Testing if Sharks Can Smell a Drop of Blood

A person's bare feet are dangling in vibrant turquoise water, with several large sharks swimming just below the surface.

"I texted this clip to my wife who wanted proof I wasn't doing anything stupid on a recent trip to the Bahamas."

Setting: open ocean, likely off the side of a boat — bright, natural sunlight from above

An aerial drone shot shows a white and blue boat floating in the middle of a vast, bright blue ocean. The camera then cuts to a close-up of two hands in blue gloves pouring a red, bloody substance from a large white bucket into the water.

"Now if you're wondering what my feet are doing in shark-infested waters with a bucket of blood 20 miles away from any land,"

Setting: open ocean, Bahamas — bright, direct sunlight

A man stands on a sandy beach, speaking directly to the camera with his hands clasped. The ocean is behind him with a pier in the distance.

"well that comes down to a conversation I had with my friends at the Discovery Channel six months ago."

Setting: beach — overcast, diffuse daylight, possibly sunset

The man on the beach continues to speak, gesturing. A graphic for 'Discovery SHARK WEEK' appears, featuring a great white shark swimming towards the camera.

"They told me Shark Week is coming up and they wanted to know what I would do if they could put me in the middle of the ocean on a boat surrounded by sharks."

Setting: beach — overcast, then dramatic underwater lighting

Text: "DISCOVERY SHARK WEEK"

The man is back on the beach, then the scene cuts to an animated clip from the movie 'Finding Nemo' showing a shark sniffing the water.

"For as long as I can remember, I've always wanted to test if sharks can really smell a drop of blood in the water from a mile away."

Setting: beach — overcast, then dark and moody for the animation

The man stands in a workshop in front of a workbench with a pegboard full of tools. He speaks to the camera with a knowing smile. A 'MYTHBUSTERS' logo made of metal washes up on a sandy shore.

"Now before you say MythBusters already did this, um, they kind of did this."

Setting: workshop/garage — bright, even workshop lighting

A clip from the TV show 'MythBusters' is shown. Four hosts stand around a large white tub on a wooden dock. They prick their fingers to draw blood and dip them into the tub where a small shark is swimming.

"As you can see, to test this, they poked their fingers and then stuck them in a barrel with these tiny lemon sharks."

Setting: outdoor dock — natural daylight

A metal 'BUSTED' sign is shown. The scene cuts back to the man in his workshop, who raises his hands and shrugs while explaining his critique of the MythBusters experiment.

"they said it was busted. Now I'm friends with both Kari and Adam, but I think even they would admit at least in this case, the methodology was less than scientifically rigorous."

Setting: workshop/garage — bright, even workshop lighting

A montage sequence begins. The man draws a diagram on a whiteboard. Close-up shots show him assembling electronic components inside a white waterproof box. Then, a shot of him on an airplane looking out the window.

"So I came up with a more robust test procedure, built some NASA-grade hardware for the experiment, hopped on a plane,"

Setting: workshop, then airplane — workshop lighting, then bright light from airplane window

A man stands on the bow of a speedboat, looking out at the open ocean. A larger boat is visible in the distance. The speedboat pulls up alongside the larger boat.

"and soon enough, I was 20 miles offshore of the Bahamas."

Setting: open ocean, Bahamas — bright, sunny

Sharks are seen swimming in the clear turquoise water around the boat. A man smiles broadly, looking at the sharks.

"Dude, there's sharks. That's sharks. We have sharks."

Setting: open ocean, Bahamas — bright, sunny

Two men are sitting at a table inside a boat cabin. One man is drawing on a whiteboard, explaining his experimental plan. The other man listens, smiling.

"To kick things off, I sat down with my marine biologist, shark diving expert friend, Luke Tipple, and explained my plan to him."

Setting: boat cabin — bright, natural light from the windows

Text: "LUKE TIPPLE"

A simple animation shows several small sharks swimming in a blue field. A red dot appears, and the sharks turn and swim towards it.

"But first, I wanted proof that they actually preferred blood over any other scent."

Setting: animated graphic — flat, even lighting

An animation shows four surfboards arranged in an arc behind a boat shape. A line measures the distance from the boat.

"I plan to put four surfboards in the water equidistant from the back of the boat."

Setting: animated graphic — flat, even lighting

Text: "BOAT NOT TO SCALE", "50yds (46m)"

An animation shows four 2-liter bottles on surfboards, filled with different colored liquids (clear, yellow, blue, red). A clock face appears and its hands spin, while the liquid levels in the bottles decrease.

"Each board would host two liters of a different liquid that we would pump into the ocean over the course of an hour."

