Call it a real life Jaws situation — but with a much happier ending. Father and son Frank and Mike Pitten were summering in Scituate, Massachusetts when a great white shark swam under their boat. The two were stunned. “I looked at Michael and I was like you know this is kind of a once-in-a-lifetime thing,” Frank recalled. And he wasn’t putting it lightly.
The family members weren’t trying to look for sharks on their outing, but they inarguably got more than they bargained for. The brave pair even managed to get a recording of the creature on video.
Speaking with NBC 10 Boston, the pair explained that they were really looking for a humpback whale carcass that’s been spotted in the Cape Cod Bay. Sharks had been reported along the coast of Massachusetts recently, including two sharks that were seen eating a whale carcass about six miles off the coast of Scituate, but it didn’t seem likely that they’d see them.
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“I never dreamt that there would be one that big six miles from Scituate,” Frank told the news outlet in a video online. He was referring to the surprise guest of their trip — a humongous great white shark that swam right up under their boat.
“When I saw this thing come under me I was shocked,” Miked added. Especially because the two were traveling in a 29-foot boat. But the shark was large in its own right. “The shark that we saw, I would guess, was 20 feet give or take and the most shocking part about it was the girth of the thing. You could probably fit most of the sharks that we saw inside of that shark,” Mike added.
In fact, that large great white seemed to have scared away a group of five smaller sharks who were also trying to feast on the carcass.
The animal didn’t seem to notice the boat as it traveled. Mike even decided to hang over the side of the boat and get the once in a lifetime experience on camera. The video has since gone viral, which is understandable as many people have never seen a shark that big up close.
Thankfully, the Pittens were unharmed during their encounter, but both agree that it was pretty darn exciting.
“Even 10-15 minutes after we got in I was like did we really just see that or is that a dream because it seems like something you only see on Shark Week,” Mike told NBC 10.
“We both came in and said that might have been the coolest thing we’ve ever seen,” Frank agreed.
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