When I saw the site I assumed that it was light-hearted humor, as well as a way to promote his books. I did not get the indication that he expected anyone to take it seriously.

It is good to see he has changed the site considerably. He loved to tell the old South Australia fishing story where people say they saw a Meg. He would say how the story is quite close to what we believe a Meg would have looked like - white skin etc.
He has many times tried to indicate that Meg is still swimming the oceans and that the Government has one secretly in captivity. I am sure he tried to imply at one stage the tanaka institute was real and indeed designed for Megs. His Government conspiracy theories died out quickly though. Too ridiculous even for the nuts. He was quite prominent with this rot a few years ago when he was trying to get funding to turn hs book into a movie. It is underway, I guess it worked.
I am not 100% sure, but I heard he was also behind the Loch Ness tooth hoax in order to promote his move The Loch? Seems that was a nice ploy as well, I heard someone bought the rights to it. PT Barnum comes to mind ROFL. (Great imagination huh, The Loch, Meg duh)
The new site is quite toned down thank goodness.

That pic you have on the original post looks like a great white blown up realy big. Im sure there are creatures on this earth that we have not discovered and megalodon could definantly be one of them but it would be imposable to keep 1 in captivity.

Keeping one in captivity means you have to do several things:
1. Have a special pond or any tank with a Howitzer proof glass, and preferably lagoon sized.
2. Have a time machine, that's the only way to obtain a living one. While at it, don't forget to bring the ocean water of the age, some slight changes in ocean water might kill the creature.

this discussion of a live megaladon doesnt deserve any credibility or investigation. its such an impossibility

Yeah, he did the faked tooth found in Loch Ness, supposed to have come from a "giant eel". "The Trench" featured the "Bloop" sound, it's origins being something along the lines of a 120 metre Liopleurodon... It seems most of this books are just derived from some popular cryptozoological legend... well, derived really gives him too much credit.

I don't think lagoon size would even be enough. No one has managed to keep a white shark alive for very long. They might also need to use the time machine regularly to teleport back some cetaceans and marine mammals for feeding purposes. It might not be very satisified with what we have today.

That piccy looks very fake to me.

Megalodon is DEAD, I says. For the umpteenth time. Give up on any hope of it still being around, 'cos it ain't.

Sorry friend, but that picture is completly fake. It has been proven that keeping a large predatory shark (like a great white) in captivity is extremely difficult under the best of conditions. Housing a predator the size of a Meg, would be nearly impossible. Just imagine trying to keep it fed, or even building an enclosure large enough for it to swim in. Not to mention the danger (and the lawsuits) if someone were to accidently fall in. If Megalodons still exist, I think it would be best to just leave them alone, and respectfully study them from a safe distance.

Good Journey.

Kyle Rajasthan.

Ow..Ow... that Walking With Dinos. stuff.. Yayy,,!! love it!! wish that come true!

It is "Steve" actually. I agree that his assumption about Megalodons being still alive is wrong because such an assumption is mostly based on fascination and not on reality or any reliable evidence. Megs went extinct about more then a million years ago when the temperatures of the oceans around the world cooled down a lot and food became scarce.


It is not wise to argue about the size factor of Meg. We will never know that how big a Meg could actually grow but the findings or discoveries of a famous Meg expert Vito Bertucci are some real-eye openers.


LOL! You actually made my day.


His MEG books are actually a work of FICTION but they are still a good read. However it is true that his impressive advertisement strategies are indeed mean't to promote his books for increased sales. And many authors follow this strategy.

But he is wrong, if he says that Megs are still alive.

Anyways, if any person needs to read an interesting and informative book about Megs, then try "Megalodon: Hunting the Hunter" by Mark Renz.

If by "impressive advertisement strategies" you are being sarcastic and actually meaning pathetic, then yes, they certainly are. He registers on forums and starts talking a whole load of rubbish to get the fans immersed, which is a fine thing in itself, would he not be so-- stupid?

He keeps going on about that ridiculous 1918 story about the white 115-300 foot shark. All the time. And that other story of the old guy who had been at sea in the mid 50's and also claimed to have seen a 100 foot ghastly white shark. Not to mention that story with the submarine encountering a 80 foot pale white shark. And he claims that his inane ideas on the whole "biolumiscence" crap are "logical" and sound and whatever, disregarding the fact that he just read about the claim of a giant pale white shark and decided to make a book with it.

