WEBVTT - Israeli Russian-Eating Egyptian Sharks 0:00:02.000 --> 0:00:04.440 I think clearly the word that it's in all our 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:07.960 heads right now is galliaphobia, right. I mean, that's obvious. 0:00:08.320 --> 0:00:10.719 The irrational fear of sharks. 0:00:11.160 --> 0:00:13.680 That's the word for irrational fear of sharks. 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:15.960 That's it's called being afraid of sharks. 0:00:16.239 --> 0:00:20.640 I mean it is rational. I'm John Ceipher. 0:00:20.440 --> 0:00:22.000 And I'm Jerry o'she I. 0:00:22.079 --> 0:00:25.079 Served in the CIA's Clandestine Service for twenty eight years, 0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:27.560 living undercover all around the world. 0:00:27.360 --> 0:00:29.720 And in my thirty three years with the CIA, I 0:00:29.800 --> 0:00:32.640 served in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. 0:00:32.760 --> 0:00:35.040 Although we don't usually look at it this way, we 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:37.800 created conspiracies in our operations. 0:00:37.960 --> 0:00:40.479 We got people to believe things that weren't true. 0:00:40.680 --> 0:00:43.640 Now we're investigating the conspiracy theories we see in the 0:00:43.680 --> 0:00:44.840 news almost every day. 0:00:45.080 --> 0:00:47.360 Will break them down for you to determine whether they 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:49.720 could be real or whether we're being manipulated. 0:00:50.040 --> 0:00:52.520 Welcome the mission implausibles. 0:00:54.960 --> 0:00:58.080 So one of the things I really like about today's 0:00:58.080 --> 0:01:01.920 conspiracy is that people realize when you first walk into 0:01:01.960 --> 0:01:04.680 the agency, depending on which door you use, but if 0:01:04.840 --> 0:01:08.480 for insiders, if you use the Berlin Wall door right 0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:11.280 entrance and you come in off to the right, we 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:14.759 have a small museum, and in the museum there's this 0:01:14.920 --> 0:01:18.320 case and there's a fish in there, and the fish 0:01:18.400 --> 0:01:19.920 had a camera in it. And this is from the 0:01:20.000 --> 0:01:23.959 nineteen seventies and I think certainly declassified now, but the 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:29.399 CIA was using an aquatic animal to gather intelligence, right, 0:01:29.600 --> 0:01:32.839 And I always wondered, after the movie Jaws came out, 0:01:32.959 --> 0:01:35.440 how we could like bring this small little fish and 0:01:35.480 --> 0:01:38.839 put it together with this with Bruce the movie Shark. 0:01:40.120 --> 0:01:42.360 So yeah, so today's episode has to do with a 0:01:42.440 --> 0:01:45.479 variety of things. Has to do with sharks, it has 0:01:45.520 --> 0:01:48.080 to do with Israel, a place where you spent some time, 0:01:48.200 --> 0:01:50.120 and it has to do with Russia, a place where 0:01:50.120 --> 0:01:52.560 I spent quite a bit of time. And so it 0:01:52.560 --> 0:01:53.320 should be fun. 0:01:53.680 --> 0:01:55.960 Yeah, And I think parts of it will be jumping 0:01:56.000 --> 0:01:58.360 the shark, and I'm really looking forward to getting into it. 0:01:59.080 --> 0:02:00.559 You can't help yourself, I can't. 0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:01.040 I love it. 0:02:01.160 --> 0:02:02.480 It's a dad joke thing. 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:04.840 So let me let me try to just give you 0:02:04.880 --> 0:02:08.760 a sense of this soul. The conspiracy is that Israel 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:13.079 had trained sharks to attack Russian tourists that were swimming 0:02:13.120 --> 0:02:16.000 in Egypt in order to hurt the Egyptian tourist industry. 