We came across this video on Facebook of a shark attacking a large ship. The enormous creature, which spans the length of the vessel, emerges from the water and rips the ship into two. The video was shared with the caption: “Really Fish attack from Canada”. The same video was also shared on YouTube, with the caption: “shark attack in Canada”.

A Google reverse image search of screenshots from the video leads to the Instagram profile of a digital creator, who goes by the username aleksey_n.

Aleksey’s Instagram profile contains a longer video that refers to the animal as a Megalodon and shows the shark attacking the vessel and projectile material from the wrecked vessel bringing down the cameraman’s helicopter. The video ends with the creature attacking the cameraman who has fallen into the water.

 

What is a Megalodon?

Megalodon is an extinct species of shark, believed to be the largest shark and fish to have existed in the world.

Megalodons are estimated to reach between 15-18m in length, 3 times longer than the largest recorded great white shark. Research suggests that Megalodons might have become extinct about 3.6 million years ago by being outcompeted by great white sharks for food.

Does the video show a real shark attack?

The video which was uploaded on Aleksey’s social media profiles contained hashtags such as #animation, #digitalart, and #CGI. These indicate that the video is not real, but an animation of what a Megalodon attack might look like. However, this has not stopped comments asking if the video is real, perhaps due to their unfamiliarity with digital art.

Responding to a query about the video on Twitter, Aleksey stated that it took him about 2 to 3 weeks to create the video, confirming that it is indeed animated.

Besides the Megalodon attack, Aleksey has also created other animations such as a Godzilla attack and the sinking of Titanic, to showcase his skills.

Further, while there is no apparent reference to Canada in Aleksey’s posts, for completeness, we also did a check on shark attacks in Canada. Shark attacks in Canada are rare. According to the Canadian Shark Attack Registry, which keeps a record of all shark incidents in Canada, the latest shark incident was in 2021.

While content creators such as Aleksey might upload their work with harmless intentions such as providing entertainment value, misinformation spreaders might still misuse these content for their own gains. Hence, it is good practice to verify information that we come across online.

Therefore, it is false that the video shows a shark attack in Canada. Instead, it was an animation made by a digital creator.