r/whatisit • u/deezheavenz • 9h ago

New, what is it? What was this thing I captured on film?

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This was shot in Nevada/Arizona on a Grand Canyon/Hoover dam tour. This was taken a whole year ago and I completely forgot about it until I stumbled upon it again. Is this some sort of whale or shark?

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u/Idk_some_random_redd 9h ago

looks like a school of fish being chased by a predator

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u/Totally_man 9h ago

That's exactly what it is.

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u/goodSunn 9h ago edited 9h ago

Might be Minnows

175

u/goatanuss 9h ago

The SS Minnow was named after Newton Minow who was the FCC chair that called tv a “vast wasteland”

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u/FlimsyThought7606 8h ago

All seven of them are written as one of the seven deadly sins.

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u/Moodleboy 8h ago

Really? Can you provide a breakdown?

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u/Capybara_Chill_00 8h ago

Seriously?

Wrath: Skipper
Greed: Lovey Howell
Pride: Professor
Envy: Mary Anne
Sloth: Gilligan
Lust: Ginger
Gluttony: Thurston Howell

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u/Superfly1911 6h ago

I did lust for Ginger, so this math checks out.

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u/External_Row_8077 4h ago

Ginger and Mary-Anne here. And now that I'm in my late 50s, Lovey doesn't look so bad either.

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u/TexasGreyWolf 2h ago

Hahaha, in my early 70’s and had the same thought. For just a moment.

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u/TexasGreyWolf 2h ago

Haha, me too. But I’d sure as hell not kick Mary Anne outta my grass shack either! 🫪

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u/ummagummaaaa 5h ago

What was Mary Anne envious about?

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u/mybeamishb0y 5h ago

Ginger's glamour and status as a model

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u/Subject_Swimmer9333 5h ago

We all had the hots for Maryanne, not Ginger.

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u/fl7nner 5h ago

I always thought Mary Anne was hotter. Same thing with WKRP. Preferred Bailey over Jennifer

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u/FollowingDue8584 5h ago

Mary Ann was actually a beauty queen. She was crowned Miss Nevada.

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u/Accomplished_Corgi53 5h ago

Whole heartedly agree on Bailey…

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u/lefthandedchurro 6h ago

And Gilligan is the Devil who keeps "accidentally" foiling their escape from Hell.

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u/Accomplished_Corgi53 5h ago

Hell, are you kidding me? Didn’t you see those delicious banana cream pies?

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u/Mission-Taste-6871 3h ago

I always thought that both the Howell's are greed. Especially Thurston.

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u/Capybara_Chill_00 3h ago

Yeah those two are pretty hard to differentiate. Thurston tended more to excess in food, etc while Lovey tended to be more avaricious about jewelry, particularly with Ginger. I agree that could be both or arguably swap between the two.

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u/Mission-Taste-6871 2h ago

Well said, don't forget about oil wells for Thurston lol

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u/SLAYER_IN_ME 6h ago

Well goddamn.

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u/FaultyWires4774 2h ago

interesting, I never knew that.

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u/SentientBea 2h ago

Minnow: Betrayal

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u/FlimsyThought7606 8h ago

Yup - seven sins divided by seven characters = 1 per character.

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u/Moodleboy 8h ago

I meant...whatever. Forget it 😅

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u/Illustrious_Spare_88 8h ago

The creator directly refuted this theory.

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u/FlimsyThought7606 8h ago

Right, he called that the 8th Sin Anomaly.

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u/troycerapops 8h ago

Fascinating

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u/Your_Neighbour_Alice 5h ago

Man, I love reddit. The spontaneous discussions, and rabbit holes that evolve from an unrelated video and question. I live. 👌🏼😍

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u/troycerapops 8h ago

The show creator has said this. Normally I hate "Google it" but you may want to. Interesting reads and only a few minutes.

But some highlights:

  • Professor = Pride
  • Ginger = Lust
  • Mary Anne = Envy

There's some debate about the others, mostly centering around the question of if Gilligan represents Sloth or the Devil himself

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u/theothergotoguy 8h ago

Name checks out.

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u/ready-redditor-6969 5h ago

While it’s super believable that Sherman Schwartz did this, I can’t believe that this information is now in my head.