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:18.760 And so just to this, the background of this is 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:22.080 in December twenty ten, there were several shark attacks that 0:02:22.200 --> 0:02:25.600 occurred off the South Sinai resort of sharmel Shak in Egypt, 0:02:25.840 --> 0:02:29.160 and shortly thereafter there was ajoe on Egyptian TV where 0:02:29.200 --> 0:02:33.320 this captain Mustafa, who was a professional diver, supposedly commented 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:35.440 that the sharks who were involved in the attack were 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:37.440 normal ocean sharks, in other words, not the ones that 0:02:37.520 --> 0:02:41.440 normally reside off the waters of Egypt. And the commentary 0:02:41.480 --> 0:02:44.360 went on to say that they discovered a small shark 0:02:44.400 --> 0:02:47.880 which was implanted with a GPS device and alleged that 0:02:47.919 --> 0:02:50.840 the GPS device founded one of the sharks was in 0:02:50.880 --> 0:02:54.480 fact a quote guiding device planted by Israeli agents. 0:02:54.720 --> 0:02:57.040 Now I'm not one hundred percent sure why they would 0:02:57.080 --> 0:02:59.880 do that, because they're not at war really with the Egyptians, 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:02.920 and they seems to me Israel would actually want to 0:03:03.000 --> 0:03:07.040 have a prosperous Egypt, not a desperate Egypt sort of 0:03:07.040 --> 0:03:09.720 at their throat. Now I remember, and I don't have 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:13.440 this at my fingertips, but in Iran, and this is 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:17.079 where it gets sort of ugly. In Iran, a couple 0:03:17.080 --> 0:03:21.480 of years ago, the Iranians found a cheetah, a wild 0:03:21.560 --> 0:03:24.080 cheetah of which there are just a couple of dozen 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:27.519 left in the wild, and it had a censor around 0:03:27.560 --> 0:03:31.960 its neck, and the Iranians they deduced from this that 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:36.720 it must be an intelligence operation because it was I 0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:39.560 guess maybe found near a sensitive site or something like that, 0:03:39.680 --> 0:03:43.480 and so Iran decided to kill all the cheetahs, and 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:47.080 it actually began trying to exterminate them, and of course, 0:03:47.120 --> 0:03:50.680 as you'd expect, it turned out that the cheetah was 0:03:50.760 --> 0:03:55.960 tagged because it was from a wildlife preservation group trying 0:03:56.040 --> 0:04:00.000 to determine how cheatahs migrate in order to best protect them. 0:04:00.560 --> 0:04:04.000 But there is the story in the nineteen fifties, which 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:07.480 may or may not be true, that CIA tried to 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:10.120 put listening devices into a cat. 0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:11.720 Do you remember this, Oh? 0:04:11.840 --> 0:04:12.520 Yeah, yeah. 0:04:12.560 --> 0:04:15.320 The problem was the cat never stuck around where it 0:04:15.360 --> 0:04:18.200 was supposed to. It was I don't even remember the story, 0:04:18.360 --> 0:04:21.320 but the point was that a cat was hanging around 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:25.279 like the Russian ambassador's house, and the Russian ambassador was 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:27.720 bringing him into the house and feeding it. All I 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:31.040 remember is it didn't go well for either the CIA 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:34.400 or the CAT a leading indicator into this story and 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:37.000 why it gets any traction at all. It's the myth 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:43.360 and mythos and mystique behind intelligence services, especially MOSAD. And 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:47.760 you know, there's there's the reality of espionage that you 0:04:47.839 --> 0:04:51.280 and I both know that includes things like I can 0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:54.360 remember early in my career, back when they still had 0:04:54.400 --> 0:04:57.080 public telephones, if I had to make a call that 0:04:57.160 --> 0:04:59.880 I didn't want listen to out of the embassy, you'd 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:02.239 oh for a little walk and you'd find a public 0:05:02.279 --> 0:05:05.640 telephone bootho you'd make a call. But then you'd come 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:08.159 back and at the end of the month you got 0:05:08.160 --> 0:05:11.400 to do your your monthly accounting, and I would have 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:15.000 to end up writing like a paragraph on why I 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:17.520 spent this twenty cents. 