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NARRATOR: This time on Stranger Than Nature...
MAN: It looked like a war zone out there.
NARRATOR: 5,000 birds crash from the sky
in the state of Arkansas.
Some fear it's the end of the world.
MAN: We're really freaking out.
Was this some kind of crazy nuclear situation?
NARRATOR: A weird, slimy, mysterious goo
suddenly appears in Scotland.
NARRATOR: A rash of shark attacks plague California.
MAN: I looked down and I just see
this huge circle of teeth coming right at me.
MAN: All of a sudden I just remember kind of getting hit.
NARRATOR: Why is this supreme predator
on the hunt for human flesh?
Find out the answers to some of the world's weirdest mysteries
on Stranger Than Nature.
December 31, 2010.
Beebe, Arkansas.
Home to a few thousand people
and millions of screeching, swarming, red-winged blackbirds.
As night falls, the birds settle into their roosts.
While around the world...
CROWD: Happy New Year!
NARRATOR: ...celebrations get the New Year
off to a flying start.
But in Beebe something's wrong.
In the dead of night, wildlife officer Robbie King is called
to investigate a chilling scene.
ROBBIE KING: And I started seeing blackbirds in the street.
The street was, you know, pretty covered,
every probably three, two or three feet there was a bird.
OPERATOR: Police department, can I help you?
WOMAN: Yes, ma'am.
I was wondering why all the birds are just like dying?
MAN: Weird how most of them are falling in the streets there.
WOMAN: I know.
MAN: There are numerous birds.
NARRATOR: It's the dawn of a new year,
but it looks to some like the apocalypse.
Within just over one square mile,
the bodies of thousands of dead blackbirds litter the streets.
MAN: Looking down the street,
it looked like a war zone out there,
you know, that's kind of what it reminded me of...
an explosion in the sky.
MAN: Dead bird here, a bird there, a bird there.
Why?
NARRATOR: News crews race to Beebe.
Reporter Roger Susanin is one of the first on the scene.
ROGER SUSANIN: ...a lot like this one.
Dozens of birds litter the ground,
and the scariest part is no one knows how they got here.
ROGER: I'd never seen anything like it.
As soon as we got into Beebe,
we knew that this was gonna be big, this was gonna be crazy.
NARRATOR: As the morning goes on, the body count rises.
ROGER: We're really freaking out.
It almost seemed like something out of the bible,
I mean, it was insane.
MAN: I would say thousands, there were thousands of birds.
WOMAN: They appeared to have just flown in to the ground.
Their wings would be folded.
There were so many birds that when the cars were driving by,
they couldn't miss them.
MAN: Why did they, why did they fall in this area?
In just a, you know, a mile or two, 5,000 birds fell.
NARRATOR: Local residents are growing fearful.
Whatever's felled the birds
might be exposing humans to a harmful agent.
Scientists at the U.S. Geological Service
immediately swing into action.
JONATHAN SLEEMAN: It is very important to investigate,
is there a potential risk to human health?
MAN: They had part of the streets blocked off
and people with haz-mat outfits on, so we didn't stay around.
ROGER: It really is like something out of a horror film.
It was like they were out of the movie "Outbreak."
People were afraid, had the birds been poisoned,
was this some kind of crazy nuclear situation?
JONATHAN: So we had some sort of novel infectious agent
that'd been introduced,
that could transfer very rapidly to other species,
to other birds, and spread quite quickly.
NARRATOR: Beebe is still in shock,
and it's not just the media taking an interest.
OFFICER: The dispatch center got a telephone call,
and the caller ID popped up, "White House,"
and it was somebody from the White House wanting to know
what was going on in Beebe that night.
NARRATOR: Within days, they hear about other unusual incidents.
JONATHAN: A die-off of fish in a river in Arkansas,
there was also I think a die-off of fish in Chesapeake Bay.
Similar reports of die-offs of blackbirds in Louisiana
and I think some avian or bird mortalities in Kentucky.
We started to receive reports of other wildlife mortality events,
not just the United States, but also around the world.
NARRATOR: Across the globe internet sites are buzzing
with conspiracy theories.
JONATHAN: Secret government experiments,
possible accidental release of weapons of mass destruction,
even the sort of end of the world.
ROGER: I've heard everything from aliens,
I've heard everything from this is God punishing Arkansas
and America and planet Earth.
JONATHAN: It became known as the "aflockalypse."
NARRATOR: People have been predicting the end of the world
for millennia.
