The 1916 New Jersey Shark Attacks Location 

Another great 👍🏼 video and this hits very close to home for me as I live about 25/30 miles from Matawan !

If you ever get back to NE Oregon, I think you would like to see the old town heppner flood. Lots of families still around there living and in the cemetery that were affected by this

Man you were very close to my house.. if I knew you were out here filming, I would have come to see you and get a photo with you !

Great video! You'd deserve to be on TV. Always have correct info for these stories..or atleast try to be close. I couldn't imagine swimming in there and a shark appears. Now days it would be shocking, but could you imagine back then when they prolly didn't have the shark info we do now. So crazy!

Of course our government is going to say it's a bacterial or a viral outbreak with the fish, I'm willing to bet that it is toxic waste that is killing those fish from billionaires that dump their toxic waste in the ocean!

He really is!!

RIP 24 year old Hero guy.

Stanley Fisher

@@Quinna5537 thank you sir

He's an idiot... he was told by the kids it was a shark!! He didn't believe them , his arrogance thinking he could be the hero and recover the body is what got him killed. He wasn't trying to save the boy, it was obvious the kid was already dead.. He shouldn't of gone into the water being told It was a shark!

I mean, bull sharks can take freshwater

When did that happen because when I was a kid on the elk river that’s north of the Chesapeake there was a bull shark in the waters swimming around .

here in Kansas is the same thing with the Aligator gar. The Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism denies they exist here but I seen a few with my buddys im talking like 8-10 foot bastards. want to go down there with my mosin nagant and peg one of the big fuckers.

I'd shit myself if I seen a 7ft shark under my canoe. I always wanted a saltwater kayak to fish until I watched a video of a guy fishing off Oahu and a huge tiger shark just comes gliding along underneath his kayak. Looked like a dam mini sub. I did watch a tv special once, I'm pretty sure they said they've recorded bull sharks half way up the Mississippi river, crazy.

@@biggordo482 what

Really sad

Not enough oxygen flow or bad pH

The cost of being “business friendly”.

D:

that was the first thing i noticed, and i was immediately disgusted with our species

Yea they killed hundreds of people in WW2.

Bull sharks also like creeks and rivers and can stand either salt or fresh water so can swim along way up from the ocean. Another Aussie delight.

@@katesims2346 maneater

Our nearby tidal Ross River ( Qld, Australia) has bull sharks and crocs occaisionally....people still waterski on it...

Florida!

That's the one thing I've never done, never actually went to that Cemetery.

Does any1 still swim there ever?

🙏🙏🙏

@@nphilly420curious to know as well!!

@@nphilly420 Nobody does because it's all jenky, murky, mud & tall weeds. We just go to the beach.

Yessss 😂

Yes ofc

Yeah, I had a few of them until some kids ripped them up. :/

Me

Yup

I grew up on the delaware bay....ya don't dare swim there either. Same feeling.

I grew up In Chesapeake, we never swam in the rivers because there were often shark sightings. The Chesapeake bay wasn’t all that interesting to swim in anyway compared to sandbridge, my family always went there instead especially because of how trashed the Chesapeake bay became. We wouldn’t even eat crabs caught from the bay at some point. I only swam in it once and it was not the best experience, especially compared to the NC beaches and south eastern VA beaches. The history in Virginia, even in the Chesapeake bay was what was really interesting about it. But yeah swimming in open water is really scary, it was almost like there were more shark sightings in the bay and rivers than at the actual beaches!

Same here with the Chesapeake. We used to jump off my grandfather's boat in the middle of the bay when I was little or swim in Back River (where we always heard there were juvenile sharks) all the time. But then after swimming at Calvert Cliffs once we saw a group of sandbar sharks where we had just gotten out. I was done with the bay after that. I'll go to clearer waters...even though I had a close encounter with a great hammerhead even in clear water. At least I saw it coming! I'll take the hammer i can see coming over the potential bull I can't see.