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:21.200 It was like who was the call to? Why did 0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:24.360 I have to write right? Right? So you never see. 0:05:24.200 --> 0:05:27.320 James Bond having to account for like a twenty cent 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:30.840 phone call. So the mystique that most sought are these 0:05:31.200 --> 0:05:37.279 mysterious intelligence all powerful on this intelligence agencies have these powers, 0:05:37.320 --> 0:05:40.440 I think is part of a powerful mistique that people 0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:41.760 want to have or need to have. 0:05:42.000 --> 0:05:44.000 I'm sure you've seen overseas when we've lived in different 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:47.120 places that viewpoint. It can either benefit us or be 0:05:47.160 --> 0:05:49.640 a curse. Right, So, yeah, there are times when I've 0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:52.400 lived in countries where, honestly God, they think the CIA 0:05:53.000 --> 0:05:55.200 is all seeing, all knowing, can do all these other 0:05:55.480 --> 0:05:57.000 all these kind of things. I lived in one country 0:05:57.040 --> 0:06:00.359 where we got to report from the local service who 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:03.719 believed that we had a nuclear device, like a nuclear 0:06:03.720 --> 0:06:05.680 bomb that we kept in our office that we could 0:06:05.800 --> 0:06:08.000 use against the country. And I'm not sure why they 0:06:08.000 --> 0:06:11.159 thought we would blow ourselves up. But the reality of 0:06:11.480 --> 0:06:15.240 CIA and other intelligence agencies is they're bureaucracies. But there's 0:06:15.279 --> 0:06:18.719 that view, especially with Israel, that somehow they had this 0:06:18.839 --> 0:06:22.000 special skill and special knowledge and they're the best spies 0:06:22.040 --> 0:06:24.479 in the world. And I think they actually promote some 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:26.920 of that kind of stuff because you and I have 0:06:27.000 --> 0:06:29.080 worked with Israel and they're very, very good, and they're 0:06:29.120 --> 0:06:31.880 part of the world. They have more authorities than we 0:06:31.920 --> 0:06:34.760 do to do things like kill people and stuff, but 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:37.880 by no means are they ten feet tall. There's this 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:39.560 view out there that they're unbelievable. 0:06:39.760 --> 0:06:42.480 Well, John, aside from sharks, I think we saw in 0:06:42.600 --> 0:06:46.360 seven October that Israeli intelligence doesn't always get it right, 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:49.159 they're not ten feet tall, and they're made of human beings, 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:50.119 just like anybody else. 0:06:50.640 --> 0:06:54.440 Well, let's get to our guest, so Jerry. Today, we're 0:06:54.520 --> 0:06:57.000 lucky to have Kieran man Gin with us. Kieran is 0:06:57.040 --> 0:07:00.640 a researcher and creator and host of the Shark Files podcasts. 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:04.159 These are true stories about where humans and sharks come together. 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:07.440 So frankly, he's the perfect expert to talk to us 0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:10.080 today about our conspiracy. As you know here on there's 0:07:10.080 --> 0:07:12.080 this story which you know better than we do. So 0:07:12.080 --> 0:07:13.800 I was wondering if you could give us a short 0:07:13.840 --> 0:07:17.239 overview of the real story and what it morphed into. 0:07:17.640 --> 0:07:22.280 Okay, Well, it began November thirty, first, twenty ten, within 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:25.000 the space of an hour at an Egyptian resort in 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:28.080 the Red Sea called Charmel Shake, which gets millions of 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:31.320 international tourists every year. There were two shark attacks, quite 