His books are not good in any way, Steve Alten is through and through an author of generic masturbatory drivel, vomiting up useless sequel after sequel, lacking any talent whatsoever.

That actually looks fake.
Give me a photo of a dead shark and a bunch of people standing around and I could remake that.

Welcome to UM! About the story, you believe what you want to believe and don't let others pull you down for it. Look forward to hearing more posts from you!

It is possible that sharks that big exist, we have not searched the entire ocean. I don't that a megaladon could survive in captivity though.

Yeah of course huge mythical sharks are scary. But I am more afraid of actual HUGE SQUIDS!!

YIKES!!

BTW, im sure it's just a viral marketing scheme to sell books....

I used the same technique for my first novel

Welcome to the site and yes xsas's is right, people can be rude so just ignor that and enjoy the site, I happen to think there is no way for a megalodonm to still be alive, There's just not a food source to feed it with out us noticing some how.Also with all the sub's in the ocean now i'm sure one would have been seen or worse that a navy sub was food....

Ahoy,
Having sailed all the oceans for many, many years, I don’t think there are living megs. Here is my point. Most sharks swim close to their food supply. A shark that large would need a very large and constant food supply. Unless it is relatively near coastal waters where fish are abundant, I don’t think it could find enough food to maintain itself. They would have to be spotted by people. There is just too much traffic along coastal waters for a critter that large to hide. The deep ocean, giant squid as food idea really doesn’t work all that too well. Toothed whales (particularly sperm whales) list giant squid on the menu. That would have to put these two critters in close proximity as they would both hunt the same food. In today’s oceans both whales and giant squid are comparatively rare, but if we look back to the days of whaling, the whale population was much larger. The food competition would also have been greater. I don’t think the squid population could have supported both populations. (There is some evidence that the giant squid population has actually increased due to the decrees in whale populations.) Also, if both the whales and megs were hunting food in the same area, doesn’t it stand to reason that the whalers would have encountered megs? A whole lot of blood and other offal ended up in the water while processing a whale. One of the problems the whalers faced was rendering the whale before the sharks could eat it. Being a carnivore, wouldn’t megs have joined in the “free feast?” I realize we don’t know much about the behavior of megs, but I think it is safe to guess that they acted like all other predatory sharks when there is blood in the water. Just my thoughts on it. If I do ever encounter a meg, you will be the first person I call….after I’ve cleaned myself! Welcome aboard!

It's not just about space - it has a great deal to do with environment and resources. These do not exist in sufficient unknown quantity to successfully conceal a Megolodon.

I, for one, believe the Megalodon is still alive. Not only that, but I actually have what I believe to be the ideal location for one to be kept. There is a large, saltwater, manmade lake in Nevada, actually two of them, that weren't there in 1990. Let's just assume (just for the moment, please listen to me) that they really DID capture a live Meg. If they managed to transport it before it grew too large, it would NOT be impossible for it to be there. Moreover, feeding it enormous slabs of beef, or even meat from whales, could easily satiate a shark. While it is difficult to keep a Great White in captivity, the Megalodon (from my research) has several adaptations the Great White does not. It can (not as quickly as a Bull Shark, mind you) transfer from Salt to Fresh water. It takes time, probably a few weeks, but it is possible. Not only that, but their body can hold onto massive fat reserves as 'backup rations'. Even if it didn't get ALL the food it required in a single day, it wouldn't die instantly.
I do believe the Meg is still alive for one other reason; I saw something I can't explain while we were in Hawaii. We went out on a glass-bottomed boat - routine tour thing near the Hale-Koa hotel. As we went out into deeper waters, I thought I saw something move beneath the boat. Something BIG. At first, I thought it was a whale. That was until it swam past again. Whatever it was, it was a ghostly white shark, probably around 75 - 100 feet in length. The dorsal fin alone must have been 5-6 feet in height. I panicked, I admit it. Just sort of froze up there in the boat like a moron and stared at the glass as if willing myself to see it again. It didn't swim by again. I don't know if anyone else saw it. I know, I should have asked someone if they'd seen it - I was stupid not to. However, I do not believe I was too far in the wrong. My brain had kind of shut down at the time.