@@lifeislyrical3657hammerhead?? Sheesh

​@@lifeislyrical3657give or take how big of a grwat hammerhead? Theyre up there with great whites in length even if theyre not as stocky and massive

There seemed to be an awful lot of floating dead fish....😵

😂

@@Froby2378 - Yeah, unfortunately the water in this part of NJ is really bad. Runoff including fertilizer, road dirt and a long history of industrial pollution make it really nasty water.

Its a trivia story but there is a famous cave in Florida where SCUBA divers / cave divers explore. They often drown as they get lost, etc. But in one case, they couldn't find the diver... he was in there somewhere. A diving expert from out of state gave it a shot and found the body. He had become lost in the cave tunnels, ran out of air, and in a panic to surface tried to get through between the boulders around the tunnel. His body was missed by previous searchers because it was wedged UP and INTO a crack about 8 inches wide on the roof of the tunnel. He was like that fish you mentioned.

@@sanfrancisco9661 didnt Mr Ballen do a story on that. lol

Yes, very well done.

Great video. As somebody who's traveled the GSPW many times up there, I figured the site was probably visible from the roadway if you just knew where to look. Very well done sir.

And hung like a baboon!

Yes I agree I hope someday he’ll come over to Los Angeles and cover a story or two and meet and greet with him

totally agree with you, I love how he present the story it's very satisfying to listen to

@bill william yeah maybe was rich in mullet and other fish but accidents do happen

@bill william Bullsharks are more likely to attack humans than any other Shark. Known for the feeding frenzy & picking individuals out.

@@davidortiz3094 this is mainly due to bull sharks terrible sight so they do a bump and taste to inspect things so they bump and bite to see if things are food or not

@bill william I mean even when they don’t want to feed on people if you piss them off they will rip you apart and leave your half eaten corpse lying in the water or on shore

I’ve dived with bull sharks before in Playa del Carmen. Huge pregnant bull sharks. Nothing to worry about

Haha same

Ok baby, lil baby comment goo goo ba ba I’ll say anything

15:18

Lol

@@wdsftygt what?

@@wdsftygt tf you on

@budliite Are you really that stupid? Matawan Creek has dozens of tributaries that dump into it which are all freshwater. Including Lake Lefferts.

Correct

They actually store it in their anal gland I believe.

@budliite chill

Brackish * but yes

I think it feels the opposite. It was only 100 years ago but feels longer because thats such a by gone era. People in their 70s and 80s werent even born yet

I think it feels like the future because it will happen again

@Mark Daniels he is speaking his truth.

@Mark Daniels yes I’m about 300 years old

@Gordon Ramsey pathetic i remember feeling the warm light that touched me when the big bang happened

Oh, he's fantastic. Never disappoints. All around great channel. 👌🏼.

Seems since this video was posted, the newest issue of Weird N.J. magazine has come out and this story is featured on the cover. Good article about it too.

You can barely see it but a fish jumps out the water at 14:45 way back right of the first tunnel on the left

Great to see someone using the word "humbling" correctly. The Queen of England referred to her diamond jubilee as "humbling". I'm pretty sure having millions of people celebrate your anniversary while you wear tens of millions of dollars in jewels is the exact opposite of "humbling".

@Billy Sastard 😂😂

I was wondering if the area was bigger, deeper, cleaner back then.

Large container ships cannot navigate in 20 foot deep water. You’re severely mistaken.

@@GrabbaBeer actually they can. Depending on the size. In south carolina the old port at port royal was only an average of 23-25 feet deep at low tide. Bulk cargo ships could still navigate. Granted they were not the modern post Panamax ships and im sure thats not the kind of ship the OP was talking about either.

@@Danvers97 where I live they use to always get stuck by near where my boat was docked. Some made it through but a lot got stuck. Im saying if this creek was 15-20 feet at high tide then there’s no way these ships would make it or dock over night. They’d be sideways dry docked within 6 hours of low tide and damaged lol

@@Lily_of_the_Forest im from matawan, even 3 years ago it didnt look like this, its sad

Yeah I had a friend who got bitten on his calf by a 6ft bullshark in puerto Vallarta Mexico.. ripped a good portion of his lower leg right off.. he says he still has nightmares about it.. but he’s doing good now.. he had to have multiple skin graphs and surgeries to repair the damage.. but after a yr of rehab he got back to normal.. sorry to hear about your uncle bud 😌😔

I'm so sorry for your loss. I've only been to Australia once so far, but I would like to visit again because there is so much I didn't get to explore as a kid.

