The Dorsal Fin

The video above recently founds its way on YouTube via SOSShark. The description claims that an underwater video camera housing was found at the bottom of the sea by divers near Malta. The footage shown in the video was supposedly recovered from the camera. Oddly enough, the recovered footage has been edited with multiple quick cuts that make a Michael Bay action sequence seem smooth.

A frame-by-frame analysis reveals some shots of a shark seemingly biting a wetsuit-clad diver with plenty of “blood” in the water. Oddly enough, in some of the frames of the “attack” in which the diver can be seen, the blood is originating from off-camera. One must also give credit to the cameraman for being a true professional and continuing to film the attack, rather than to help the diver out.

The concerned individual(s) who posted the video concluded it with a message seeking information about the diver and the cameraman. While the thought of acquiring a free underwater video rig by claiming to be the cameraman might seem tempting, I’m guessing that the creators of this video might be wise to such attempts, so I’m going to go ahead and advise against it.

While I’m not sure what the motivation is behind these types of videos, they seem to pop up from time to time. I guess the hope is that the video will go viral and generate some ad. revenue. I’ve yet to see that really happen with one of these types of videos, but I have a feeling that if it does, it’s going take a better attempt than the video shown above.

There are actually some fairly impressive kite boarding videos on YouTube. Unfortunately, this is not one of them. According to the title and the video information, the video above purports to show a great white shark attack a kite surfer, when in reality it’s just a garbled mix of surface and underwater shots with a couple of snippets of white shark footage spliced in. Throw in some really bad acting and “blood” in the water, and you’ve got your supposed shark attack video. To the video creator’s credit, the transitions into and out of the white shark footage are fairly smooth.