Viral shark attack video is computer generated, not from Atlantic Ocean or Canada

A video of an aquatic creature — seemingly a shark — destroying a ship has gone viral on social media. The video is apparently shot from a helicopter flying alongside the ship when suddenly a large shark fin appears out of the water and the creature destroys the ship. Some of the broken materials of the ship fly towards the helicopter and knock it down into the water.

Many social media users have shared the video calling it a shark/whale attack on ships in the Atlantic Ocean. Some also claimed that the incident occurred in Canada.

Twitter user ‘UdthaBollywood’ with over 15,000 followers tweeted the said video on April 25 with the caption: “Two Ships in the middle of the #AtlanticOcean was fully destroyed by an #Angry Jumbo Whale/Shark.” The video received over 1,100 retweets and over 1.7 million views. (Archive)

Two Ships in the middle of the #AtlanticOcean was fully destroyed by an #Angry Jumbo Whale/Shark. pic.twitter.com/T33KtIGTzD

— UdthaBollywood 🇮🇳🇮🇱 (@BanCheneProduct) April 25, 2023

Twitter user Arjun Rathore, who has a Twitter Blue account and over 18,000 followers, shared the video as well. He later deleted the tweet. (Archive)

The video is also viral on Facebook. A user called Tuhada Sewadaar Kamaldeep Kapoor, whose bio says: “PA To MLA S Kulwant Singh Sidhu Halka Atam Nagar Ludhiana” and who has over 5,500 followers on the social media platform, shared the same with the caption: “*Whale attack video from Canada…..Total destruction of a ship*”

Multiple other social media users shared the same viral video across various channels.

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Fact Check

We ran a Google reverse image search on some of the keyframes of the video, which led us to an Instagram post by the profile: @aleksey__n whose bio says ‘Digital Creator’.

The user shared the above video on March 9, 2023 with the caption: “Meg🦈#reels #meg #megalodon #animation”

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Ⲁⳑⲉⲕ⳽ⲉⲩ (@aleksey__n)

The Instagram user had also posted the same video on YouTube Shorts and Twitter.

I’m finally done!#megalodon #meg #animation #digitalart #CGI #3D pic.twitter.com/BtwZzEKPDh

— Aleksey__n (@AlekseyN11) March 10, 2023

In the Twitter post, the user mentioned the hashtags ‘animation’, ‘digital art’ and ‘CGI’.

Aleksey__n also answered another user’s query on the above Twitter post enquiring what software they used to design the same and many others expressed their feedback on the animation.

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The shark that is featured in the video is ‘Meg’ or ‘Megalodon’. According to several studies, Megalodon went extinct nearly 3.6 million years ago. The viral video by creator Aleksey__n shows what a Meg attack might look like if it was still alive.

Therefore, the viral social media claims stating the shark attack video to be real are false. The video is a work of animation. Similar other animated videos can be found on the creator’s YouTube and Instagram accounts.

Oishani Bhattacharya is an intern with Alt News.