-Julian Spire

Could you offer sources on the Freshwater theory? As far as I know only a few teeth and vertabrea had been discovered. I don't know how that offers clues to freshwater toleration.

Meg survived in shallow seas. We have evidence of this. There are many reasons Meg died out. Your sighting was indeed something other than a Meg. Meg is a very interesting subject, and funnily enough may not even be related to the great white. Convergeant evolution is a possibility not yet ruled out.

Megs dead. Long live the Meg.

A modern day mystery I'd like to look into more - ever heard of the bloop?

Not that ghastly white shark thing again. Also too big. Not a Megalodon if there ever was such a shark.



What kind of research have you done? Studied live specimens? What kind of adaptions do you speak of?

I thought that rather strange too.
We have only found some teeth and vertabrea. This seems an awful amount of imformation for so little to work with.

Turned out to be part of an antler belonging to some poor deer-like animal.

Ahoy again,
I spoke to my daughter. She is a marine biologist. She gave me a whole lot of technical reasons as to why the megalodon of 65 million years ago could not be around today. She did point out another interesting fact. She pointed out that the sharks of today who have ancestors that lived 65 million years ago are smaller than their ancestors. She thinks that if the megalodon does survive in any way, it would probably be much smaller today than its 65 year old great grand daddy. In her informed opinion, anyone looking for a modern megalodon should realize they are looking for a much smaller fish.

you realy cant tell if thats fake??
http://youtube.com/watch?v=RTKzrVv7I_o

I think it's possible that megalodon is alive in the ocean but not in captivity.

All due repect MiLady

You are wrong

Megs dead. Long live the Meg.

How can you be certain? We have explored less than 1% of the oceans on Earth. It is possible the Meg could be living deep down; Challenger Deep or Marianas Trench areas, etc. and we don't know it. It's a bad practice to just flat out say someone is wrong. You have no complete proof that it IS extinct; just like we have a lack of proof that it ISNT. I believe it still exists based upon my sighting; regardless of whether or not you think I'm:
1) making it up
2) loony/crazy/etc
3) wrong about what I saw
4) a drug user/drunk/etc.
I don't care what you say about me; I know what I saw. I believe what I saw. It was as real as you or I.

-JKS

23 foot Pacific Sleeper Shark, not a Megalodon.



What makes you think it was a Megatooth shark then? If there is such a thing as ghostly white giant sharks of the size you speak, "75-100 feet", it is most likely something else, a different shark altogether, not a Megalodon. First off, it's considerably larger, and the white colour seems illogical and unnatural.

Anyway, the white colour aludes to the 1918 giant shark story, you know, that whole "115-300 feet!" thingy. It was also ghastly white. Not to mention that oceanographer who wouldn't tell what he saw at sea in 1960, but later it leaked out that he saw a "100 foot" ghastly white shark. Or those "teeth" found in on a vessel in an Adelaide dock in 1954, supposedly 8 cm long. Or that submarine that supposedly encountered a "80 foot" ghastly white shark...

Also no large sharks live at great depths. It's NOT POSSIBLE AT ALL THAT IT LIVES IN THE MARINANA TRENCH OF THE CHALLENGER DEEP.

When will people stop with that foolishness?

You guys gotta realize, a shark, hell, anything of that magnitude that magnitude would not survive the pressure of the depths of the Mariana Trench. Unless say it was pressurized on the inside by some sorta mutant swim bladder thing. But there is no way a Megalodon survived. If there were any survivors of the initial extinction (PARADOX) They would have not survived up to now.

I, quite personally, am appalled by your lack of faith. Is it really that impossible? Do you all not remember the phrase "Impossible is Nothing"? This is, albeit, imPROBABLE, but not completely imPOSSIBLE.

JKS

Thanks Darth.

Also, why are you personally offended that I believe Megalodon is extinct?

Some things are not possible.

If this shark dwells at great depth, it's cannot be a shark, it has to be something else, a different entity altogether.

I, quite personally, is appalled by your naïve and overdramatic faith in the survival of Megalodon. I do remember the phrase, "nothing is impossible", but always discarded it as useless cheery hopefullness to give people false hope.