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:34.559 severe but non fatal. Yeah, that's where it all began, 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:36.320 and there was a lot of panic at the time, 0:07:36.520 --> 0:07:40.200 a lot of international attention, and it doubled when the 0:07:40.240 --> 0:07:43.160 next day there were two further attacks a short distance 0:07:43.200 --> 0:07:45.760 on the coast from the to the previous day, So 0:07:46.080 --> 0:07:49.040 it actually echoed the film Jaws quite a lot in 0:07:49.120 --> 0:07:52.560 that beaches were closed. The mayor came out and said 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:55.400 that we have this under control and everything. And what 0:07:55.480 --> 0:07:58.800 happened was they went out hunted the sharks. They took 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:02.160 to a board, and they quickly them as the guilty sharks, 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:05.240 let's say. And within a couple of days the beaches 0:08:05.240 --> 0:08:08.680 were reopened like Jaws, as I said, and nothing to 0:08:08.720 --> 0:08:12.080 see here, carry on. But the week of always say 0:08:12.120 --> 0:08:15.840 shark panic culminated on the fifth of December when a 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:19.280 German tourist called Ranada Seifert, she was swimming on a 0:08:19.320 --> 0:08:22.920 busy beach outside the Higatt Regency hotel in Charmel Shak 0:08:23.200 --> 0:08:27.320 and she was fatally attacked by an oceanic quite tip shark. 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:30.560 And yeah, it was a really shocking event, witnessed by 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:33.400 a lot of people. And again the coastline was closed 0:08:33.440 --> 0:08:36.359 for a couple of days. And I think the conspiracy 0:08:36.360 --> 0:08:39.360 by the Egyptian authorities and by some parts of the 0:08:39.360 --> 0:08:42.400 Egyptian public as well, kind of sprang up from trying 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:44.960 to make sense of the shock around the events and 0:08:45.000 --> 0:08:48.520 also the really negative international attention that it brought. 0:08:48.679 --> 0:08:51.520 So what came out of that then is instead of 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:55.400 finding reasons for why these shark attacks happened, which are 0:08:55.520 --> 0:08:59.880 very rare, yes, extremely extremely rare, statistically, that they had 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:03.080 look beyond the sharks to look for a wider conspiracy, 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:08.000 and that became then yeah, Mosad, Israel special forces and 0:09:08.040 --> 0:09:08.600 so forth. 0:09:08.920 --> 0:09:13.040 So the compelling theory was that Mossad had thrown a 0:09:13.120 --> 0:09:17.559 deadly shark into the Red Sea. That was how I 0:09:17.600 --> 0:09:21.200 was phrased. And Mohammed Shusha, who's the governor of South 0:09:21.280 --> 0:09:24.640 Sinai in Egypt, the region where Charmel Shaik is, he 0:09:24.760 --> 0:09:27.079 said that it is not out of the question, but 0:09:27.160 --> 0:09:29.800 it needs time to be confirmed. So that was his 0:09:29.880 --> 0:09:33.440 official line on that. Helpful, But I suppose it's worth 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:36.240 looking at the fact that Charmel Shaik actually has a 0:09:36.360 --> 0:09:39.320 kind of a geopolitical significance as well. So if you 0:09:39.360 --> 0:09:42.000 go back to the Six Day War in the nineteen seventies, 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:45.760 Israel occupied charm El Shaikh and it became renamed Ophira, 0:09:46.080 --> 0:09:48.840 and that's where it developed from like a I guess, 0:09:48.840 --> 0:09:51.520 a dusty kind of settlement on the Red Sea into 0:09:51.840 --> 0:09:55.280 a tourist resort under Israeli control. And then in nineteen 0:09:55.320 --> 0:09:57.760 eighty two, with the Camp David Accords. It was actually 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:01.720 given back to Egypt by his and they ran with 0:10:01.800 --> 0:10:04.959 the developing tourist industry there and it's grown into a 0:10:05.080 --> 0:10:06.080 huge tourist hub. 0:10:06.360 --> 0:10:09.760 Let's run with this, Okay, how would you go about 0:10:10.120 --> 0:10:14.040 finding a man eating shark? Train the shark to eat people, 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:16.400 feed it on peoples in some sort of way, and 0:10:16.440 --> 0:10:18.880 then I have to smuggle it in and drop it 0:10:18.920 --> 0:10:22.559 off into Egyptian waters In the conspiracy theory, Yeah, how 0:10:22.600 --> 0:10:23.439 would that work? 