When a Diver is Found in a Shark's Stomach

Ambient Songs:
By CoAg
https://www.youtube.com/@co.agmusic1823

Intro Theme by Swift Junai:
https://www.instagram.com/swiftjunai/?hl=en
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6hf5nMJ8s6LJJfFR4OQ3lg
https://open.spotify.com/artist/1PoG2b18MHocWZA8zQgWjO

Writers and researchers: Jay Adams
https://instagram.com/jayadamsdigital?igshid=MzMyNGUyNmU2YQ==

Jordan Gottschick https://www.youtube.com/@DerpsWithWolves/playlists

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Many of the diving videos in this channel focus on
tragedies caused by human error. A diver goes into the water,
makes a mistake, and then tragically drowns as a result, which,
don't get me wrong, is horrifying, but for many the
far scarier reality is coming face to face with something
else in the water, something you can't control, and something
you can't stop. So in this video look at several

(00:23):
terrifying instants where people discovered they weren't alone. As always,
viewer discretion is strongly vised. In early October of twenty
twenty four, and the water is near timor Lashte, which

(00:44):
is a country north of the Australian coast, a fisherman
noticed something strange. A large shark out of his boat
was behaving oddly. It was sluggish, like it was sick
or injured. It wasn't swimming the way a healthy predator
should so, thinking it might have swallowed plastic or gotten
tangled in the net and was dying, the fisherman killed
the animal and hauled it on board. Once he got
it to land, he opened its belly to figure out
what might have been going on, expecting to find a

(01:06):
bunch of ocean garbage inside. What he found most certainly
wasn't trash, though inside the shark's stomach were human remains.
They appeared to come from a woman's body, still wearing
a black wetsuit and swimsuit. Then alongside it were other
bits of diving gear. Words spread fast afterward, and local
officials got involved, quickly hoping to get to the bottom
whether this was a shark attack, a tragic accident, or

(01:28):
something else. Entirely, for anyone into diving at the ocean,
it was supposed to be the trip of a lifetime.
Colleen and her husband Mike were just getting started on
a seven week diving excursion through some of the most
remote and pristine waters in the world. They had it
all planned out, and when the time came to get
things started, they could hardly believe it.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
Had finally arrived.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
At sixty eight years old, Colleen was no rookie either.
She was a deeply experienced scuba diver. On September twenty sixth,
twenty twenty four, she joined a small group that included
Mike and five other friends diving off Poulao Rum, which
is a tiny island in Indoniesia Archipelago. The dive got
underwage just like any other. They weren't far from the
boat and maybe about twenty three feet or seven meters

(02:07):
below the surface. The water was crystal clear, and while
there was a current, it was considered manageable. It was
looking like it was going to be just another dream
like day for the pair of diving enthusiasts, But as
can happen even in the best conditions, things changed with
little warning. The current shifted and Colleens started to break
with from the group. The rest of the divers turned
to a just course, trying to avoid what looked like

(02:27):
a downward current, which is essentially a vertical river underwater
that can pull a diver deeper without warning. It's not
unheard of in those waters, and the dive guide reacted quickly,
but as the others regrouped, Colleen was gone, and while
the dive guide tried his best to find her, he couldn't.
In a matter of minutes, she had vanished into the current.
What followed was an eight day search across the area

(02:48):
that included boats, divers, and aerial skins, but nothing turned up.
Just a few days into what was meant to be
a dream trip, Colleen's disappearance had transformed into a.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
Nightmare once the shark was found.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
At first, the identity of the body wasn't actually confirmed,
but friends and family of Colleen were already breaking for
the worst. A family friend, Kim, later confirmed that the
body had been identified as Colleen's through fingerprint analysis. Even
with the tragic confirmation, though, one thing remained, was her
death the result of a diving accident or was it
a shark that killed her? The people who knew Colleen

(03:18):
weren't buying the story that she was killed by a shark.
Mike was adamant that Colleen didn't die in a shark attack,
as were Kim and her husband, Rick, both of whom
were veteran divers whould run a dive shop together for
forty years. After reviewing Mike's dive computer, photos from the
day and anything else they could get their hands on it,
they were convinced the shark didn't kill her. It may
have scavenged her body later, but it didn't cause her death.