I pity you. Apparently, whatever 'entity' created you forgot to instill a shred of hope in your mind. You all, as humans, do not know everything. As an Aspergian, I do not know everything. I admit that. However, just because we have not discovered a shark that can live at that depth does not mean there is one. Perhaps the Megalodon was capable of living at extreme depths. Perhaps, as someone previously said, it had some kind of unique or 'mutant' swim bladder. There are possibilities. Are you also going to say that it is impossible for life to exist in space? If that is your response, I pity you even more.

JKS

Doubt it. Sharks, Rays and Skates don't have swim bladders.

As an Aspergian, I am appalled at you somehow seeing it as necessary to point out; however I see no reason for you to pity me, seeing as I am perfectly content with being hopeless. This is a shark we're talking about, sharks don't have swim bladders. However, sharks also don't live at such great depth; even if they could, it would unlikely there'd be enough food there for a Megatooth shark, this whale-eating 45-foot beast, there.

Also, how would you explain your sighting if that was the case? How would a shark adapted to live at extreme depth survive the tour up to the shallows?

And what do you mean by "life in space", life in the quasi-vacuum or life on other plants? There's a chance there's life on other planets. I don't think they come here in saucer-shaped trans-galactic vessels though.

I, of course, refer to life on other worlds. While it may be possible for bacteria or viruses to exist in the 'quasi-vacuum' of space, I was talking more about intelligent life. No, I don't mean 'little green men' either. Any form of life. I am convinced it exists. I do not doubt that flying saucers exist; whether or not they are alien or military test though... still, a saucer would likely be ill-suited for intergalactic travel. I've run tests myself on various methods it could work; there is far too much guesswork involved.

JKS

I offered choice No 3, I suggested a mis-identification. I have read more of your posts, I think your second inference is probably the most accurate. I could live with the fourth too. If you get upset over the most obvious answer you will get when telling this story for the first time, that would indicate you are not telling the truth. You would be expecting that response.

How can I be certain??

A) Fossil Record
B ) Recorded Sigtings
C) Lack of carcasses with car sized bite marks
D) The lack of the creature in environments that we know it did inhabit, as do other sharks with similar traits
E) The general consensus among zoologists and paleontologists
F) The “ghostly whitish color” of the alleged animal as very few marine animals maintain such a colouring; certainly not the white shark. C. megalodon is believed to have occupied a neritic lifestyle much like the white shark and it is likely that it was similarly countershaded
G) The ironclad fact that no unfossilized C. megalodon tooth has ever been found
H) Deep-sea fishes and other animals are extremely well adapted to the harsh conditions of their environment. C. megalodon was probably well adapted to its very different shallow-water environment. The idea that C. megalodon could simply change all of its anatomical, physiological and behavioural specializations to adapt itself to a totally different environment, such as the deep-sea, is ridiculous.
I) Current ecological knowledge
J) C. Megalodon has been extinct for 1.6 million years.
K) It's biggest competition, the Killer Whale is still here. That would suggest it won the battle for the ecological niche.
L) Lack of food to sustain a creature of that size at that depth.

How's that for a start Can you now let us know why you think it is extant?

I did not display bad practise, I have based my theory on the above factual information.

And the reason you did not see a Meg is that the original size estimates taken from the teeth found and the vertabrea were wrong. The best-educated estimates of this creature's maximum size range from 12 to 16 m (40 to 52 ft).

Less than 1%? Where did you get that statistic - the 1800's? Not sure if you have heard of Submarines or sonar, but these new fangled gadgets can look in all sorts of paces without going there! Heck, we found a 6 inch hairy lobster in the middle of nowhere, you honestly think we could miss a Meg??


Hope is wonderful, I HOPE we can conquer world hunger, I HOPE we can repair the global warming situation, I HOPE we can achieve global harmony, I HOPE we can cure cancer and other diseases. I HOPE terrorism will be ended and that ALL people will find the practise of slaughtering innocents abhorrent. I live in hope, I have hope. I hope for needful things.
Even investigations are important. It is also important to realise when you are being thorough, and when you are wasting time.

Impossible is nothing ?? You cite a marketing campaign as inspiration? And you pity others?