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:27.520 The statistical likelihood is so tiny of a shark actually 0:10:27.520 --> 0:10:31.200 attacking someone that it's extremely rare. So you can't even, like, 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:33.440 if you were to try to guarantee that a shark 0:10:33.480 --> 0:10:36.480 would even bite somebody, it's very difficult to do. We 0:10:36.600 --> 0:10:40.480 know that sharks can be trained to do basic tasks. 0:10:40.600 --> 0:10:42.680 So if you go back to the nineteen fifties, there's 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:45.880 an American sharks scientist called doctor Eugenie Clark, and she 0:10:46.040 --> 0:10:49.800 trained lemon sharks to bump a particular dinner bell to 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:53.040 actually get a meal thrown into a pool for them, 0:10:53.240 --> 0:10:56.400 and they could remember this for several months afterwards. So 0:10:56.640 --> 0:10:59.600 sharks can't be trained to do basic tasks. But I 0:10:59.640 --> 0:11:03.480 think to do something complicated I think be really difficult 0:11:03.480 --> 0:11:04.839 to do that securitis. 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:08.560 If I recall correctly, some of the media on these attacks, 0:11:08.600 --> 0:11:13.840 there was also a suggestion, strong suggestion, that the sharks 0:11:13.880 --> 0:11:19.800 were also attacking Russians, specifically targeting them because I feel 0:11:19.800 --> 0:11:22.680 bad for the German tours, but I believe most of 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:27.280 the people attacked were Russians. And somehow it was in 0:11:27.320 --> 0:11:30.319 this that the sharks were being taught not only to 0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:33.760 attack people, but to differentiate. Could you tell us how 0:11:33.840 --> 0:11:38.840 sharks actually these kind of sharks what drives a predatory behavior. 0:11:38.480 --> 0:11:42.000 If someone is isolated, for instance, like in four of 0:11:42.080 --> 0:11:45.240 the five cases over that week in Sharmel Shaikh, the 0:11:45.280 --> 0:11:48.640 people who were bitten were actually isolated from people around them, 0:11:48.640 --> 0:11:51.400 So that's quite a big factor if you're swimming alone. 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:54.880 Also possibly if you're splashing quite a bit. And there's 0:11:54.960 --> 0:11:58.240 other things that might like contrast between the water and 0:11:58.400 --> 0:12:01.400 say jewelry, or the idea of maybe wearing like the 0:12:01.559 --> 0:12:04.440 suggestions of a colorful swimsuit or different things like that 0:12:04.440 --> 0:12:07.079 that might create contrast with the blue of the water 0:12:07.240 --> 0:12:10.120 that could attract the shark's attention. But you know, they're 0:12:10.120 --> 0:12:12.680 not border security. They won't be able to delop what 0:12:12.840 --> 0:12:16.400 nationality you are. Three of the five Byte victims were Russian, 0:12:16.480 --> 0:12:18.720 one was Ukrainian, and then the as I said, the 0:12:18.760 --> 0:12:21.200 final one was German. So I think it was just 0:12:21.360 --> 0:12:23.680 the basic fact of a lot of Russians go to 0:12:23.720 --> 0:12:27.080 Sharma Shik. It's a really popular destination for Russian tourists. 0:12:27.080 --> 0:12:29.640 So I think that really explains it more than any 0:12:30.040 --> 0:12:32.480 prejudice on the part of the shark. 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:34.360 That's what they want you to think. 0:12:36.760 --> 0:12:39.400 I'm being paid by Big Sharks to say exactly. 0:12:40.840 --> 0:12:44.959 So, Kiran, you mentioned that sharks can be trained. Are 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:48.520 you aware of any governments or militaries that try to 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:51.600 use sharks or train sharks for government or military purpose? 