Setting: animated graphic — flat, even lighting

An animation shows sharks swimming towards a surfboard. As they enter a green circle around the board, a counter increases.

"we would use drone footage and count how many sharks went over to check out each board."

Setting: animated graphic — flat, even lighting

Text: "1", "2"

The overhead animation of the four surfboards is shown again. Labels appear next to each board: 'FISH OIL', 'COW'S BLOOD', 'SEA WATER (CONTROL)', and 'URINE'.

"Then we would have cow's blood here. Then seawater here as a control to make sure the sharks weren't just interested in the surfboard. And then finally, urine."

Setting: animated graphic — flat, even lighting

Text: "FISH OIL", "COW'S BLOOD", "SEA WATER (CONTROL)", "URINE"

Back in the boat cabin, the two men are laughing and discussing the urban legend about urine attracting sharks.

"I've heard from surfers that a lot of them won't pee in their wetsuits because they feel like it's going to attract a shark. I don't know a surfer alive who doesn't pee in their wetsuit."

Setting: boat cabin — bright, natural light from windows

The two men in the boat cabin continue their lighthearted conversation, laughing and joking about the experiment.

"Well, depending on the results, I dive. I can't pee if the deal's off."

Setting: boat cabin — bright, natural light

A fast-paced montage shows two men assembling the experimental rigs on the deck of the boat. They are drilling into surfboards, mounting electronic boxes, and attaching pumps and tubing.

Setting: boat deck — bright, direct sunlight

A white bucket on the floor of the boat contains a yellow liquid (urine). A cameraman stands on deck filming. A man in a blue shirt urinates into the bucket.

"We also started collecting scientific donations from the crew."

Setting: boat deck — bright, sunny

Two men are crouched at the back of the boat, wearing blue gloves. They play rock-paper-scissors to decide who has to pour the bucket of urine.

"Let's do rock, paper, scissors for who holds the bucket and who holds the bag. One, two, three, shoot."

Setting: back of the boat — bright, direct sunlight

The winner of the game holds a white bucket while the loser carefully pours the yellow liquid from it into a clear plastic bag submerged in the water. Both men are grimacing from the smell.

"Damn it. Oh, that smells so bad. It's urine. Whoever it is, they need to hydrate. Dude, this is going to be a nightmare."

Setting: back of the boat — bright, sunny, slightly overexposed

The two men are still at the back of the boat. One man is now handling a bag of fish guts, while the other looks into the water and points out the different types of sharks swimming around.

"It's a great time of day to be doing this because we have a lot of sharks. Looking down here, we got three or four lemons on the surface. And I can actually see two tigers down on the bottom, and that's actually a massive tiger shark down there."

Setting: back of the boat — bright, sunny

A close-up shot shows hands in blue gloves pouring dark red cow's blood from a large container into a clear bag. The view cuts to an overhead drone shot showing a frenzy of sharks and fish swarming around the back of the boat where the blood is being handled.

"Oh my gosh. Oh, wow. There's a feeding frenzy."

Setting: back of the boat — bright, sunny

The two men are crouched at the back of the boat with three filled bags lined up: one with clear seawater, one with yellow urine, and one with dark red cow's blood. A shark swims very close to the bags.

"Okay, so we've got seawater as our control, fish oil, we have urine, and cow's blood."

Setting: back of the boat — bright, sunny

A man in a black wetsuit and snorkel gear swims in the open ocean, pulling the rigged surfboards behind him. Underwater shots show him anchoring the boards to the sandy seabed with ropes.

"So while Luke is bravely swimming the four surfboards out and anchoring them in place in preparation for the one-hour countdown,"

Setting: open ocean, Bahamas — bright sunlight filtering through the water

The man stands in his workshop, holding one of the completed electronic pump boxes. The four pump systems are lined up on his workbench.

"For this experiment to be robust, all four boards need to start pumping at the exact same time after Luke has them in place."

Setting: workshop/garage — bright workshop lighting

The man holds the remote control box and presses a glowing red button. The lights on the box flash in sequence. On the workbench, all four pumps activate simultaneously, pumping colored liquids into glasses.

"Then I have the remote control, and as soon as I hit this button, they all start pumping at the same time."

Setting: workshop/garage — workshop lighting

A 3D animation shows the exploded view of a peristaltic pump, then reassembles it. The animation demonstrates how internal rollers squeeze a tube to move liquid through it.

"To pump the blood and pee, we're using a peristaltic pump."

Setting: animated graphic — simulated, even lighting

The man stands on an upper deck of the boat, holding the remote control box. He looks out at the surfboards in the distance and dramatically begins a countdown.

