Does the Megalodon Still Exist?

Could the terrifying predator Megalodon still lurk in the ocean’s depths, or did it vanish millions of years ago?

In this episode, we dive into the evidence surrounding the legendary giant shark.

From a 1918 lobster fisherman’s account of a 300-foot shark to modern TikTok conspiracies, the possibility of Megalodon’s survival is greatly debated.

While the Megalodon, the largest shark, likely became extinct due to climate cooling and dwindling prey, people keep trying to make the Meg a thing.

Join us as we explore the facts, myths, and modern shark encounters to determine if this legend holds water.

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Do Megalodons Still Exist?

Did a ferocious predator really go extinct millions of years ago?

What is really happening in the dark, briny depths?

Is there an ancient giant lurking in the coastal waters of the ocean?

What is up, Bizarros?! This week, we dive into the deep and test the believability of one of the legendary marine predators, the Megalodon.

Imagine you have just got yourself a beautiful 2-week-long cruise, and you set sail to travel between the American South, the Bahamas, and the Caribbean islands.

Day 5, you sit down at your ocean-side table and look at the darkness of the sea and you see large ripples next to the ship’s wake.

It dawns on you how alone you actually are in the deep, dark ocean. You then see a giant fin pop up that could almost touch the first deck.

Then you hear the siren’s signal, and you feel the shock of the ship being hit and the vibrations fluttering through the metal frame.

This is your encounter with the Megalodon.

8 Shark Facts

1 Sharks have no bones, and their skeleton is completely made of cartilage.

2 Sharks can see well in daylight and in darkness.

3 Sharkskin has the same texture as sandpaper.

4 When sharks get flipped over, they become immobile.

5 Sharks have been around for 455 million years (trees first evolved 385 million years ago).

6 Sharks are aged after they die by (like trees) counting the rings in their vertebrae.

7 The spot pattern of every whale shark is as unique as a fingerprint in humans.On day 5, you sit down at your ocean-side table and look at the darkness of the sea. You see large ripples next to the ship’s wake.

8 Most sharks have to keep swimming to keep water over their gills to breathe, but some have a special organ that pumps water over them.

Shark Encounters In Modern Times

Shark Encounter #1

In 2006, Sarah Kate Whiley was swimming near Brisbane in water no higher than her waist when she was attacked by three bull sharks, which tore off both of her arms while biting her stomach and legs.

Her friends ignored her scream at first, thinking it was a joke.

Until they saw blood in the water [source: Chipperfield]. Whiley’s death is just one of Queensland’s 199 attacks since 1700 [source: ISAF]

Shark Encounter #2

“What started as a romantic vacation quickly turned into tragedy.

On his honeymoon off Anse Lazio beach in Seychelles, Redmond was out snorkeling when a shark set upon him.

A vacationer in a small boat was able to pull Redmond to shore, but the shark had already taken his arm and leg.

Redmond bled to death on the beach while his wife of just 10 days watched. There had been a shark attack in the exact same location two weeks earlier, but the Seychelles tourism chief had elected not to close the beaches or even warn the public in order to keep attracting tourists. “

Shark Encounter #3

Before 2022, the last recorded fatal shark attack in Sydney, Australia, was in 1963. Sydney makes a point of cautioning beachgoers about shark sightings, but nature remains unpredictable.

A large fin surfaced near a diver. In a matter of seconds, the water turned red. The fight didn’t last long, and the victim was dragged under the surface.

The police later recovered his remains. Even if someone had tried to rescue him immediately, the attack was so aggressive that his injuries would have been fatal.

One witness was so scarred by the experience that they swore never to set foot in the ocean again.”

Shark Encounter #4

“Manual Lopez was scuba diving off the coast of Mexico near Benito Juárez in Sonora.

It was an ordinary day for him, collecting tripe mollusks to sell.

He had been warned of great white shark sightings nearby, but he took the risk.

He jumped in the water on Jan. 6, 2023, and never came out again.

A 19-foot great white attacked him, tearing off his head in a matter of seconds, while local fishermen looked on in horror.

To honor his memory, take his tragic experience as a lesson: No amount of money is as valuable as your life.”

Sharks That Are Extinct

Now, no huge sharks exist that have evolved from the Megalodon. The closest living relative is the shortfin Mako shark,

There is some debate that the great white may have come from the Meg as well, but there is a debate that these two sharks are different. They point out that their teeth are completely different. The tooth size is smaller and thinner than fossil records found of the megalodon tooth.

What Is The Megalodon?

The Megalodon was alive 20 million years ago and roamed the ocean for approximately 13 million years.

It was not only the biggest shark ever but the biggest fish ever.

It grew between 15 and 18 meters (49 to 59 feet).

Because of the size and serrations on its teeth, the Megalodon ate marine mammals like whales, large fish, dolphins, and probably other sharks.

Whale bones have even been found with bite marks, which the Meg’s tooth would have cut into.

Its mouth was giant. It was large enough to swallow two people at once.

Their mouth was lined with 276 teeth. They also may have had the strongest bite force ever recounted on Earth.

A great white shark’s bite force is 18,216 Newtons. The Meg was capable of forces between 108,514 and 182,201N.

