'Shark' seen by dog walker in West Sussex - but experts think it was something else

Video footage emerged of what appeared to be shark fin off the coast at East Preston last Friday (September 23).

Rustington resident Ben Colbourne was walking his dog at the end of Botany Close and Pigeonhouse Lane, just before 9am, when he noticed an unusual object in the sea.

“It kept coming up and disappearing,” he said. “Me and another neighbour there were trying to work out what it really was.

"It seemed to be a dorsal fin rather than a seal.

“The bizarre thing was it wasn’t really moving. When we stood up on the shingle on the beach, you could make out the silhouette of the body of it underneath.

“It was about 15/20 ft long and about 4ft wide. Its head was pointing directly towards the incoming tide. The waves were coming into it and it was sat there stationary. It was incredible.”

Ben believes what he saw was a basking shark but he wasn’t able to make out its tail.

“Normally they say, with basking sharks, the dorsal fin is showing as well as well as actual tail fin but we never saw it at all,” he said. “It might have been a bit too choppy.”

Local experts believe that because the object was fixed rather than floating – and not being affected by the waves laterally or vertically – this would suggest it was a fixed object attached to the seabed.

The object was in line with the wooden groyne which means it could be the remains of a broken port lateral marker post.

These are designed to warn boats of the submerged hazard of the groyne – usually it’s a post with a red mark at the top and they frequently break.

Among the experts who spoke to SussexWorld was Stephen Savage, Sussex Regional Coordinator Sea Watch Foundation.

He said: “We do have large sharks round the UK, including Sussex. In my opinion this could not be a shark, because it would not stay in one place, sharks need to keep swimming.

"Swimming is an essential part of breathing for large sharks. The forward movement of the shark through the sea forces oxygen rich water through its open mouth and out over the gills, through the gill slits.”

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Ben remains steadfast in his belief that what he saw was alive – but he hasn’t been put off going into the sea.

"I had lived in Goring my whole life and I’m now living over in Rustington. I walk the dog down on the seafront every day.

“The amount of aquatic sealife appearing now is astounding. I remember as a kid, we’d go fishing and you’d very rarely get any fish at all.

"It’s now the case that you go down there and there are tons and tons of fish that you can see when you’re walking along.

"There's a lot of spider crabs and it wouldn’t surprise me if you can get much bigger sealife operating as well.

"It’s brilliant for us along the coast. It might scare people if we’ve got sharks in the water but they are gentle sea predators and it’s incredible to see them coming back.”