Some prophecies suggest the end of days will be signaled
by great plagues of animals.
But for many creatures,
gathering in large groups is their key to survival.
Starlings and blackbirds flock to keep watch for predators
and to avoid being singled out as prey.
They fly with seemingly effortless choreography,
synchronized and fluid as they react and respond
to the movements of the birds around them.
DAN SCHIEMAN: Their ability to see and sense movement
is much better than ours.
They can adjust really quickly
to the movements of their neighbors.
So every individual's watching their neighbors
and then adjusting to what their neighbors are doing.
NARRATOR: With reactions five times faster than our own,
they can change direction in the blink of an eye.
DAN: If you watch them, you'll see that rippling effect,
that wave through the flock as they change directions.
NARRATOR: But not everyone enjoys this display.
In winter red-winged blackbirds invade backyards
and neighborhoods of Arkansas by the millions.
MAN: It's a black cloud.
MAN: Well, it's shocking.
NARRATOR: These seasonal infestations
lead some to suspect the Beebe bird deaths may be deliberate.
MAN: They're noisy, they're smelly,
so I thought, well, someone has just decided
to take care of the problem, put out some poison.
JONATHAN: Poisonings is probably the the most common cause
of mortality and die-offs that we see in wildlife species
in the United States.
NARRATOR: But these red-winged blackbirds don't show
obvious signs of poisoning.
DAN: Because the birds died in such a concentrated area
and so quickly, usually when birds ingest poison
it takes some time for that to work through their system,
and different birds would die in different places
as they're moving around.
NARRATOR: The scientists need blood samples
to test for toxins.
They take no chances at the lab.
The birds could be contaminated
with a fast-spreading and deadly virus.
JONATHAN: We ran a number of tests
to look for the most common poisons,
you know, the pesticides, the rodenticides,
and they all uniformly came back negative on these birds.
NARRATOR: They rule out avian flu, as well as poisoning.
They need a new lead.
Arkansas sits right inside the infamous tornado alley.
Todd Yakoubian was reporting on the day of the "aflockalypse."
TODD YAKOUBIAN: Well, it was an eventful day weather-wise,
because earlier in the day we had severe weather,
even tornadoes in western portions of Arkansas.
NARRATOR: This could be a significant clue.
JONATHAN: Weather can have some major impacts on wildlife,
and we've seen birds that get caught up in storms.
DAN: Thunderstorms, hail, snowstorms
can affect the birds' ability to survive,
because it gets too cold, or they get wet.
JONATHAN: It can cause confusion,
when they're flying it can cause them to fly into buildings.
NARRATOR: Some suggest an extreme, localized weather event
known as a microburst
could knock a flock of birds from the sky.
TODD: Well, a microburst is something that happens
inside a thunderstorm when you have dry air aloft,
you have precipitation falling into that dry air, and it cools.
Cool air is heavy and dense, and it just plummets to the ground
and then spreads out in all directions,
and with the winds occur up to about 100 miles per hour.
NARRATOR: These devastating winds can wreak havoc.
In 1985 they even brought down a jetliner.
TODD: It's not uncommon here in Arkansas to get downburst winds
in the spring and the summertime,
and they cause a lot of damage, power goes out.
NARRATOR: If a microburst can bring down a 200-ton jet,
it should have no problem tearing two-ounce birds
from their roosts.
TODD: And all you see is just the wind, the rain,
and the trees just swaying, you don't know when it's gonna end,
and how much stronger it's gonna get,
and eventually it subsides.
NARRATOR: Todd analyzes data records
from the time of the "aflockalypse,"
looking for evidence of turbulent weather.
TODD: You've got thunderstorms here across eastern Arkansas,
just a few light showers up towards the north.
Beebe is located right about there.
But you start to notice
a strange radar signature right there.
It looks a little bit about rain,
but notice how it just kind of sits there and grows.
NARRATOR: This blip on the radar isn't a rainstorm.
TODD: I'm extremely sure that's the radar which is located here
picking up on blackbirds taking off.
NARRATOR: In an incredible event,
this is a huge cloud of birds,
so big it appears on radar!
TODD: And the radar to pick that up shows an incredible amount,
there must be just thousands upon thousands of blackbirds
all of a sudden flying up into the sky.
This continues all the way through midnight and beyond.
NARRATOR: The radar shows there are birds over Beebe,
but no thunderstorms.
TODD: Thunderstorms are way to the east,
and the weather probably did not have any type of cause in this.