Adelaide?

It's a defensive strategy I'm sure it's fine

Man: Tells historic story of tragedy Random Fish: *shoves face in tunnel crevice*, "no pictures plz"

That's how fish sleep.

Batman he got his moment of fame and never even knew it.

@@treebeard7140 🤣 True he is famous on RU-vid now!

That's what I was thinking, Jersey truly is a cesspool.

He said there's some kind of bacteria the fish are dying from in the area.

Bunker been dealing w this bacteria for the longest supposedly. there's reports on it if you Google it or RU-vid it .. same goes w deer and humans and etc

I am sure the quality was much different in 1916.

obviously the bacteria is something that comes from pollution....humans are nasty.

That is correct. The attacks coincided with a spring tide, the highest of the year. It would have brought the attack site to salinity levels equivalent to coastal oceans. Regular daily high tides are pushing the 80 % salinity of coastal oceans. White sharks have been recorded in lower salinities than that.

Bull sharks swim up estuaries to give birth not gw

@@mannycheese1166 i would still say the chance it was a bullshark is still higher then it being a white, the area just screams bullshark territory and while white sharks can travel up tidal creeks it is very very very rare for them to do so while Bullsharks love that sort of territory. i personally believe it was 2 or more sharks, the attacks at Beach Haven and Spring lake at could very well have been White sharks but i believe the ones in the creek to be more likely a Bullshark attack, the location is prime bullshark territory, the high tides imo actually goes in favour of the Bullshark as the water movement actually makes water clarity worse (Bullsharks are more aggressive when water clarity is lower) and the time of the year is exactly when Bullsharks give birth to their pups and is when they are the most aggressive

@@comeatmebro3229 You're right, no doubt it's much more common for Bull sharks to be up brackish waters , but one has to look at locatio here on the East Coast.. Bull sharks north of Chesapeake bay are extremely rare. Not sure where u are located at, but the saltwater state tackle record in NJ still remains vacant in the Bull shark category to this day, even with a warming climate/ocean the last century. I too believe there were different sharks involved. Bull sharks wouldn''t give birth in waters that cool and that far north. According to Biologists, Bull sharks will not birth until water temps hit 85 F. They sure love their warm waters. According to attack expert Richard Fernicola , who had collected weather data from the state for his book on the attacks, water temps that early summer were mid/low 60's F. A Bull shark swimming through those cool waters to get to the Matawan would be unprecedented. When looking at tracking studies of East Coast Bull sharks, One that far north that early in the summer would also be unprecedented. The furthest Northern recorded inshore/coastal Bull shark capture was Delaware Bay (Pre 2020 that is). The most compelling evidence of the whole Matawan attacks would be the wound descriptions from the 2 attending physicians of the last 2 attack victims. These descriptions are identical to white shark bites with spaced lacerations according to attack experts such as Dan Huber, Marie Levine and former International Shark Attack File director George Burgess. One went so far as to say Bull sharks inflicting these type of wounds are impossible as their teeth are to close together (Average Interdental Distance), stating this on the program "When sharks attack". The probability of a Bull Shark would be extremely low to overcome some of these factors stated by experts. Most likely why the International Shark Attack file still lists the white shark as responsible.

​@@comeatmebro3229I agree. One of the coastal attacks lost his legs, which to me says great white attack. The creek attacks seem like more muscle was lost, which sounds like something smaller. The aggression of multiple attacks also fits bull shark personality more.