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:55.440 Well, the US military uses a spy shark. It's a 0:12:55.600 --> 0:12:58.240 designed to look like a real shark, but it's a 0:12:58.280 --> 0:13:00.120 it's a robot. It's kind of a kind of a 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:03.120 prototype as such, and it's been used to I guess, 0:13:03.120 --> 0:13:07.120 discreetly monitor things going on at sea. But I've never 0:13:07.160 --> 0:13:09.840 heard of an actual shark being trained or used for 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:12.920 any purposes like that. There's an interesting one with there's 0:13:12.960 --> 0:13:16.600 a luga whale called Valdemir who's become something of a celebrity 0:13:16.800 --> 0:13:19.079 in I think it's Norway, And he was found a 0:13:19.120 --> 0:13:22.400 couple of years ago wearing a harness and a collar, 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:26.520 and there's quite compelling evidence that there was attempts made 0:13:26.520 --> 0:13:30.400 to train him to be a Russian spy whale to 0:13:30.600 --> 0:13:33.640 keep an eye on naval activities and different things like that. 0:13:33.720 --> 0:13:36.600 So I mean whales like say beluga or an orca 0:13:36.679 --> 0:13:40.359 or dolphin or something is much more intelligent and complex 0:13:40.520 --> 0:13:42.320 in many ways than a shark would be, and would 0:13:42.320 --> 0:13:43.960 be a better candidate than that. 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:47.240 Well, there's training and then there's sort of like managing 0:13:47.320 --> 0:13:50.880 or exploiting. So we all know that sharks can go 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:53.360 into a feeding frenzy if there's blood in the water. 0:13:53.440 --> 0:13:55.880 That blood they can sense it from miles away. 0:13:56.040 --> 0:13:56.240 Right. 0:13:56.320 --> 0:13:59.400 Also I understand that they have strunk smell sense. 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:01.000 Urine is another thing. 0:14:01.040 --> 0:14:03.680 Then we'll attract them surprising like living here and why 0:14:03.720 --> 0:14:04.959 they tell you don't pee in the water if you 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:07.160 don't want to deal with sharks, right? Is there a 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:10.000 way to manage sharks, like to draw them into a 0:14:10.000 --> 0:14:11.520 particular area. 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:15.200 Yeah. Looking back at the investigation into why the attacks 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:18.160 happened at Charmel Shake, there were two or three factors 0:14:18.200 --> 0:14:20.720 that could answer your question. One of them was there 0:14:20.720 --> 0:14:24.760 was an Australian freighter, a large ship that dumped sheep 0:14:24.800 --> 0:14:27.120 carcasses into the Red Sea in the weak or so 0:14:27.240 --> 0:14:30.520 before the attacks, and that created like a let's say, 0:14:30.520 --> 0:14:34.040 a chum slick in the water. Another big factor was 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:38.880 there was illegal feeding of fish, small colorful fish inshore 0:14:38.920 --> 0:14:42.560 in Charmel Shake. So this was tourists at the resorts 0:14:42.640 --> 0:14:46.040 getting leftover food from restaurants or scraps of their lunch 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:49.920 and bringing them along the jetties along the shoreline and 0:14:50.320 --> 0:14:54.040 throwing scraps into the water and attracting small fish inwards. 0:14:54.080 --> 0:14:57.000 So this was seen as another possible factor that like 0:14:57.240 --> 0:15:00.440 smaller fish were attracted and then slightly larger fish came 0:15:00.480 --> 0:15:02.560 to feed on them. And then we were talking about 0:15:02.600 --> 0:15:05.880 shark's sense of smell. One of the huge superpowers that 0:15:05.920 --> 0:15:08.600 sharks have as well is they have along their snouts 0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:11.680 these things called amplay of lareen Zini and they're these 0:15:11.760 --> 0:15:15.160 kind of electro receptors, So even in some conditions, even 0:15:15.200 --> 0:15:17.760 more so than smell, they can allow a shark to 0:15:17.800 --> 0:15:22.480 detect tiny movements changes in the water. So yeah, if 0:15:22.520 --> 0:15:24.600 you were trying to attract sharks. I mean, there are 0:15:24.600 --> 0:15:27.920 a lot of shark tour operators dive boats and they're 0:15:28.000 --> 