I would consider it impossible for you to tell me my little brothers middle name and post it within 1 second of this reply being posted. Show me it is nothing.

That second is up, how'd you go.

Wow. You folks just can't let it go, can you?

The one-percent figure was from my Marine Biology Textbook. Oh, and even with the massive amount of probes etc. we have, we still haven't explored everywhere, now have we? And now I am going to release my theory; a theory I developed after reading well over thirty books about sharks, their habits, and the Meg in general.

The Megalodon, or C. Megalodon (although there is dispute over whether to classify it as Carcharodon Megalodon or Carcharias Megalodon) was a massive predator that existed roughly 1.1 million years ago according to the fossil record. The fossil record also indicates that the Megalodon vanished without a trace around this time period. The followig is my theory:

A predator the size of a Megalodon would have hunted whales; some Marine Biologists also speculate the Megalodon was cannibalistic. As the oceanic temperatures cooled, krill and other small creatures would have drifted deeper into the oceans; heading for areas near geothermal vents. Following the krill would be fish. Following the fish would be larer fish and so on. However, there is one creature that was mentioned in (I think it was the Trench) known as the Cronosaur (or Kronosaur). Massive, completely aquatic brown crocodile-like creatures that existed around the same time period as the Megalodon. These could have formed a staple in the Megalodon's diet. If the largest fish were heading down, and the Kronosaurs were following the fish, it would stand to reason that the Megalodons would follow the Kronosaurs (if they did, indeed hunt them.)
As the oceans continued to cool, a six-mile thick layer of cold water known as the thermocline formed. This would have effectively trapped the Megalodon (as well as the Kronosaur) in deep waters. I know sharks are not made for waters deeper than around three miles (some speculate five), but we have not had the fortune of studying a Megalodon that has been perfectly preserved; internal organs of the shark (while hypothesized to be similar in structure to C. Carcharias, or the Great White Shark) are still shrouded in mystery. It has been suggested by more than one cryptozoologist that the Megalodon developed adaptations for living in deep water; such as bioluminesence and the like. This would explain the 'ghostly white color'.
To explain the apparent misconception in size is a different story. One cryptozoologist, Stan Freidman, suggested that as the Meg continued to live in the trenches and deep waters, (if it did, indeed, do so) its body became compact. If it ever found its way to the surface due to a warmer area of ocean, the body would likely expand. If there was a blubbery layer thick enough, this would not prove fatal. Stan has expressed his views as his own belief, and has also stated that this has NOT been proven or tested. This concludes my statement on one plausible way the Megalodon could have survived.


-JKS

1. Good that you finally realized it. AIght?
2. Oooh, so THAT'S your source! Okay, I got this now. I read the book too, you know, heck, I even got both the Meg and The Trench! And to me, I enjoy reading it, but don't believe it a bit.
The pressure in Mariana Trench will kill a Great White, if it happens to be venturing there, let alone a HUGE megalodon...and Kronosaurs too! Believing anything from those books is like believing that Balrog and Tom Bombadil exist!

Just for the note: I'm with Psyche, Nena and others who succeded in snapping back into reality. No, don't call us mere skeptics, cos I believe, in a way Bigfoot can be exist.

You do know there is like... 100 million years between those two? Kronosaurus was about 30-40 feet long by the way, and if you by "completely aquatic" mean that it spent it's life at sea, yes, indeed, like all pliosaurs-- but it's not like it had gills like in The Trench...

Also, it's Carcharocles, not Carcharias megalodon.

1% is incorrect, I am sure it is currently about 4%.
Regardless, you are stating the Marianas Trench as the most likely hideout. That is mapped. It was fully surveyed in 1951 by the British naval vessel, "Challenger II" which gave its name to the deepest part of the trench, the "Challenger Deep". In 1960, the Trieste successfully reached the bottom of the trench, manned by a crew of two men.



I addition to the information the Nena has provided outlining the different time periods - 100 million years is anough distance to assume the two never met, the Kronosaur (Aussie Dino YAY) has teeth up to 25 cms long and up to 12 meters long. Hardly shark prey for the 16M Meg.

The Orca provided formidable competition from about 5 million years ago. It is more likely the successful super predator won the ecological niche.