The Megalodon was a massive shark, and despite popular theories that the great white shark is the descendant of this ancient apex predator, they don’t look alike.

Quote from the Natural History Museum

“The megalodon likely had a much shorter nose, or rostrum, when compared with the great white, with a flatter, almost squashed jaw.

Like the blue shark, it also had extra-long pectoral fins to support its weight and size.

A lot of reconstructions have megalodon looking like a bigger version of the great white shark because, for a long time, people thought they were related.

We now know that this is not the case, and megalodon is actually from a different lineage of shark of which megalodon was the last member.’”

Evidence That The Megalodon Still Exists

Some of the most compelling evidence comes from the 2013 documentary from Discovery called “Megalodon: The Shark Still Lives,” which caught what seems to be a still image of a giant shark in the water. The image of this giant shark sighting is estimated to be up to 70 feet in length, which is much larger than the maximum size the shark was supposed to get.

The same documentary shows a blue whale that had been ripped in half literally with its intense hanging in 2009.

There were some comments on the YouTube video that had clips from the doc that could be tracked, such as, “I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that someone claimed the whale got hit by the propeller of a cruise ship or maybe cargo vessel.”

Another comment stated, “That whale died, and its guts exploded.”

TikTok Evidence Of The Megalodon

Now there are several TikToks that claim the Meg is real: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTYkxYmv6/

This post is shared via TikTok. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTYkxyLNr/

This one is a comparison to a potential Meg that was caught by a satellite near a school bus.

And this clip, https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTYkxK7jq/, is what people claim to be a 60-foot meg at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

Joe Rogan clip from Project Deep Dive about the Meg

There is a clip from the Joe Rogan show where he is interviewing someone who claims to have worked on Project Deep Dive.

He claimed to be on a project that was stationed 30,000 feet under the sea.

One day, they see a blip that is over 200 feet long moving in the water.

He asks his partner and asks if he’s seeing this, and without even asking for clarification, he says, “Yeah, I’m seeing this.”

They start to ascend, but it isn’t very fast due to decompression, and this creature approaches and eventually swims right over them, and they see it.

It’s a giant shark that attacks the sub.

—-Now I had a hunch that this was AI and fake from the quality of the video, the voices in the video, and the fact they keep cutting to clips of AI. But at the end, it says this is a fake short story.

Other Evidence Of The Prehistoric Shark

And the last piece of evidence could be a case of mistaken identity.

They found what appeared to be a 50-foot-long shark on a deep sea scan.

At first, it was thought that this was a scan of the fabled Megalodon, but they ultimately “concluded” differently.

One scientist said

“We waited for one of the rods to go off; however, much to our disappointment, the shape started to transition into a large school of Atlantic Mackerel that hung around the boat for about 15 minutes,” lamented the disillusioned researchers. “So close, but so far! The Megalodon (Otodus megalodon) disappeared more than 3 million years ago and will likely stay that way, but for a few minutes, we thought he had returned!”

Evidence That The Megalodon Doesn’t Exist

It’s believed that the Meg went extinct for several reasons.

The first is the general planetary cooling of the earth and the drop in ocean temperature. The drop of the tropical ocean and warmth lead to mass loss of habitat.

Their primary food sources also became harder and harder to find.

Here is a quote from the scientific community.

“Scientists think that up to a third of all large marine animals, including 43% of turtles and 35% of sea birds, became extinct as temperatures cooled and the number of organisms at the base of the food chain plummeted, resulting in a knock-on effect to the predators at the top.

It may also have resulted in the megalodon’s prey either going extinct or adapting to the cooler waters and moving to where the sharks could not follow. “

There doesn’t seem to be an abundance of evidence that this shark is still swimming in the ocean waters.

Possible Stories About The Extinct Shark

There is only one known sighting that may have been the giant ancient shark, the Megalodon.

There was a sighing of 1918 lobster fishermen. This story comes from Max Hawthorn’s blog, and Max does not necessarily believe that this is actually a sighting of the supposedly long-dead creature.

The sighting goes like this.

“In the year 1918, I recorded the sensation that had been caused among the “outside” crayfish men at Port Stephens when, for several days, they refused to go to sea to their regular fishing grounds in the vicinity of Broughton Island.

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 crayfish and taking, as the men said, “pots, mooring lines and all.”

These crayfish pots, it should be mentioned, were about 3 feet 6 inches [1.06 m] in diameter and frequently contained from two to three dozen good-sized crayfish, each weighing several pounds.

The men were all unanimous that this shark was something 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.

Bear in mind that these were men who were used to the sea and all sorts of weather, as well as all sorts of sharks.

One of the crew said the shark was “three hundred feet [90 m] long at least”!

Others said it was as long as the wharf on which we stood, about 115 feet [35 m]!

They affirmed that the water “boiled” over a large space when the fish swam 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 long as the roof on the wharf shed at Nelson Bay.”

Impossible, of course!

But these were stoic men, not given to ‘fish stories’ nor even to talking about their catches.

Further, they knew that the person they were talking to (myself) had heard all the fish stories years before!

One of the things that impressed me was that they all agreed as to the ghostly whitish color of the vast fish.

The local Fisheries Inspector of the time, Mr. Paton, agreed with me that it must have been something really gigantic to put these experienced men into such a state of fear and panic.”