Friggin dude was stuck in the wall XD

Ceiling fish

Literally 🤣

It would’ve gotten stuck when it was high tide

@@PastorOfMuppetsVIVIVI duhhhh

Yes! I went to Broad St. school for 4th & 5th grades back in the 60's & our school Liberian told us about him. Was still alive & living in town. Thanks for that 🙏🏻

There might still be sharks in that water way. At 15:20 he’s standing on the shore and behind him something in the water comes up and makes a splash on surface!!! I’m sure it was just a fish though 😂

Wasn’t there a book about this????? I don’t remember if this is the place but I read it and the boy was attacked

@@5jakethesnake58 There are actually three specifically written about this - 'Shadows in the the Sea' by Allen, 'Twelve Days of Terror' by Fernicola, and 'Close to Shore' by Capuzzo. All are worth reading to learn more about the attacks.

@ab vevo really I’ve always been into sharks since I was a kid and I wanted to be a marine biologist till I change my mind shortly after school and the bull shark is one of my personal favorites. But I never knew what you said but did you mean that they and their offspring live breed and die all in the same area without ever leaving? Or do you mean they frequent the same few areas in close proximity to each other? Or did you mean just give birth in the same waters?lol

Shark cute

Or 21

CHOMP 🦈

Sonar?

No sharks in Matawan Creek anymore.

r.i.p

Definitely sounds better than the actual sequels we got

Make this happen Spielberg!

Genius my guy....I hope tht shit happens

im in

Perfect!! I can totally see this as box office gold! Our generation stood in line for hours to get tickets, then another long line to get in........??TOTALLY WORTH EVERY PENNY!!!! The Lakeside theater back home charged 50 cents for tickets!! Alot cheaper then today's fucked up charges!!!

No

Yes

The fish couldn't handle it anymore...

Why would someone do that??

and all the dead fish in the river

It’s a bay…..

Hahaaaa

lol

Fun fact- the shark would eat them regardless depending on the species- most likely the bull shark

We moved to Strathmore at Matawan, a Levitt community in '63. Still don't know where this is exactly. But any of that area near town was always swampy in my mind.

@@samanthab1923 yes we have a lot of Marshlands. Strathmore is a very Jewish area but I can say that since I am one of the chosen peoples also.

PackLeader 1990 Yup. It was in my day as well. Irish Catholic & my kindergarten teacher was Mrs. Klein. I came home with a menorah we drew in class & my Nan was none too happy 😆 wanted me in St. Joe's in Keyport but my mom wasn't having it. I remember when they first built the temple on Lloyd Rd. Was sorry to hear the Bath & Tennis club was closed for a while. Lots of ladies played Mah-Jongg on the back patios.

@@samanthab1923 right by the parkway

Pat Do OK I always thought it was at the end of Main right before you cross into Keyport. It's weird all those roads you remember from childhood. Haven't been down that way in probably 30 years. God I'm old 😊

When I was growing up there they told us ships used to be able to dock there. Those big houses on Main St. were built by ships captains.

Why were the docks so low then?

@@carieevans3787 pilings go into the sand .. that’s all that is left .. prolly cut off with the top deck of the docks and repurposed

@@carieevans3787 more like subsidence, I'm guessing.

Watch your mouth it’s a *dam

I’m from Matawan too

People don't talk About it because no one is alive from 1916 lol

@@justinyo1796 Damn that shark! Damn him to hell!

@@justinyo1796 so nothing that happened before 1940 gets talked about? i mean most people who were alive in 1940 are dead, i’m saying we should appreciate the history of the area more than we do

@@kalebsowinski5210 no not that i know of, it’s brackish water, most people just go to the beach since it’s not far, for a few decades i think the pollution was bad in the creek so that stopped people for sure

Imagine running into a shark in the tunnel!

@@fountaincap No escape!

It’s like the Jurassic park ride

@@yesyup9111 or the jaws ride 😂😫😅

@@BrandyH-eh9up We don’t have that here in Cali but always wanted to go on it because I love Jaws

Me too

wait... did I hear those words from Winnie the Pooh cartoon?