(03:39):
To them, everything pointed to an undetected medical issue that
Colin must have suffered during the dive. Kim, who said
she had completed more than a thousand dives, was calling
over the years pointed out that the sharks have incredibly
acidic stomachs. They've evolved to break down cartilage and bone quickly.
If Colleen had really been inside that shark for more
than a week, her body would have been unrecognizable, but
it wasn't. Her wet suit was still intact, and her

(04:01):
fingerprints were still there. That just didn't line up with
what's known about how sharks digest their food, and so
to Colleen's family and friends, it was important to set
the record story and protect her legacy in some way.
She wouldn't have wanted people to fear sharks because of
what happened to her, and she certainly wouldn't have wanted
a false story but how she left this world. In
twenty twenty four, they were just forty seven confirmed unprovoked

(04:23):
shark bites reported across the entire world, which was the
lowest number in nearly thirty years. And when it comes
to fatal encounters, the numbers get even smaller. And to
further put the chances into perspective, you're nearly seven hundred
times more likely to be stung to death by hornets, bees,
or wasps, and the global odds of dying in a
shark attack currently sit at one in twenty eight million.
For comparison, your odds are getting struck by lightning in

(04:45):
your lifetime are about one in fifteen thousand. So when
Colleine's remains were found mostly intact after what would have
been more than a week inside the animal, the conclusion
was obvious to the people closest to Colleen. The shark
may have been what found her, but it wasn't the
shark that killed her. As of this video, the case
of Colin's death appears to still be under investigation. But
with all of that said, even in the case that
she wasn't attacked by a shark, and although shark attacks

(05:07):
are exceptionally rare, that doesn't make them any less horrifying.
When most people daydream about their next vacation, the mental
images that usually come up were of sandy beaches, quiet resorts,
and maybe a relaxing, sight seeming tour. That's not exactly
what Mark had in mind in two thousand and five
when he booked a holiday that would have had most
people preferring to remain behind in the safety of the office.

(05:30):
The thirty two year old from England didn't fly all
the way to South Africa for the Beaches wine tours
or the Safaris. Instead, Mark had signed up to drop
himself into a metal cage in the ocean that would
be lowered into shark infested waters. In March of that year,
he arrived in the port town of her Menace, near
Cape Town, which is famous for its whale watching excursions,
but it's also one of the best places in the
world to get an upclose.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
Look at great white sharks.

Speaker 1 (05:53):
On the morning of the dive, conditions were just but
as perfect as anyone could have hoped for, and within
minutes after departing her Menace, the best arrived the dive
site and the crew began preparing the cage and chumming
these surrounding waters and hopes were tracking any nearby sharks,
and by the way, chumming the water means throwing bait
in the water like meat fish remains in blood. This
apparently worked incredibly well because Mark wasn't even in the
water yet when a couple of smaller sharks were spotted

(06:15):
cruising near the surface. Then without warning, a massive great
white appeared cutting through the water toward the now submerged cage,
before veering off and bypassing it. The captain estimated that
it was about eighteen feet or five meters, which was
just slightly smaller than the boat itself. Turning back to Mark,
the captain asked the obvious question of whether he still
want to go down there. Mark apparently didn't miss a

(06:36):
beat when he replied that he didn't come all the
way not to do it. Handing his video camera off
to another tourist, Mark climbed into the eight by three
foot or two and a half by one meter cage
and lowered himself into the water. This is typically a
controlled safeway to get up close.

