Whether the video is real or not, diving with sharks is always a bad idea
Diver Terry Tufferson claims to have have had close call with great white (Image: YouTube)
Digital Reporter
Saturday, June 14, 2014, 5:38 PM -
If one of the things on your bucket list is to dive in with the sharks, then you've probably considered the fact that you may never make it back to shore.
That was almost the case for diver Terry Tufferson, after coming face-to-face with a great white shark in Sydney Harbour -- or so he made us believe.
Turns out, his viral YouTube video was a fake. Tufferson's video (which had more than 2m hits in 48 hours) titled GoPro: Man Fights Off Great White Shark In Sydney Harbour, showed the man leaping off Jump Rock at Collins Beach with a GoPro camera strapped to his head.
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As Tufferson comes to the surface, he hears his friends shout "shark", before coming face-to-face with the beast. The video then shows him frantically swimming back to shore, with all limbs in tact.
Now, this would have been the story of a lifetime, but YouTube commentators pointed out some -- dare we say -- fishy editing behaviour.
One commentator notes some discrepancies around the :59 second mark: “The diver dips his head into the water to see the shark approaching. It is at that point the video is spliced because in just a few tenths of a second, the shark seems to teleport from the middle of the video to the lower left corner.”
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Richard Farr, owner of Digital Video Experts, also questioned the legitimacy of the video.
“At 0:59 seconds and 22 frames, the shark can be seen on one side of the frame and then at 0:59 seconds and 23 frames the shark seems to jump half a metre to the right,” he said after analyzing the video for the Manly Daily.
“Unless I see the original footage I can’t say for sure, but I think it is real.
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“If it turns out to be a fake, then this person has done an outstanding job.”
Tefferson has yet to make any comment.
Real or fake? Let us know what you think in the comments below!