NARRATOR: Extreme weather conditions are off the list.
The team return to exhibit A.
David Green carries out a series of autopsies.
DAVID GREEN: I'm looking for evidence of wounds, lumps,
bumps, blood, maybe bite wounds, broken bones, that sort of thing
that might give me a clue as to why this bird died.
NARRATOR: As more birds are sent in for testing,
he makes a shocking discovery.
All of them have brutal injuries.
Something happened to these birds
before they hit the ground.
DAVID: Some of them had lots of bruising and hemorrhage
in their breast muscles.
Others had injuries to the head and skull, or to the neck.
This bird here has multiple fractures
of coracoid bones,
basically it's the wishbone, the keel,
and there's a transverse severing fracture
of the backbone.
NARRATOR: Tests reveal that these birds died
an extraordinary death.
DAVID: The injuries are more likely then to be self-inflicted
by blunt trauma, impact trauma, flying into stationary objects.
Many of the birds impacted solid objects so hard
that it probably tore internal blood vessels,
because the birds had body cavities filled with blood.
This bird must have been flying at quite a speed
for the impact to just break in half
the backbone, the spinal column.
Death would have almost certainly been instantaneous.
NARRATOR: David's evidence gives the mystery a new twist.
On the eve of New Year,
the blackbirds seem to have set out
on a nighttime suicide mission.
DAN: Red-winged blackbirds are not nocturnal,
so they don't have the same kind of night vision
as, say, an owl does.
NARRATOR: Red-winged blackbirds can see further
and sharper than humans.
They also see more colors than we do--
a useful skill when choosing the best crops or berries to eat.
But unlike nocturnal predators such as owls,
blackbirds can't see well at night,
so when it gets dark, they have to stay in their roosts.
DAN: So the blackbird deaths happened at night,
and the reason that the birds collided
and massed with so many objects at night
is because they couldn't see that well.
NARRATOR: The cause of death is established,
but one mystery remains--
what forced thousands of red-winged blackbirds
with poor night vision
to flee the safety of their trees in the dead of night?
DAVID: Something must have scared them out of their roosts
and made them flee from their roosts and start flying around,
but they were flying blindly.
NARRATOR: Radar images confirm a sudden exodus.
TODD: There must be just thousands upon thousands
of blackbirds all of a sudden flying up into the sky.
NARRATOR: Just a few spooked birds
would cause a chain reaction
leading thousands into a deadly game of follow the leader.
DAN: Many birds are awake, and they're watching for predators,
so if a predator does come around,
some birds will see that and alarm the other birds,
and they'll all wake up and fly off.
NARRATOR: Something is terrifying the birds.
The date, December 31st, could be the biggest clue.
JONATHAN: The most likely scenario
is that someone was letting off fireworks.
NARRATOR: With the countdown to New Year under way,
some of Beebe's residents are in a real party mood.
JONATHAN: That loud sound
close to where these birds were roosting in trees
caused them to flush, or fly away from those roosts.
MAN: They were just ground thumpers,
like artillery.
MAN: Boys are really shooting the firecrackers tonight.
NARRATOR: It seems the blackbirds went out with a ***.
WOMAN: A boomp and then a woosh,
and then the birds all flew up...
...in disarray.
JONATHAN: They ended up crashing into each other,
crashing into buildings, into power lines, into radio towers.
NARRATOR: Many say this year's fireworks are unusually loud.
ROGER: Some people in the town
said they heard commercial grade fireworks.
MAN: It was the loudest noises I'd ever heard.
NARRATOR: With fireworks overhead and buildings below,
the blackbirds have nowhere to run.
Flying blind they smash into buildings,
lampposts and each other.
Many are dead before they hit the ground.
DAVID: Well, the sense of panic had to have been intense.
NARRATOR: Conspiracies about the end of the world may continue,
but in Beebe, this mystery appears to be solved.
ROBBIE: Kind of something that'll never be forgotten
in this town and community.
NARRATOR: Case closed.
The Scottish Highlands, October 2008.
Rugged, ancient, mysterious.
A wild landscape of mountain ranges, lochs, and glens.
But it's an unnatural discovery made one autumn day
that provokes a flurry of phone calls to BBC Radio Scotland.
LAURA: Hi, Euan.
NARRATOR: The mystery slime sightings grow.
Witnesses describe an unearthly, gooey substance
spread across the ground.
NARRATOR: The Scottish public is stunned.
The goo is unlike anything anyone's seen before.
