work.
The Greenland shark inhabits polar seas, sometimes swimming under the Arctic ice pack, and grows up to 24 feet long. Someone ought to investigate how the shark keeps warm. Whales and seals have blubber, polar bears have fur, the Borchgrevinck fish has a special chemical in its blood that functions as antifreeze; but the shark has none of these.
Some big sharks, like the great white and the mako, along with a few big fish like tuna, are functionally warm-blooded. This hasn’t been detected in any but a few species.
Anyhow, this shark that lives in horribly cold water has always fascinated me. Imagine swimming around under the ice for 400 years.
These fossil shark jaws just might have been big enough to fit the creature described below.
Once again we go Down Under, via Richard Ellis’ The Book of Sharks, for what has got to be the all-time whopper of a shark story (pages 75-76).
But this one might be true. Here it is, as published:
“The men had been at work on the fishing grounds which lie in deep water–when an immense shark of almost unbelievable proportions put in an appearance, lifting pot after pot containing many crayfishes [lobsters], and taking in, as these men said, ‘pots, mooring lines and all.’ These crayfish pots, it should be mentioned, were about 3 feet 6 inches in diameter, and frequently contained from two to three dozen crayfish, each weighing several pounds. The men were all unanimous that this shark was something the like of which they had never dreamed of. In company with the local Fisheries Inspector I questioned many of the men very closely and they all agreed as to the gigantic stature of the beast. But the lengths they gave were, on the whole, absurd. I mention them, however, as an indication of the state of mind which this unusual giant had thrown them into. And bear in mind that these were men who were used to the sea and all sorts of weather, and all sorts of sharks as well. One of the crew said the shark was ‘three hundred feet long, at least!’ Others said it was as long as the wharf on which we stood–about 115 feet! They affirmed that the water ‘boiled’ over a large space when the fish went past. They were all familiar with whales, which they had often seen passing at sea, but this was a vast shark. They had seen its terrible head which was ‘at least as large as the roof of the wharf shed at Nelson’s Bay.’ One of the things that impressed me was that they all agreed as to the ghostly whitish color of the fish.”
Wow.
What are we to make of this story? We know there’s no such thing as a shark 115 to 300 feet long, don’t we? So why did these men say they saw one?
Could they have been lying? Yes.
Or might they have seen a shark so abnormally, unnaturally large that the sight of it reduced them to near-hysteria?
That’s what I think happened. But how big would a shark have to be, to freak out these fishermen and make them tell such a crazy story–and to a fisheries inspector, no less?
You don’t need a fantasy writer to tell you there’s some mighty funny stuff that goes on in this world.
Let us stroll down Memory Lane to Sydney, Australia, 1935, and one of the most strange and baffling murder mysteries of all time: the “Shark Arm Murders” ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shark_Arm_case ).
Why does it have such a weird name? Attendez-vous.
Some Australian fishermen caught, alive, a 14.5-foot tiger shark and brought it to the city aquarium. The big shark did nothing for a week, and didn’t eat, but then fell ill and vomited up a bunch of interesting objects–including a severed human arm. (Note: I’m going by the account of the case given in The Book of Sharks by Richard Ellis, Knopf, New York, 1989, which differs from the Wikipedia article in a few details.)
They killed the shark–for no good reason I can think of–but the medical examiner found that the arm had been removed from its original owner by dint of a very sharp knife. The shark had certainly not bitten it off.
Based on fingerprints, and a well-preserved tattoo of two boxers, investigators were able to identify the owner of the arm–an ex-boxer now augmenting his income by being a police informant. He was in a risky line of work, and I suppose it caught up to him. He went missing some days before the fishermen caught the shark, and was never seen or heard from again.
Anyhow, detectives did their best, they finally arrested someone whom they considered a highly likely suspect, but the court said it couldn’t render a Guilty verdict on the basis of a loose arm in the belly of the shark. (Offstage we hear Robert Shaw singing, “Farewell and adieu to ye, fair Spanish ladies…”)
There’s some controversy about whether the arm was actually inside the great big tiger shark or the much smaller shark swallowed by the tiger earlier. We shall let Mr. Ellis have the last word.
“An animal so indiscriminate in its eating habits that it eats coal, boat cushions, and tom-toms, would be only too eager to taste a swimmer or a diver–which must look more edible than an unopened can of salmon. Perhaps the label was still on the can; maybe tiger sharks can read.” (pg. 126)