Speaker 2 (06:49):
And personal to these massive sharks.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
However, Mark had just barely gotten his bearings in the
water when the great white shark returned, and this time
it wasn't just passing through. The massive shark began circling
the boat like working out a plan. Twice, it looped around,
then it lunged, ramming the side of the cage hard
enough to rattle Mark inside. At first, Mark thought this
was all normal, after all, he was in a stainless
steel cage and the whole point was to get close

(07:12):
to the sharks. But then the great white bit down
in the bars shaking the cage so violently that it
made Mark feel like an aunt and a jar, and
with every crunch of the shark's jaws, the stainless steel
caage felt a little less reassuring. Then one of the
buoys keeping the cage a float apparently popped under the
force of a strike, and the metal began to bend inward.
The shark's attention then shifted to the open top of

(07:32):
the cage, which let divers climb in and out, forcing
Mark to stay low. Now, one of his many problems
at that moment was that he was not on any
kind of breathing apparatus. He was only wearing a mask,
so every few seconds he'd have to dodge the shark
and surface for air. Each time he did, he heard
the passengers on the butt above screaming and panic, but
Mark would continually return to the bottom of the cage,
believing this was all part of the experience. As this

(07:54):
was all going on, the captain was trying to distract
the shark, and at one point he apparently began striking
it on the top of its head with an iron pole,
but the blows only seemed to agitate the situation even
more then, because of the pop dbuoi, the cage began
to sink, and that's when Mark realized his two options
were to stay under and risk drowning, or head back
to the surface and risk being eaten. Given that he
actually didn't really have a choice because he would drown

(08:14):
if he didn't surface, he quickly made his move against
wing to the top of the cage and this time
out of the opening. Before surfacing, he then reached for
the captain's outstretched hand and grabbed it. One slip and
he would have fallen right into the shark's gaping mouth. Somehow, though,
he made it onto the deck with his heart pounding
and every limb still accounted for. This all happened in
the span of just minutes, but Mark got the store
he flew.

Speaker 2 (08:34):
All the way for.

Speaker 1 (08:36):
For anyone watching from the boat that day, it would
have been easy to label the shark as a bloodthirsty
killing machine, and to be fair, the footage of it
thrashing against the cage didn't exactly help its public image,
but conservationists and shark experts see it differently. Experts believe
what happened to Mark wasn't an attempt at feeding so
much as a case of what they call mouthing. This
is a combination of curiosity and testing its environment. In

(08:56):
other words, the shark may have been investigating the strange
metal intruder in its space, not trying to make markets lunch.
Mark's story, however, seemed to contradict that, and he wasted
little time in sharing it. Once back on dry land,
he didn't seem shaken so much as exhilarated, and the
media rush to hear what he had to say. In interviews,
he recalled the experience as a thrill and even wanted
to say it was the best thing he ever did,

(09:17):
facing a great white head on having it attacked the
cage and walk away to tell of it was that
once in an elefetime story Mark was looking for from
his vacation. But the story didn't just make headlines. It
also caused some trouble. The company that organized the trip
sued Mark and several media outlets in the aftermath for
sensationalizing what really happened. They claimed his account had been
exaggerated in the way that hurt their business. The captain,

(09:39):
they said, had no memory of heading the shark with
an iron pole, and there was never a point where
Mark was fighting for his life. According to them, the
cage was fixed securely to the boat and was never
in any danger of sinking, and the shark had only
bitten through a fender, which was not uncommon when chump
was in the water. Mark, however, stood by his version
of the story, pointing to photographs and footage taken that day.
One image in particular apparently showed the cage mangled after

(10:00):
the encounter. This was visual proof, he argued that this
wasn't just a harmless brush with a melting great white shark.
There was even another piece of footage that showed how
close Mark had come to losing an arm. In any case,
for most people, a run in with a great white
shark would be the kind of experience that ends any
future plans involving open water, But Mark wasn't most people.
When asked if you'd ever go to a cage to

(10:22):
face a great white shark again, Mark confidently stated that
he would. As you're probably aware, there's no such thing
as a white snowy Christmas in Argentina. Its location in
the southern Hemisphere means the country experiences at summer during
the month of December and in twenty thirteen.