NARRATOR: After just two days,
the BBC have over 40,000 hits on their website.
Goo fever hits the Highlands.
NARRATOR: One confused witness is Myles O'Reilly.
He has a passion for fungi,
and is in his local park hunting for mushrooms
when he stumbles upon the strange goo.
NARRATOR: As a scientist,
Myles is intrigued by the sticky substance
which he can't identify.
He starts to investigate further.
NARRATOR: Algae are plant-like organisms
that have been on Earth for billions of years.
They are one of the oldest life-forms on the planet.
...of the oxygen that is produced on planet Earth.
NARRATOR: Dr. Hans Sluiman examines a sample in depth.
NARRATOR: If it's not algae, or any other type of plant,
just what is it?
One week after the first slime sighting,
BBC Scotland's website has over 100,000 hits.
Listeners flood the phone lines
with suggestions about the origin of the goo.
NARRATOR: One theory in particular keeps cropping up.
It's an idea that's out of this world.
NARRATOR: Steve Mera will take the encounter to the next level.
NARRATOR: He's a paranormal investigator,
further south in England.
Steve discovers the goo in a field
on the outskirts of Manchester.
NARRATOR: Steve collects, tags and transports
the mysterious jelly back to his office
where he'll carry out further research.
But then events take an even stranger twist.
NARRATOR: His only evidence has vanished.
Steve has one incredible explanation.
NARRATOR: Some believe that life on Earth began
when extraterrestrial material hit our planet,
carried through space inside rocks and meteors.
Scientists have been exploring this panspermia theory
for hundreds of years.
An astral goo is described in poetry as early as the 1600s.
"A false star shot to a marked place.
Do's run apace.
And, thinking it to catch, a jelly up do ***."
Panspermia remains a controversial subject,
one that planetary scientist Tim Tomkinson researches.
TIM TOMKINSON: On Earth we have a large abundance of rocks
that have traveled in from space which we call meteorites,
and so the idea is that life could have traveled
within these rocks.
NARRATOR: If fragile star jelly falls from space on its own,
or on the surface of a meteor,
it has to survive entry into the earth's atmosphere.
Anything falling to earth will hit temperatures
reaching almost 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
TIM: This gelatinous material surviving through space
seems rather unlikely, unfortunately, to me.
It would have most likely burnt up.
NARRATOR: There's no evidence supporting the theory
this is star jelly.
NARRATOR: The mystery of the goo's origin,
like the stuff itself, won't go away.
NARRATOR: But deer hunter Andy Malcolm thinks the slime
has a more down-to-earth origin.
NARRATOR: Red deer are one of the most iconic animals
of the Highlands.
They are at their most impressive in the fall
during the rut.
[bellows]
Mature stags standing eight feet high battle for supremacy
and the right to mate with up to 100 females.
NARRATOR: Another sample of jelly
is sent to a nearby laboratory for scientific analysis.
Radio Scotland's listeners await the results.
NARRATOR: Deer *** is ruled out,
but ecologist Dr. Andy Taylor wants to carry out a DNA test.
This will confirm if the strange slime
has come from any other animal.
NARRATOR: DNA provides a unique biological fingerprint.
All cell-based life contains it.
It's the set of genetic instructions
that makes up each individual life-form.
Far from solving the problem, the DNA analysis of the goo
has created an even deeper mystery.
NARRATOR: Experts are no closer to identifying a substance
that has perplexed scholars and scientists
for hundreds of years.
Let's review the evidence.
A strange form of algae is ruled out.
HANS: I found it very unlikely
that it would have had a plant-like origin.
NARRATOR: There's no evidence it's alien life
brought to Earth by a meteorite.
TIM: This gelatinous material surviving through space
seems rather unlikely, unfortunately.
NARRATOR: Professor Malcolm Kennedy is about to test
a novel theory.
Although previous DNA tests have proven
the goo isn't animal based,
he believes the frog theory is worth more investigation.
NARRATOR: Frog jelly is one half
of what is more commonly known as spawn.
Its very creation is a wonder of science.
Thousands of eggs grow within a frog's body.
When a frog lays its eggs,
it covers them with a protective jelly
known as albumin, or frog jelly.
NARRATOR: Stressed frogs are fingered as the culprits
in the mystery of the weird jelly.
The fact there's no DNA helps support this theory.
Only a few substances exist without DNA.
Human red blood cells and urine are among them.
Frog jelly is produced ahead of the egg spawning cycle
and contains no DNA.
