SeaWatch: What's Eaten Ya, Pal?

    All right, for those of you who don't know, I'm terrified of sharks. I mean, we're talking Sam-Winchester-and-clowns level of fear here, so this morning when I was listening to the Bizarre File on the Preston and Steven Show this morning on 93.3 WMMR and the lead story began with the words "a nine-foot great white" (followed by the word "shark," so I was relatively certain it wasn't some strange story about the band) a part of me Darth Vader-screamed "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO"  and wanted me to lunge for the radio and flip the station before my entirely overactive imagination conjured up some Jaws-esque horror show and made me run to my stuffed panda for comfort (as a side note, everybody with a massive fear of something should have a relatively large stuffed panda to cuddle with in times of crisis. I've found it helps a great deal. Unless, I suppose, you're afraid of pandas, in which case, like the story of the Ugly Barnacle, "That didn't help at all."). However, I couldn't help but be a little curious (the horror writer in me, I guess), and the radio stayed on. I found myself intrigued by the story told by an upcoming Smithsonian Channel documentary, Hunt For the Super Predator, which airs Wednesday, June 25th, at 8:00 PM (ET/PT).
    Apparently, eleven years ago, a nine-foot female great white shark was tagged as "part of Australia's first-ever large-scale tagging and tracking program for great whites," and "cinematographer Dave Riggs and a film crew found a perfect specimen," (Yahoo) a nine-foot female that was named Shark Alpha and tagged so the researchers could track her movements.Four months later, the tag washed up on the beach.
    (As a side note, I'm just gonna go off on a bit of a limb here and say I don't think Dave Riggs is related to the Lethal Weapon character with the same last name. If it was Martin Riggs going after this Super Predator, I feel safe in saying it would be an entirely different kind of film.)
    According to the data on the tag, "Alpha had plunged straight down the side of the continental shelf, more than 1,500 feet deep." (Yahoo) You'd assume (or maybe you wouldn't, I don't know--those who would assume, would assume) that the deeper the water, the colder it would get, and for once assuming wouldn't make an...well, you know. The tag, however, had heated up, going from 46 to 78 degrees Fahrenheit, which researchers say means that it was most likely inside the belly of another creature. Something fought, beat, and ate a nine-foot great white shark. So what ate Alpha? (Dude, if nobody makes a T-shirt outta that, I'm going to be severely disappointed in the internet.) Speculation, of course, has run rampant ever since this story's come around, with possible culprits including

• a kraken
• a larger shark
• Godzilla
• giant squid
• an orca
• that giant monster fish thing from The Phantom Menace (all right, that was my contribution)

    Of course, scientists have again taken the fun out of speculating, putting forth the probable view that Alpha was attacked and eaten, either for territorial reasons or because the other guy was really, really hungry and there wasn't a McDonald's for another ten miles and he just didn't feel like swimming that far anyway, by another shark. Yes, that's right, folks, "a colossal cannibal great white shark," the stuff of my nightmares--and, I'm assuming, more than a few of yours. This CCGWS has been "estimated at 16 feet long and over 2 tons," (People) so it is, in fact, larger than former Philadelphia Eagles coach Andy Reid, if only just barely. 
    According to Riggs, the change in temperature that was recorded by the tag was "pretty high, but not large enough to be a mammal;" however, "it's something seriously huge to sustain that temperature--the larger the animal, the more capable it is of an elevated temperature." (Christian)
    "Seriously huge." Words that I never ever want to associate with sharks, along with "colossal," "great white," and "right behind you." I know this post is perhaps a bit more mundane than most of my other ones, considering that so far Godzilla/et al has not been ruled as a viable possibility, but it still has to do with fear, I suppose, and that tends to be at the core of most of what I do here. No, perhaps the CCGWS won't come knocking at your window in the middle of the night or try to steal your immortal soul from the other side of the mirror, but the next time you step into a body of water larger than a puddle, how many of you are going to stare just a little bit longer out over the ocean, waiting to see a giant fin rear up out of the water, those giant teeth still clotted with the remains of its last nine-foot meal, those dead eyes rolling back in its head--
    Two thousand feet down, you say? Yeah. I know. Like I said, overactive imagination. 
    But to be safe, I still say we're gonna need a bigger boat.  

I'm not even going to try to put a picture here. The anxiety caused by the pictures I saw reading my research articles is traumatizing itself without adding one more for posterity. Use your imaginations. Try not to wet yourselves. Though if you do, I can't say I'd judge you. Like I said. Terrified.