Photos and videos of sharks and other marine life swimming in suburban floodwaters make for popular hoaxes during massive storms. But a cellphone video filmed during Hurricane Ian's assault on southwest Florida isn't just another fish story.
The eye-popping video, which showed a large, dark fish with sharp dorsal fins thrashing around an inundated Fort Myers backyard, racked up more than 12 million views on Twitter within a day, as users responded with disbelief and comparisons to the "Sharknado" film series.
"I didn't know what it was -- it just looked like a fish or something," he told The Associated Press. "I zoomed in, and all my friends are like, 'It's like a shark, man!'"Experts were of mixed opinion on whether the clip showed a shark or another large fish. George Burgess, former director of the Florida Museum of Natural History's shark program, said in an email that it "appears to be a juvenile shark," while Dr.
Leslie Guelcher, a professor of intelligence studies at Mercyhurst University in Erie, Pennsylvania, was among the online sleuths who initially thought the video was fake. Guelcher acknowledged later, though, that online tools she and others were using to establish the video's origins didn't actually show when the video itself was created, merely when the social media profile of the user was created."It makes a bit more sense from a flooding standpoint," she said by email, when informed the fish was spotted near an overflowing pond.
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