Bizarrely, this helps ensure the cycle of life.
NARRATOR: When the frog jelly covers the eggs,
it provides the ultimate protection
from predators and disease.
The mystery appears solved.
When frogs come under attack,
fear causes them to expel the jelly
normally used to protect their eggs.
Exposed to water, the jelly expands.
Confused passersby find the mysterious substance.
NARRATOR: But one final element of the puzzle remains.
Steve Mera's sample of the jelly
vanishes from a sealed container.
Malcolm Kennedy has a possible solution.
NARRATOR: The mystery is solved,
but not everyone is satisfied.
NARRATOR: Case closed.
California...
840 miles of golden coastline.
The temperate climate here
makes it the ultimate Pacific playground.
But these bays and beaches can be deadly.
Nearly half the world's shark attacks occur here,
and it's home to a notorious area of shark-infested waters
known as the Red Triangle.
The ocean predators' latest victim is surfer Eric Tarantino.
The scars on his arm are just one week old.
ERIC TARANTINO: I remember I was laying on my board paddling,
and I didn't see it at all, I didn't hear it.
All of a sudden I just remember kind of getting hit.
I'm pretty sure it hit me with its mouth open
and caught my neck.
The only thing I was thinking was,
"Get to the beach, get to some help."
NARRATOR: Eric's experience is not unique.
Since the 1870s,
263 people have been attacked by the great white shark.
Over half of these have occurred in the last 20 years.
And in 2011 it's not just California
where the great white bites.
South Africa.
A shark tears both legs off a swimmer in waters near Durban.
Russia.
Two young men are savaged in the Sea of Japan,
one victim loses both his arms.
These are the first-ever recorded great white attacks
in this part of the world.
Western Australia.
Two die in separate great white attacks in the Indian Ocean.
One happens 11 miles from the coastline.
The brutal attacks are happening in almost every ocean,
near the coastline and out at sea.
The great white shark is on trial,
accused of developing a taste for human flesh.
This prehistoric predator has an evolutionary armory
developed over 400 million years.
It's the ultimate oceanic hunter.
It has a line of sensors along the length of its body,
which detect the vibration, and thus, location of prey.
Receptors across its snout identify electrical impulses
given off by everything it encounters.
And it has a sense of smell,
which can detect a drop of blood in water three miles away.
NARRATOR: Eric's surfing in the early morning
when the great white attacks him.
ERIC: I couldn't see all of it,
I didn't see its tail, I didn't really see its head.
It was kind of in front of me pulling my arm.
I couldn't tell if I was bit anywhere else,
so I think I kicked it like two or three times
before it let me go.
NARRATOR: Wounded, Eric swims for his life.
The iconic predator, with a lethal reputation,
has let him escape.
Ralph Collier's been studying the great white
for over 40 years.
RALPH COLLIER: These animals don't want to hunt human beings.
Usually the reason they're releasing the individual
is because they're not interested.
If it's a diver or a surfer, they've tasted neoprene,
they've got maybe a little blood in their mouth from a human,
that doesn't taste anything like natural prey.
NARRATOR: The great white feasts on seals, sea lions,
and even whales for their high calorific content.
Humans are too bony and difficult for a shark to digest.
Sharks prefer to spit us back out.
In 2011, of the 12 people attacked, 8 survive.
RALPH: If white sharks wanted to hunt human beings,
I would never talk to any survivors,
because there's nothing you or I can do to defend ourselves
against an animal that's 17 or 18 feet long
and weighs 4,000 or 5,000 pounds.
NARRATOR: If people aren't a deliberate target,
what's motivating the great white
to utilize its super senses
to attack human prey around the world?
In Eric Tarantino's case,
the shark uses its highly-tuned eyesight.
Its vision is 10 times more sensitive than a human--
the equivalent of seeing the light from a match
almost 100 miles away.
But this sense is only effective in clear water.
RALPH: Looking back historically,
attacks frequently occur in water that's very, very murky.
We now have to view this object as the shark would see it.
He's in an area that is frequented
by seals and sea lions.
He sees a very fuzzy image above him
that's a kid on a boogie board.
He can't distinguish any real features,
it's just a blur, so he races up and attacks.
So the fact that a shark would mistake a person for food,
as we perceive it,
can only be due to the fact
that it can't see the object clearly.
NARRATOR: Not all great white attacks can be blamed
on mistaken identity.
Marco Flagg is one of thousands of people
who dive off California's coast.
