You could be mistaken for thinking it's footage from a gritty reboot of Jaws, but this footage of a shark circling a swimmer out in the ocean is real. Very real.
Out in Panama City beach along the Gulf of Mexico, a swimmer can be seen kicking their way through the picturesque clear green waters. But soon, another figure comes into picture, and you can almost hear John Williams' iconic score creeping ominously in the background.
Here's the frightening moment that the shark checks out the unsuspecting swimmer:Stan Battles was the man who recorded this chilling footage, and filming it from his 28th floor balcony at Tidewater Resort, he said to the Panama City News Herald: "You don’t want to write what I was thinking. I just didn’t want the girl to get hurt."
According to Battles, the shark had been circling in the area for around two hours, and had mostly stayed in the cloudy parts of the Gulf of Mexico to stay hidden. That is, until the swimmer pictured above enters the water.
"The woman swims directly over this thing. Directly over it... It was just kind of crazy. Everyone on the beach, in the water, they had no clue."
Credit: 1836Luckily for the woman, the shark didn't see enough to be convinced to attack, and before too long, another person on the beach notices the shark. The swimmer was alerted as to what happened, and Battles says he rushed down to the beach to find the woman and show her the video. She had no idea the shark was there.
"She never saw it," Battles explained. "She was just like, 'I think I’m done with the ocean.'"
Battles then uploaded the video to Facebook, where it soon went viral. "It was crazy," he added. "I'm just glad no one got hurt."