Speaker 2 (10:38):
There was no escape in the heat of the season.

Speaker 1 (10:41):
The city of Rosaro sitsbout three hundred kulimmeters north of
Buenos Aires, and was in the grips of a brutal
heat wave. In fact, early on Christmas morning, temperatures were
already soaring to another day in excess of one hundred
degrees fahrenheit or thirty eight celsias. And while Christmas traditions
generally include exchanging presents, very few in and around Rosario
could think of a better gift than a day in
the cool waters of the Parrenae River. People from all

(11:03):
around flocked there, and by mid morning both the banks
and the muney waters were packed with those looking for
a little relief from the climbing heat. Families clustered on
the sands as kids shrieked and splashed in the water.
These sounds of relief and fun, however, quickly turned into
screams of absolute terror as mid day approached. At first,
these were isolated, but within moments the number of people
shouting in full throated screams of pain and fear had spread.

(11:27):
Swimmers in the water then thrashed toward the shore as
those on land tried to make sense of what was
going on. Some of those who were in the water
were clushing their hands or limping on injured feet as
they left thin trails of blood behind them in the
brown water. In the shallows, parents waded in without hesitation
to grab their children and drag or carry them back
to the safe of the banks. This all happened within
just a few brief moments, from the first sun of

(11:48):
fear to the chaos of confusion that followed.

Speaker 2 (11:51):
As dozens of.

Speaker 1 (11:52):
People who had been in the river when the screaming
started began to take stock with their injuries, what happened
that morning came into view. Jagged chunks were missing from
some shimmers, while others lost parts of their fingers or toes.

Speaker 2 (12:03):
These were the.

Speaker 1 (12:03):
Undeniable signs of a sudden and violent piranha feeding frenzy.
The culprits, as would turn out, were a species known
as Palomettas. There are a large, aggressive member of the
pirana family known for razor sharp teeth and a bite
that can sheer through flash in an instant. They're not
the mindless man eaters of horror movies, but when they
stricken numbers the effect can be devastating. That Christmas morning,

(12:24):
they swarmed on the swimmers in the Parinae River, and
by the time it was over, more than seventy people
had been injured. At least twenty of them were children,
and seven of them lost parts of their fingers or toes.
One girl even had the tip of a finger bitten
clean off. These attacks came in rapid bursts, with the
fish to spearing as quickly as they appeared, only to
re emerge a few feet away. Even people who thought

(12:45):
they escaped with a single bite found themselves stuck again
before they could even make it out of the water,
and for parents trying to pull their children in safety,
every second in the shallows felt like an eternity. Now
in Rosario, Piranha bites aren't unheard of. The Parinae rivers
home to plenty of nivorous fish, and now and then
a swimmer will come away with a small wound. This
was something else entirely, though, the city's emergency services directors

(13:08):
said in his decades in the job, he had never
seen so many people injured in such a short span
of time. Just a few years earlier, in two thousand
and eight, forty swimmers were hurt in a similar palamet
of attack, but this one nearly doubled that, and the
scale of the injuries was far more severe. After things
had settled down, why it happened became the big question,
and the answer isn't entirely clear. The most obvious explanation

(13:28):
is thought to be the weather, with Razarre in the
midst of a punishing heat wave, thousands of people had
flocked the river of four relief, and more bodies in
the water meant more opportunities for contact with the fish.
The heat also apparently changes the behavior of the palamitas themselves.
Official said the unusually warm waters brought the fish closer
to the surface, where they were more likely to encounter swimmers.