"Operation Shark Bait test thing commence. Three, two, one."

Setting: boat's upper deck — bright, sunny

He presses the button on the remote. A close-up shows the yellow confirmation lights illuminating on the circuit board inside the box. A timer appears on screen, starting from 59:59.

"All four are going. We have confirmation."

Setting: boat's upper deck — bright, sunny

Text: "TIME REMAINING 59:57"

A diver is seen underwater, surrounded by sharks and fish, near the sandy bottom. He is speaking into a communication device.

"Ok Mark, I can confirm that all four boards are working great."

Setting: underwater, near the seabed — sunlight filtering from above

Text: "Ok Mark, I can confirm that all four boards are working great."

An aerial shot shows the main boat and the four distant surfboards. The view then splits into four quadrants, showing the underwater view below each of the four boards: Sea Water, Urine, Fish Oil, and Cow's Blood. Very few sharks are visible.

"And after 10 minutes, I was really surprised there wasn't a lot of action on any of the boards."

Setting: open ocean, Bahamas — bright, sunny

Text: "TIME REMAINING 50:18", "SEA WATER", "URINE", "FISH OIL", "COW'S BLOOD"

A man stands on the boat deck, arms crossed, observing the experiment. He looks surprised and explains his initial observations to the camera.

"So so far, it's pretty interesting. I mean, we've shown if you have a massive cut and you're bleeding out and there's this many sharks within like 50 yards of you, that they're kind of like, meh."

Setting: boat deck — bright, sunny

An aerial drone shot shows one of the surfboards floating alone in the vast turquoise ocean. A timer on screen shows 39:54 remaining.

"About 20 minutes in, things were still pretty quiet, especially at the fish oil, urine and control boards."

Setting: open ocean — bright, direct sunlight

Text: "TIME REMAINING 39:54"

An aerial shot shows a large tiger shark and a smaller shark swimming towards the surfboard with the blood. The timer on screen reads 15:30.

"Eventually, with about 15 minutes left, things started getting pretty wild over by the blood board."

Setting: open ocean — bright, sunny

Text: "TIME REMAINING 15:30"

An aerial view shows multiple sharks of different sizes swimming in a line, following the trail of blood leading to the surfboard.

"The blood was spread out and made almost like a blood runway. So you have this surreal line of sharks swimming up this enticing blood trail one after another,"

Setting: open ocean — bright, sunny

A man stands on the upper deck of the boat, watching a timer on his watch and looking out at the experiment. He holds the remote control box.

"We're almost done. Three, two, one."

Setting: boat's upper deck — bright, sunny

Text: "TIME REMAINING 00:03"

A simple bar graph animation displays the results of the first experiment. Bars rise to show the number of shark visits for each of the four liquids.

"And what we found was that four sharks went to check out the fish oil. Then zero sharks went to check out both the control and the urine. And then the blood board had a direct visit from a whopping 41 sharks."

Setting: animated graphic — flat, even lighting

Text: "FISH OIL", "URINE", "SEA WATER", "COW'S BLOOD"

A montage shows the empty urine bag being pulled from the water, and then the blood-covered surfboard being investigated by sharks underwater.

"And so now that we debunked some surfing myths about urine and proved that sharks certainly had a strong preference for blood over anything we tested, the real question was just how much blood is interesting to them."

Setting: open ocean, Bahamas — bright sunlight

Two men are on the boat deck next to scuba gear. One man, in a wetsuit, is preparing his gear. The other man, smiling, suggests using human blood for the next test.

"You want to do human blood, don't you? I want to try human blood."

Setting: boat deck — bright, sunny

A woman in a white lab coat arrives on a speedboat, carrying a black case. She is greeted and comes aboard the main boat.

"So Luke made some calls and soon enough, we had an amazing certified Bahamian phlebotomist on board."

Setting: open ocean, Bahamas — bright, sunny

Inside the boat cabin, the phlebotomist is drawing blood from the arms of two men sitting at the table. They are smiling and watching the process.

Setting: boat cabin — natural light from windows

A man without a shirt is crouched at the back of the boat, holding up a freshly filled bag of his own blood. He speaks to the camera with a nervous smile.

"This is my actual blood. We're going to see if sharks have a taste for it. And if they do, I probably won't go free diving with them."

Setting: back of the boat — bright, sunny

The man stands on a high platform on the boat, holding the remote control. A drone flies past him as he initiates the second experiment.

"Three, two, one. Commence."

Setting: boat's upper deck — bright, sunny

The man stands on a pier at the back of the boat, looking at his watch and then out at the experiment boards in the distance. A timer on screen shows 55:05 remaining.

