We love nothing more than a good deep-sea mystery
especially when there's a very large creature involved.
And this next video is so mind-bending
it would have Jules Verne himself saying,
"Come on,
2017, the Mediterranean Sea.
A team working a debris sweep along ocean pipelines
comes across what, at first,
looks like just another deep sea carcass
to be cleared away.
But closer inspection reveals
this is truly something unusual.
What appears to be a 90-foot-long dusty spine
sits undisturbed on the bottom of the ocean.
A remote-controlled crane reaches out to investigate
the skeleton, turning over one of the vertebrae
which disintegrates!
British podcaster and investigator Debbie Hatswell
was one of the first people to see this intriguing film
after a member of the pipeline maintenance team
reached out to her.
He said they've seen a lot of carcasses on the sea floor
and they've seen whale carcasses and other fish and all that,
and it just doesn't fit. Doesn't fit with what they are.
He is saying, "This is an anomaly."
And he's felt that it was a very, very old...
animal of some kind.
So, I reached out to a number of...
marine biologists
and nobody really got back to me with it
as to what it was.
[host]
explores the idea
that perhaps these are the remains
of a long-extinct ocean predator...
the dreaded megalodon.
[Ken]
out of Rhode Island
was deploying a sonar
when they encountered what they believed to be a shark
of unbelievable proportions.
Perhaps 50 to 60 feet in length.
Now, if so,
this would be the best account
of a modern megalodon.
[host]
that experts believe could weight as much as 50 tons,
has been thought extinct for nearly three million years.
Have these Rhode Island researchers
uncovered a modern-day version of this historical monster?
And, if so, could we be looking at the remnants of one
in this video?
This would certainly fit within the paradigm
of what we know about megalodon.
[dramatic music plays]
Sea dragons can be found in all sorts of ancient texts
and tales dating back thousands of years,
from North mythology's Midgard Serpent
to the Ancient Babylonian saltwater dragon Tiamat.
Is there a connection here?
Let's see if our experts can help slay this oceanic mystery.
[suspenseful music playing]
Marine biologist
Dr. Shea Steingass
strongly doubts these are the remains
of a sea dragon of ancient myth.
[Shea]
That's probably not the case
'cause we really don't have any scientific evidence
of these creatures existing.
[host]
what appears to be a pelvis,
something not found in the numerous depictions
of the serpent-like creatures.
What we are actually seeing here is a very old skeleton
of some kind of modern animal.
[host]
that could possibly grow to this length
would be a whale.
Could that be what this is?
[Shea]
that this is a really large whale skeleton
are really slim because we would likely see
other types of large bones, like a skull
if we were to see a spinal column.
These remains aren't like anything
I've really seen before.
[host]
we checked with wildlife biologist Stephanie Manka
to see if this could be a modern megalodon
like the one thought to be discovered near Rhode Island.
If it were a megalodon,
I wouldn't expect to see the bone
as intact as this.
Megalodons,
like other sharks,
instead of bone skeletons
they have cartilage skeletons
which don't fossilize well.
Bone contains minerals, whereas cartilage doesn't.
Bones are much harder and...
if you think about your ear,
this part where it bends is the cartilage
and that's what shark skeletons
are made of.
[host]
it turns into a jelly-like substance
that dissolves into the water.
Which is why the only proof we have for megalodons
are their teeth.
And as for that alleged megalodon spotted
by the Atlantic Shark Institute of Rhode Island,
further research indicates this sonar image
is more likely a large school of Atlantic mackerel.
So, with all of our theories ruled out,
what is Manka's best guess?
[Stephanie]
What is probably going here is the whale skeleton
has been on the ocean floor for so long
that organisms have eaten away at the bone.
And there are fin whales in the Mediterranean
which are the second largest whale species.
They usually don't get up to 30 meters,
so there is a little size discrepancy,
but everything else
seems to allude that it is a whale.
Our verdict?
Unknown sea beast.
Stephanie Manka thinks it could be an abnormally large whale,
but our marine biologist Dr. Steingass
says, "No way."
Until there is further investigation
of the skeleton itself beyond this video evidence,
these bones will remain a mystery.