(13:49):
Warmer water also apparently speeds up their metabolism, making them
more aggressive feeders. Simultaneously, some locals claim that human activity
upriver acted as bait or discarded fish parts from nearby
fishmen made they have lured the palametis to the area.
Others suggested a combination of factors including scarce natural food sources,
environmental stress, and a sudden abundance of slow moving prey
splashing at the surface. But whatever the reason, that morning,

(14:12):
the conditions just seem to be perfect for an aggressive
feeding frenzy. Piranhas belong to a group of freshwater fish
found throughout South America's rivers, lakes, and floodplains. Exactly how
many species is still debated, as some scientists say fewer
than thirty and others put the number in excess of sixty,
but all of them share the same unmistakable dental design.
They all have tightly packed rows of razor sharp teeth

(14:34):
made for consuming and tearing apart flesh. Their reputation is
mindless killers, however, is exaggerated, but it's not entirely without bases.
Most of the time, Piranhas are opportunistic omnivores, eating smaller fish, insects,
plant matter, and the occasional carcass. They don't typically go
after humans unless they're provoked, food is scarce, or environmental
conditions like low water levels or high temperatures push them

(14:56):
to be more aggressive. The Christmas Day twenty thirteen instant
was a reminder of what these fish are capable of
under the right conditions. The Kali River runs between India Nepal,
cutting through steep valleys and dense jungle before joining the
Gagara River, and for the people who live along its banks,
the river is both a lifeline and a danger. It

(15:18):
provides water, fish, and transport, but it also has a
reputation for strong currents and hidden hazards beneath the surface.
Among those hazards is one fish that's are into a
darker reputation than most, something known as the gooch catfish.
Locals call it the giant devil catfish, and it's not
hard to see why. Gooch catfish are bottom dwellers that
can grow to more than six feet or two meters

(15:39):
long and weigh in excess one hundred and fifty pounds
or sixty eight kilos, making them some of the largest
freshwater caffish in the world. And they aren't picky eaters either, fish, frogs,
small mammals. Pretty Much anything that'semoth the water is on
the menu. What really sets these fish apart in local legend, though,
is the idea that some of these fish may have
developed a taste for human flesh. Along stretches of the river,

(16:01):
it's common for funeral pirates to be set up on
the river banks. Tradition calls for releasing ashes and sometimes
half burnt. He remains into the water, and over time
some villagers came to believe that this practice gave the
goos an unusual source of food, encouraged them to grow
larger than normal and bolder than expected. By the late
nineteen nineties, stories began circulating of gooons that weren't just

(16:21):
scavenging anymore. Instead, they were attacking. The first recorded incident
happened in April of nineteen ninety eight. A seventeen year
old boy named Dil was swimming in the Collie River
when something grabbed him. Eye witnesses, including a friend who
was with him in the water, watched in shock as
Dill was pulled under in an instant. The search that
followed cover more than five clumbers of the river over

(16:42):
three days, but tragically, no trace of.

Speaker 2 (16:44):
Him was ever found.

Speaker 1 (16:46):
Then only a few months later, another tragedy struck in
a small village. A young boy was swimming near his
father when he was suddenly dragged under in the same way.
His father could only watch powerless as the sun disappeared
beneath the surface, and once again no body was ever recovered.
For almost a decade, the river stayed quiet until two
thousand and seven, when an eight year old Nepalese man
vanished while swimming a nearly the same stretch of water.

(17:08):
Villagers described the creature responsible as a mud covered water pick,
a phrase that captured just how strange at.

Speaker 2 (17:13):
A place it seemed.

Speaker 1 (17:15):
So this meant three disappearances occurred, spread out over nine years,
all within a six kilometer section of river. The similarities
were impossible to ignore, as bodies were dragged onner in
plain sight, with no remains ever found. This left local
was convinced that something unusual was lurking in the Collie.
News of these strange attacks eventually caught the attention of
Jeremy Wade, a British biologist and angler who had built

(17:36):
her reputation on tracking down freshwater giants. He might be
familiar with Jeremy, as his Discovery television show River Monsters
thrived on them, but the idea of a fish dragging
people under and leaving their remains was on another level, and.

Speaker 2 (17:48):
At first he was skeptical.

