Did Media Fall For Jersey Shark Video?

The media may have fallen hook, line and sinker for a YouTube video of a shark swimming up on a New Jersey beach.

Slideshow: Fishing Pole Shows Up In Shark Video

The video has been widely reported on the Internet and TV as showing a shark in shallow water “beaching itself” near vacationers in Seaside Park, N.J., with shark swimming ashore at one point in front of shocked beachgoers.

But Fox 29 received a few tips from people who fish at shore who told us to look at the YouTube video again.

We did a frame by frame analysis of the video and in at least 12 frames, a fishing pole or the shadow of a person hold a fishing pole can be seen. In some cases, the fishing pole is bent near or pointed at the shark.

In one sequence, at the 49 second mark, the fishing pole is seen bent toward the shark , and then the shark is seen two frames later within three feet of the pole, nearly out of the water.

And at the one minute mark of the video, a shadow of a hand is seen touching the top of a fishing rod. The shark then swims free four seconds later.

The YouTube user who posted the video swore the fisherman didn’t catch the shark.

Edited versions of the video started popping up locally, with no mention of the presence of the fisherman, or the shadow of a fisherman apparently cutting a line just before the shark retreated.

By Tuesday, the five-foot sand shark made global headlines, with several British newspapers and the Huffington Post making the shark front-page news.

Back in the U.S., a cable TV networks “Shark Week” has put a ton on attention on sharks in general.

A shark sighting did close the beach briefly in Seaside Park last Friday, but there is no independent confirmation that the shark in the video is the shark that prompted the beach closures.