0:15:30.080 kind of experts in this. And a couple of years 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:32.760 ago and Shark Week actually was interesting. They did a 0:15:32.840 --> 0:15:35.320 test to see what kind of music sharks like, So 0:15:35.760 --> 0:15:40.120 they put speakers underwater and they they came to the 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:44.240 conclusion that sharks love heavy metal. So this kind of low, 0:15:44.480 --> 0:15:48.479 deep pulsing sound, because the theory is that it replicates 0:15:48.560 --> 0:15:52.800 the kind of low vibrations of struggling prey that might 0:15:52.840 --> 0:15:55.720 tell them a meal is there. So all the perfect conditions, 0:15:55.760 --> 0:15:58.480 the probability of a shark actually biting someone is still 0:15:58.560 --> 0:16:00.920 so remote, and I think that's part of the fascination 0:16:01.040 --> 0:16:03.640 that these kind of incidents are generally so rare. That's 0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:05.320 why I think one of the things that we focus 0:16:05.360 --> 0:16:06.680 on them so much, you know, right. 0:16:06.760 --> 0:16:10.560 But the rest of the story, though, is charmel Shadon 0:16:11.000 --> 0:16:13.600 doesn't have lots of I mean, there was a spike 0:16:13.760 --> 0:16:16.640 right in shark attacks and they didn't continue. 0:16:16.800 --> 0:16:19.960 I think because of the conditions like the overfishing far 0:16:20.000 --> 0:16:23.120 and far from shore, the rise in marine temperatures as 0:16:23.160 --> 0:16:25.360 well in the region, like a couple of those factors 0:16:25.520 --> 0:16:28.560 still exist, but I don't expect we'll see something like 0:16:28.600 --> 0:16:31.640 twenty ten again because, as I said, it's just such 0:16:31.640 --> 0:16:32.520 an outlier. 0:16:32.720 --> 0:16:35.840 But an anomaly is the perfect thing if you're trying 0:16:35.880 --> 0:16:39.200 to create a conspiracy theory or if it draws people 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:42.360 to try to explain something. So if this hadn't happened before, 0:16:42.360 --> 0:16:43.920 and all of a sudden there's a spike, people are 0:16:43.960 --> 0:16:45.720 going to come try to explain it. And if the 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:48.040 authorities don't have a good handle on it, which just 0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:50.520 sounds like they didn't at first, it sort of draws 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:54.680 conspiracy theorist. Well that was great. Let's just take a 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:56.720 quick moment for a break, and we'll get back to 0:16:56.880 --> 0:16:58.280 Egyptian sharks in just a moment. 0:17:06.040 --> 0:17:08.240 Okay, John, Let's get back into the water. 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:11.800 So Kian, I'm old and I have been to Charmelshake 0:17:11.840 --> 0:17:14.800 when it was under Israeli control, and I remember swimming 0:17:14.800 --> 0:17:17.879 in those waters and they were beautiful. And my understanding 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:20.439 is from friends who've been there afterwards, is that the 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:23.440 coral has been to dynamite fishing and all sorts of things, 0:17:23.480 --> 0:17:25.119 and not right in front of the tourist places, but 0:17:25.200 --> 0:17:29.359 on the other side, and that there's been large environmental degradation, 0:17:29.520 --> 0:17:31.800 like the sharks are I would assume are hungary er 0:17:31.880 --> 0:17:35.200 now because there's less places for the chain as you 0:17:35.200 --> 0:17:36.879 you know, the life chain to go up to the 0:17:36.920 --> 0:17:39.200 small fishes to feed the larger fishes that feed the 0:17:39.240 --> 0:17:41.480 fishes that feed the shark have disappeared. 