"We have like 55 more minutes to go. We'll see if the sharks notice it."

Setting: boat deck — bright, sunny

Text: "TIME REMAINING 55:05"

A split screen shows the underwater views for the 'SLOW BLOOD' and 'FAST BLOOD' boards. The water is clear and there are no sharks visible near the blood drips. A timer on screen shows 30:17 remaining.

"In this case, halfway into experiment number two, even though there were tons of sharks still in the area, the boards themselves were pretty quiet."

Setting: underwater, Bahamas — sunlight filtering through water

Text: "TIME REMAINING 30:17", "SLOW BLOOD", "FAST BLOOD"

Three men are gathered in a small room on the boat, looking at a drone remote controller screen. They seem surprised by the lack of activity.

"We'll have to see when we look at the footage afterwards, but so far, it looks like the answer's no."

Setting: boat interior — interior lighting

A bar graph animation shows the results of the second experiment. Three labels are on the x-axis: SLOW BLOOD, SEA WATER, and FAST BLOOD. No bars rise for any of the categories, with a '0' appearing above each.

"And so after the full hour, we brought in the boards and once again reviewed the footage to see that over the course of an hour, zero sharks checked out the control board, zero checked out the slow blood pumping board, and exactly zero sharks checked out the fast one."

Setting: animated graphic — flat, even lighting

Text: "0"

The man stands on a cliff overlooking a beach at sunset. He summarizes the findings of the experiments, speaking directly to the camera.

"So this was by no means a perfect experiment, but I think it's safe to qualitatively say that if no sharks came to check out 15 drops of human blood a minute in the middle of shark-infested waters, you're probably going to be okay with a small scrape."

Setting: cliff overlooking a beach — soft, evening light

Two men are on the boat deck, looking out at the turquoise water. One is in a wetsuit, the other in a t-shirt. They are smiling and talking.

"Now that I had some firsthand data to put my mind at ease, I was willing to try diving with the sharks without a cage, but I had one final experiment."

Setting: boat deck — bright, sunny

Inside the boat cabin, one man shows another a long black pole (hand spear) with a 360-degree camera attached to the end. The man holding it looks at it with interest.

"I had a theory that if we secured a 360 camera to the front of a hand spear and then shot it near some sharks, we could create the world's first really cool Matrix-like underwater bullet time effect."

Setting: boat cabin — interior lighting

A montage shows a man in a full black scuba suit descending into the water with the camera spear. He is surrounded by sharks.

Setting: underwater, Bahamas — bright sunlight filtering through the water

From a first-person perspective, a large lemon shark swims directly over the diver's legs and fins on the sandy bottom.

"Mark: This. Is terrifying."

Setting: underwater — bright, underwater sunlight

Text: "Mark: This. Is terrifying."

A shark bites the camera at the end of the spear. The view switches to the camera's perspective, showing the inside of the shark's mouth as it bites down.

"Mark: Oh! He's got it!"

Setting: underwater — natural underwater light

Text: "Mark: Oh! He's got it!"

From a first-person POV, the diver is surrounded by a chaotic swarm of large sharks, bumping into him and the camera spear from all directions.

"Mark: Oh gosh. Oh my gosh. Holy crap! Oh gosh. I'm gonna die! Save me, Luke!"

Setting: underwater — natural underwater light

Text: "Mark: Oh my gosh. Holy crap! I'm gonna die! Save me Luke!"

Two divers are kneeling on the sandy ocean floor, surrounded by sharks. One gives a 'hang loose' hand signal, and they decide to end the dive.

"Luke: On that note, should we call it a day? Mark: Let's end on that."

Setting: underwater — bright underwater sunlight

Text: "Luke: On that note, should we call it a day?", "Mark: Let's end on that."

A man in a blue t-shirt stands on the back of the boat, speaking to the camera and summarizing his experience. A shark swims by in the water behind him.

"What I'll take home from this shoot is just more evidence of the amazing animal that sharks are, but also the ability to point people in a specific direction to say, hey, your thoughts about them are a little overblown."

Setting: back of the boat — bright, sunny

The main host stands on a cliff overlooking a beach with an amusement park at sunset. He delivers his concluding thoughts to the camera.

"This experience definitely changed my perception on sharks. I would say I respect them more after seeing their raw power up close, but at the same time, there's less of that fear that comes from ignorance."

Setting: cliff overlooking Santa Cruz beach — soft, warm evening light

A black screen with white text appears.

Setting: graphic — n/a

Text: "please consider subscribing"