@@strix3688 yes

Something to admire not to tear up from

what came first, the bat or the fish

@@s-a6202 the bish

It’s trying to become the flish from the future is wild

@@s-a6202 the bish

Mhm

It was just like the bear attacks of (I’m not positive) of 1967

in 1916 wtf were they gonna do

“THERES A SHARK IN WATER” what the hell you want them to do? Water has sharks? Idiot

So I was told the story by a number of people who lived in matawan at the time. ( they were kids then and were quite elderly by the time they told me the story) and according to each of them (separate accounts) the person who originally saw the shark was basically “the town drunk”. That’s why nobody paid any attention to his claim of seeing a shark. Not sure if this is true, but it’s what I was told.

would you believe someone talking about a shark in your local creek?

It was a great white not a bull shark

@@Makeshift_12 No-one will ever know for a fact I'm simply saying statistically it was more than likely a Bull. A White is very unlikely to go that far upstream let alone hang around like a female Bull that is pupping.

@@jsmith8646 i understand bull sharks can go in fresh waters unlike great whites but the shark attacks in 1916 were indeed from a great white

Bull sharks are highly adaptable and aggressive.

There actually was a movie on Netflix around that time about it. It may still be on there.

@@deirdrecooke7993 12 Days of Terror

@@darreylhenderson702 on Netflix?

Your comment deserves wayy more likes😂😂 F NJ

@@vjrap New Jersey: The Garden State. Because petrol chemical refinery won't fit on a license plate.

funny comment I mover to New Jersey from California and it sucks so bad I'm miserable

@@Nicole2023 Bummer. You know why it's called the Garden State, right? Because "Petrol Chemical Refinery Crazy Traffic Circle Annoying Accent State" is too long for a license plate.

My girlfriend asked me to kiss her where it smells. So I took her to New Jersey

😂

Scandalous!

Every year in matwawan/keyport area there is a die off of fish in mass amounts. Something with all the fish coming in and there being a short oxygen supply in the water. There's actually not that many in here compared to what it usually is. . The smell that comes with it is brutal.

It's a rare disease that only affects a certain kind of fish and was reported on the news. It's been going on for months. Hopefully they clear the rivers because the areas surrounding the river stink.

06:30

That's actually pretty common, I know he mentioned a disease but the disease must be around every single year because there's plenty of dead fish in these waterways every year.

Pretty normal stuff in the estuaries with shad die-offs.

No one cared unfortunately

There is a ceremony each year to commemorate the boys, I live in Matawan. It’s cleaned monthly, but it is very well preserved.

so it was in his possession

After everything we go through we are left with just a few rocks with our names on them...

I was wondering about all the dead fish. Its a lot of them. Why? Low oxygen in the water.

Remember a 100 yrs ago, it was more clearly

@@moonrun2 It's called red tide. It's a bacterial/algae bloom usually caused by pollutants in the water (pesticide, fertilizer, etc.) but can also happen naturally. It's very common in Florida but can happen anywhere there is coastal water.

I guarantee the water is cleaner now

Truly agree with you on this statement. I was fascinated with this tragic events decades ago and this video is something different from the rest as it includes the emotional statement

They are truly blindly aggressive. Their bodies produce more of a SUPER concentrated dose of adrenaline than any animals outside of crocodiles. They go into a blind rage and eat ANYTHING that is near. You can literally feel and hear a crocodile building, building, building, then they snap like a bowstring and use it all up in one wild thrashing moment.

So then, I'm thinking if bull sharks completely devour their prey, then the shark mentioned in this video, probably wasn't a bull shark because remains were found...

@@KrinchiDbulls will BITE anything , they dont always eat it all.

Also they have the highest levels of testosterone of any shark species in the world.

Bull sharks are the one shark that scares me the most.

Sharks with freakin laser beams attached to their heads

And we complain because of covid backcthen they ahd river sharks and no a.c. in the summers u gotta swim with caution

Fricking laser beams attached to their heads!!!!!

We definitely need a billion of freaking sharks with laser beams attached to their head. Only if it’s not too freaking freezing Mr. Picklesworth

😂

Creepy but funny

“Boomer”

Sharks commit "murder"?

gayyyyyy

lmaoooo everything around here is deformed even the people

@@heysiritellmeacoolprofilen7296 lmao

Fish people drag you down, if you don't dissolve from the water and Jersey toxins you'll become their love slave. Their favorite move to do is called the flipper

@@Makasennn Are you serious!? How the hell did you manage to escape?