In addition to the usual scuba gear,
he's testing out a prototype scuba computer,
which turns out to be a lifesaver.
MARCO FLAGG: I noticed something,
and I looked to my right, and I see a tail fin
that is about as tall as I am, or almost as tall as I am,
and it just went gliding past me and disappeared.
NARRATOR: After checking him out,
the 17-foot great white glides away, seemingly uninterested.
Marco quickly makes for the surface.
MARCO: On my way back, again, I notice something,
this time off to my left and below,
and I look down and I just see this huge circle of teeth
coming right at me.
I turned towards it,
and the next thing I know it just clamped around me.
At that point I must have blacked out,
but the next thing I know, it's gone.
NARRATOR: The shark clearly sees Marco and knows he isn't prey,
so why does it try to take a bite out of him?
RALPH: In the head area you have electroreceptors.
They can detect very minute electrical currents.
All living things have an aura that we give off,
we have this minute electrical energy being transmitted,
all living things have it.
This system is designed to pick up that very minute current.
NARRATOR: When these juvenile hammerheads
swim over this plate,
scientists trigger an electrical charge
equivalent to a billionth of a volt.
The shark immediately bites.
Similarly, when Marco dives with the computer,
the shark picks up its electrical current
as it passes close by.
The current attracts the shark and gives it the urge to attack.
Attacks on divers are rare.
Nine out of ten great white encounters around the world
occur on the surface.
But why would the shark's super senses
make it launch out of the water
and crunch into a surfboard, or kayak?
Duane Strosaker's kayaking alone
five miles off the Californian coast,
unaware that the strokes from his paddle
are alerting a monster below him.
DUANE STROSAKER: Out of nowhere about three feet from the kayak,
this giant head of a great white with its jaws wide open
comes up and clamps onto my kayak right here.
NARRATOR: Sharks regularly breach the surface
chasing seals or sea lions.
They're drawn in by the splashing of their prey,
which they can detect up to two miles away.
DUANE: I didn't know if it was going to bite through the kayak
and bite my foot off.
Of course, my left foot is inside of its jaws.
NARRATOR: The shark has a bite pressure of 1.8 tons,
20 times stronger than a human.
Receptors along its jaw tell the great white
within three-hundredths of a second
whether its victim is worth eating.
The sensation of fiberglass in the shark's mouth
is nothing like that of its normal prey.
DUANE: All of a sudden it just gently let go of me,
slid back in the water.
It didn't tip me over or anything,
I was still sitting straight up.
NARRATOR: Duane has a miraculous escape
from the jaws of a killer,
which has used its senses to locate him.
But there's one more element to this predator's profile
that trumps all its senses
and could be the motivation for the attack on Duane
and those across the globe.
RALPH: Most of the attacks on humans are investigation,
which means the shark is not quite sure what you are.
It's the same reason the adults bite crab pot buoys
and why they bite Zodiacs.
Now, none of those objects replicate
or even closely resemble a natural prey,
yet these animals bite them--
curiosity.
NARRATOR: Sadly, it's the shark's bite power
coupled with its natural curiosity
that causes such catastrophic injuries.
One small bite is all it takes.
RALPH: These animals have the equipment
to do a lot of damage to a human being.
Even if they're not hunting you,
they're just coming up to take a test bite,
because it's investigation.
NARRATOR: The final mystery,
and one of the most important that needs solving,
is why global attacks are on the rise.
RALPH: It really goes back to
it's not so much what you're doing in the water
as where you're doing it
that creates this potential
for a possible interaction with a shark.
NARRATOR: Millions more people use the ocean for pleasure
than ever before.
The increasing popularity of water sports
and improving wetsuit technology
means humans stay in colder water longer.
Eric, Marco and Duane are victims
who, like so many others, are dramatically encroaching
into the once-exclusive territory of the great white...
...triggering this predator's natural curiosity.
ERIC: You realize once it's happening that,
you know, it doesn't matter if you're prepared or what,
if it wanted to eat me, it would have eaten me.
DUANE: Yeah, in my case, it could have easily, you know,
crunched through my kayak and killed me if it wanted to.
MARCO: If it had wanted to get me,
I don't think there would have been any problem
for the animal whatsoever.
I would have been dead, you know.
NARRATOR: The chances of an encounter
with a great white at sea is 11 million to one.
With odds this good, it's no surprise
that millions of people are taking the plunge.
ERIC: Everyone knows they're out there.
We take the chance every time we go in the water.
NARRATOR: Case closed.