The thermocline (sometimes metalimnion) is a layer within a body of water or air where the temperature changes rapidly with depth.
Evolution takes a great deal longer than that. You can't "develop" bioluminacence overnight. By the time this change took place, the Meg would be extinct.

Your theory can't work, because you are changing Megalodon's nature. It is like the Great White, a fast moving killing machine, not a deep ocean passive dweller. You can't just re-write a creatures nature of existance to suit a theory.



Giant Suid don't expand. Neither do Sperm Whales.

Stan Friedman is turning his hand at zoology now? When did he give up on Nuclear Physics?
Maybe he ought to stick with Roswell.

The biolumiscence thing is just that pesky Steve Alten's take on the ghaslty white colour, nothing else. I don't think there would be any advantage for the shark to develop complete exterior biolumiscence; does that even occur in any fishes outside of tiny species?

You might want to read this.

If you all believe so strongly that it is dead, who am I to attempt to dissuade you? It would take far to long to individually separate and answer all of the PMs I've been receiving. And whoever "Bigfoot121" is, stop sending me hate mail.

JKS

I'm not PMing you. I can offer anything I have to say in front of everybody.

I only wish to help you access good factual information so that you can see for yourself

Or is it the other way around?

The plot thickens!

I used to believe. I used to believe in extraterrestrials, I used to believe in surviving dinosaurs in the Congo, I used to believe in so many things. I used to believe that there were seeking capsules sent out to examine earth from motherships in space; small roundish objects with three lights in the front, each with a different colour, white, red, and green. They used advanced rader to map and investigate the earth. They were not visible on our radar screens because they were made of various extraterrestrial components and minerals that somehow was impossible to detect on radars. Don't ask me how, I was 15 years old and I wanted to believe.

I believed in the Loch Ness monsters, I believed in the bunyip and I believed in Chupacabras. I thought all the airplanes I saw while looking up at the night sky were alien crafts. That odd red light I saw cruising across the sky one evening in January, it was of course our visitors from afar. They examine us like rats in cages and laugh at our trivial daily journeys. They were perfect and found humour in our bizarre ways.

In 1994, I saw a bird flying in the reddish afternoon sky, and I wanted it so much to be an alien craft. All the mysteries in the world made me feel so good, all this excitement, this promise for something beyond our inane and well-charted paths throughout the educational establishment and the senseless churning of working life, it was so wonderfully alluring. That bird was of course not a bird. It was an alien craft. It zig-zagged across the sky in a display of it's impressive acrobatic skills. That's what I wanted to see anyway. I wrote about it. I made up stories. UFO's everywhere. Cigars looming over our local forests, strange bright lights disturbing campers, a second moon seen from that farm by the little stream by the church -- I wanted so much.

But there was no bunyip. There were no subterrean sharks, whose six foot dorsal fin would penetrate the earth surface and cut their way through asphalt. There were no surviving dinosaurs. The foot prints I took pictures off in the woods was just the track a raindeer had made during the winter while attempting to dig up something edible that accidentally looked like a dinosaur track. The lights in the sky were airplanes and sattelites. The beasts in the seas were all something mundane, something dreadfully normal; there was no Megalodon, there was no plesiosaurs; all those beached carcasses were whales and basking sharks.

Fantasy is a great thing, but it is easy to be carried away.

And I'm not sure what point I'm trying to make, but maybe it is that sometimes, reality is really hard to tell from fantasy.

And yet, I will say, not all of those could be fantasy. In a universe this large, who amongst us can say with 100% certainty whether or not there is intelligent life. Who can say, I ask, none of them are visiting us. I once had someone ask me,
"If they're so advanced, why bother with us,"

he proceeded to give me that, "I know everything and you're an idiot" grin. I responded with the following quote.

"The reasons they might come here are numerous. However, I believe one in particular; the same reason (if we could) we would go there: curiosity. What kinds of life-forms live on this strange world around a strange star? What are they like? Hostile or friendly? That is one reason why they could be here."

Perhaps one of thsoe red lights in the sky you saw actually was an alien visitor. Perhaps not is all as mundane and normal as it seems. I know this; I know for a fact they exist. Please, do not ask me how. I would tell you, but if my views are earning me dorogatory emails, I would rather not become a glutton for punishment.

-JKS