Teenage mutant ninja sharks

Its a kayak

@@zugbrugh6472 I’m not here for school. I’m just saying in something like that.

@@Cam14540 Do you have a problem learning something?? Just saying 😌.

@@oceanview2965 do you have a problem with me not wanted to be corrected? Just saying.

@@Cam14540 😅🤣😂🤣Stay stupid then. ✌Out!!! And don't bother coming back. I'm moving on.

They have made it into central africa.....up the mississippi is like a highway compared to places they been found in africa and australia

You're correct I live in Indiana at the most southwest tip on the Ohio and there have been bull sharks found up here

This creek is a tidal creek with high salinities, so no surprise that ocean fish can move into area with incoming high tides.

"Respectful" ??? lol. So glad people like you worry about life so much. Its always fun to see. The world has been, is, and always will be a risky place. People like you who are so emotionally weak always struggle with that.

@@sanfrancisco9661 Who hurt you? The sudden and tragic death of three young men is nothing to be treated nonchalantly. It’s a tragedy and should be treated as such. You’re not cool trying to be edgy.

@@sanfrancisco9661 I think he is referring to the graves have some manners and respect the dead

@@sanfrancisco9661 wtf is wrong with you

they all are

@Burt Lancaster I need to read it again too.

I first cracked this book open on a Monday on Amber Street beach. Read it twice more since. The pages, like my ears and bed sheets, are full of sand.

I read that book when it came out. Very good book

America and oz have the same types of sharks swimming up brackish waters, mainly bulls but juvenile whites also. Australia is probably worse as everything in oz is trying to kill or eat your ass as soon as you arrive lol never mind the sharks there would be a que of things trying to eat you like salt water crocs!

@@BUSTERy dude, you guys have alligators, bears, bobcats, rattlesnakes etc

@@BUSTERy africa has issues with bull sharks running miles inland

@@NessyPerth literally everything hates you and/or is highly venomous in australia not to mention the cotton candy monsoon season

@@TheBlackWings what the heck is cotton candy monsoon season? It certainly can’t be Australian. For starters we don’t have “cotton candy” we call it fairy floss and we don’t really get monsoons we get cyclones. So if whatever cotton candy monsoon season is, in Australia it would be called fairy floss cyclone season 🤣

Needs a bigger kayak lol

Nahh. Nothing lives in that polluted water

@@tictoc3148 😂

Okay well you know they were talking out their ass every single time if they assured you. Also big fish aren't dangerous.

@@FrancisR420 I mean I was just a really stupid/paranoid kid too. For example, I also thought there were Orca whales or some kinda sea monster underneath the bathtub because the bathtub has water, it must connect to the ocean or something... Because I'm 5 and don't know shit about how plumbing works, and that if I got too close to the drain they would break through and eat me or some shit. Irrational fear of the water/the dark/ the unknown.

@@calebblack1420 I have/had that, I hate sharks they terrify the hell outta me. I was scared to close my eyes in the shower, I would always imagine a shark coming from my right or left side coming and getting me.

@@calebblack1420 same hs I thought I was the only one this happened to

@@calebblack1420 lmfao! I thought a giant eel would come out the plumbing and into my bath 😂

Maybe to you. Sharks are not out to get humans. It’s actually been scientifically proven that sharks sometimes will think a human is a seal or a large fish or even sometimes a smaller shark therefore makes competition. Sharks are amazing creatures and if it wasn’t for this incident, we’d not have ever known to stay out of the water 😂

Go to any saltwater acquarium where you can often walk through clear (thick) glass tunnels and peer upward under the sharks... their teeth are too scary.

I noticed

😲

😳😬

😅

🙃

I thought that was familiar I remembered the dog was similar to Charles's dog in real life but I didn't know if it was meant to be that

Being close to Mediterranean Sea without sharks is a blessing

I can’t be in water because I’ll drown

@@MLFLimeyO like that famous tik toker said "learn to swim lol"

@@mr.amazonsins8013 who said I don’t know how to swim?

@@MLFLimeyO you