Speaker 1 (17:50):
The Coulie River, after all, it home to crocodiles, and
India's coastline isn't far from where bull sharks have been
known to travel upriver natural hazards like whirlpools also couldn't
be ruled out. Still, the details didn't quite fit those explanations.
The water in the northern stretch of the Collie was
too cold for one species called mugger crocodiles, and saltwater
crocodiles didn't travel that far inland. The gario and another

(18:12):
native species also had jaws that were far too narrow
to tackle something as large as a human. Bull Sharks again,
were still a possibility, but none ever been seen in
that part of the river, and whirlpools didn't explain why
victims vanished in relatively calm waters. But when Jeremy visited
the villages along the river, he heard the same story
again and again. It wasn't just a crocodile or shark,
it was the goons. According to locals, the fish had

(18:32):
grown massive from use of feeding on funeral remains, and
some believed one particular specimen had turned it into a
man eater. Now, Jeremy had heard plenty of tall tails
in his career, but this one was consistent enough and
chilly enough that he decided to investigate it for himself.
He began in the section of the Klie River where
the attacks had taken place. Using sonar equipment, he first
ruled out the idea of whirlpools or strong eddies pulling

(18:54):
swimmers under. The river bed was relatively flat and common
the areas where victims had disappeared, making that exit nation unlikely.
Soon after making this measurement, Jeremy heard it but a
water buffalo that had been dragged underwater while drinking at
the river's edge in water only about three feet or
one meter deep. For an animal of that size to
vanish so quickly, the predator had to have weighed at
least two hundre pounds or ninety one kilos in Jeremy's estimation.

(19:17):
That meant something much larger than a typical fish was
in play. So one by one, Jeremy began ruling out
the usual suspects, the various crocodiles and sharks that left
only the goons, and in fact, during underwater dives. Afterward,
Jeremy and his team spotted several of the massive catfish.
Some of them were even as long as men and
thick body enough to make the idea and attack seem possible.

(19:38):
These weren't the typical bottom feeding catfish. Most people imagine
they were predators in their own right, and if one
had grown big enough and bold enough, it could explain
the mysterious disappearances. So Jeremy set up a dummy funeral
pire near the river bank, hoping to lure went in.

Speaker 2 (19:53):
It was a grim tactic, but it made sense.

Speaker 1 (19:55):
If the fish had learn to associate pires with food,
the plan could draw one out. After hour, there was
a waiting in several failed attempts, and Jeremy finally hooked
onto something massive. The fight afterward was unlike anything in
experienced before. The fish pulled hard against the line, thrashing
in the current with surprising strength, and at one point
Jeremy had to jump into the river himself to stop
it from escaping. When he finally hauled it to the shore,

(20:16):
the creature was revealed, and it was indeed a goon
sch weighing one hundred and sixty pounds or seventy two
and a half kilos, stretching more than five feet or
one and a half meters long. Then the next day
he caught an even larger one, this one coming in
at five feet seven inches or one point seven meters
in length and tipping the scales. At one hundred and
sixty one pounds, this was nearly three times the size
of an average goone. Both fish were record breaking examples

(20:39):
of the species and proof that the river really did
harbor giants, But even with the catches, Jeremy was cautious.
As big as they were, he wasn't convinced either of
them was an actual man eater. An animal of that
size could take a child, for sure, but the victims
had been teenagers and adults.

Speaker 2 (20:54):
That suggested there.

Speaker 1 (20:55):
Might be an even larger fish still hidden in the
river's depths. In the end, Jeremy's investigation didn't find anything larger.
He had caught massive goonge catfish that were big enough
to prove that the river held extraordinary examples of the species,
but not so massive that they could easily account for
dragging down grown men. Still, the possibility couldn't be dismissed.
If a goonge could reach one hundred and sixty pounds

(21:17):
on a diet of ordinary river food, what might happen
if one had decades of feeding on a human funeral remains.
Villagers were convinced that such a monster existed, and Jeremy
himself admitted that larger individuals could still be lurking in
the Khali River. So today the case of the three
attacks remains unsettled, particularly because no bodies were ever recovered
to study