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:44.160 Yeah, definitely. As I said, there's a lot of depletion 0:17:44.280 --> 0:17:46.800 of fish stocks in the open sea, like the in 0:17:46.840 --> 0:17:49.240 the Red Sea region. So if you look at the 0:17:49.280 --> 0:17:52.639 two species of shark involved in both of those in 0:17:52.680 --> 0:17:56.000 those incidents in sharam you have the oceanic quhitetip shark 0:17:56.080 --> 0:17:58.119 and the make O shark, and both of them are 0:17:58.160 --> 0:18:02.320 actually very rarely seen in shore, so they're more commonly 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:06.800 in open ocean, open sea, and they're feeding on marlins, 0:18:07.080 --> 0:18:10.200 orther you know, large fish as well. But seeing as 0:18:10.240 --> 0:18:13.800 those stocks have been depleted, and actually in two of 0:18:13.840 --> 0:18:17.439 the incidents in twenty ten, a charm they actually found 0:18:17.520 --> 0:18:20.200 in a necropsy on the Mago shark that they caught 0:18:20.359 --> 0:18:23.399 that it had a severely depleted liver and that it 0:18:23.440 --> 0:18:26.199 was suffering from malnutrition. So this might have made it 0:18:26.240 --> 0:18:28.399 act in a kind of a typical way where it 0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:32.159 was taking extra risks that it wouldn't normally take. And again, 0:18:32.280 --> 0:18:35.480 I think we're going back to the conspiracy. I think 0:18:35.640 --> 0:18:38.479 these conspirators often helped to overlook or hide some kind 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:42.480 of inconvenient truths about overfishing or other kind of issues. 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:45.880 So Kieran, how was tourism and affected in the immediate 0:18:45.960 --> 0:18:47.760 aftermath of the sharkitects. 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:50.800 The bigger impact will actually never really know because within 0:18:50.840 --> 0:18:53.360 a couple of months the Arab Spring had happened and 0:18:53.800 --> 0:18:55.840 tourists just fled from the country. 0:18:56.000 --> 0:18:58.840 Well, we determined that it's pretty hard to train shark, 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:02.760 especially to pick out certain ethnicities. But is it possible 0:19:02.800 --> 0:19:04.119 that it could be a robot shark? 0:19:04.600 --> 0:19:06.520 Yeah, well, I suppose there's a couple of things that 0:19:06.960 --> 0:19:09.240 might fly in the face of that. Basically, from the 0:19:09.280 --> 0:19:13.399 injuries that were examined by shark bite investigators, they found 0:19:13.600 --> 0:19:17.639 very familiar shark teeth patterns on the victims wounds they 0:19:17.720 --> 0:19:21.200 could tell from people who's bitten. Victor Cully on his knee, 0:19:21.240 --> 0:19:24.760 you could see these kind of distinctive raking puncture wounds 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:27.320 that told them it was a mako shark when they 0:19:27.320 --> 0:19:30.560 looked at it or in the case of Alga Martzinko, 0:19:30.560 --> 0:19:32.359 who was bitten on the first day. I know she 0:19:32.440 --> 0:19:35.000 on a quite tip shark. There was more serrated kind 0:19:35.040 --> 0:19:38.000 of cuts that were really distinctive with that shark species bite. 0:19:38.160 --> 0:19:41.200 I don't know what kind of engineers Massad had for 0:19:41.320 --> 0:19:44.600 this job, but they would have had to replicate shark 0:19:44.640 --> 0:19:47.439 teaths extremely accurately and brilliantly to do so. 0:19:47.720 --> 0:19:51.159 Even sharks are victims of conspiracy theories. 0:19:51.359 --> 0:19:54.480 They are, yeah, probably one of the most persecuted victims 0:19:54.480 --> 0:19:57.119 of conspiracy theories. They're an easy target, you know, they 0:19:57.160 --> 0:20:00.240 can't really stand up for themselves. So that's my job. 0:20:00.320 --> 0:20:02.280 I suppose that's what I'm trying to do in part. 0:20:02.440 --> 0:20:04.080 Well, you seem to be doing a very good job 0:20:04.119 --> 0:20:05.800 of it, so thank you so much for spending time. 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:11.919 Thank you very much, absolutely fascinating. Now over to John Stern. 0:20:12.280 --> 0:20:14.800 All right, guys, so I did my research, as is 0:20:14.840 --> 0:20:17.720 my job, and here's what I got. I talked to 0:20:17.840 --> 0:20:20.480 a few experts on sharks. The first one here is 0:20:20.520 --> 0:20:23.359 Mary Roach. She told me about a Navy program in 0:20:23.400 --> 0:20:27.920 the nineteen sixties to use sharks as weapons called Operation Headgear, 0:20:28.359 --> 0:20:31.600 and guys, spoiler alert, it didn't work. 0:20:32.640 --> 0:20:36.719 I'm an author. I write nonfiction books for the general 0:20:36.760 --> 0:20:40.320 public science related. But for a book called Grunt, which 0:20:40.320 --> 0:20:42.040 I had to do with military science, I had a 0:20:42.119 --> 0:20:45.680