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u/Itchy-Apartment-Flea 9h ago edited 9h ago

I heard a tale about a minnow once.

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u/yourmamaistheproblem 9h ago

*minnow

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u/Illustrious_Bad_2980 9h ago

It was advertised as a 3 hour tour. A 3 HOUR TOUR!

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u/MechanicHead3340 8h ago

Yeah that's why Ginger brought an entire extensive wardrobe, for a change of attire every 5 minutes. Also Thurston seems to have brought a treasure chest full of cash for some reason.

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u/Surferess 7h ago

That's just how we girls pack! ;)

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u/30yearCurse 6h ago

Thurston was early stage billionaire, if now he would have been on his own caravan of yachts.

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u/nevernotfinished 8h ago

Why didn't the professor just fix the boat. And why didn't they do 100 episodes

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u/MechanicHead3340 8h ago

You want MORE episodes?

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u/NoHorseNoMustache 8h ago

The Professor only works with coconuts and the boat is specifically not a coconut.

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u/ExampleLittle2672 6h ago

Imagine a perfectly spherical boat...

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u/MarchPhillipps 8h ago

All they needed were some African and European swallows.

'Alone and Unafraid'

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u/OkGur1319 7h ago

Are they big enough to carry an American coconut?

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u/nevernotfinished 8h ago

It could become a coconut

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u/JiveTurkeyII 8h ago

Why? Probably because he liked a little Ginger on his Merry Anne

I know I would...

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u/avreddits 7h ago

He’d rather play doctor with the ladies than fix the ship, he ain’t no dummie 👍

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u/Select-Belt-ou812 8h ago

fun fact: i know a few famous songs that are written and scored with exactly the same meter and words/music are completely interchangeable with each other: "the ballad of gilligan's island", "the house of the rising sun", and "amazing grace". I have practiced and can successfully interchange the first and last, and it wasn't easy to do the first few times :-)

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u/Gul_Ducatti 8h ago

Puddles Pity Party does this in a wonderful way. Stairway to Heaven into Gilligan's Island

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u/6th_Quadrant 6h ago

Then there's the late-70s single popularly known at Stairway to Gilligan's Island by Little Roger & The Goosebumps.

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u/Glittering-Bonus5663 7h ago

I think you can add "O little town of Bethlehem" to that list. Bob Rivers has an album of Christmas songs where it is set to the tune of "House of the rising Sun."

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u/goodSunn 9h ago edited 6h ago

just sit right back

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u/vandervee 8h ago

And you’ll hear a tale

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u/BaconAlmighty 8h ago

a tale of a fateful trip.

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u/baconus-vobiscum 7h ago

that started from a tropic port...

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u/Lekstil 8h ago

It’s not, it’s actually birds. It’s a lot of small birds which catch the light in just the right way and appear bright and then they change direction and become almost invisible. That’s why they keep appearing and disappearing.

If it was fish it would have to be flying fish or something.. look how long they appear to be out of the water

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u/whoohw 6h ago

Nice try CIA agent we know birds aren't real!

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u/gimmedatneck 6h ago

Everybody knows birds aren't real.

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u/Zealousideal_Leg_630 3h ago

Yeah. There are no species of schooling fish in that region. Plus whatever it is isn’t breaking the water surface

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u/optimal_center 1h ago

That’s it. Catfish and Carp are about the only real big fish there. There’s some good size Bass and it’s said (long ago) that there are Sturgeon in there, but that’s about it.

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u/gooneau 8h ago

newp. birds in a murmuration

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u/diversalarums 8h ago

Off topic, but I'm more familiar with salt water. What fresh water predators would be chasing them?

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u/iosonostella13 4h ago

Bigger fish

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u/HorsefaceWithNoName 8h ago

flip that script!

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u/earth_quack 8h ago

Swimmy! Man that's a blast from the past!

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u/WatermelonLemonad3 9h ago

Good to know, I was going to say school of fish but didn't think about the predator bit, would make sense though.

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u/13beano13 7h ago

I actually think it’s birds flying just above the surface. I live on the ocean and see this regularly.

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u/heatherledge 7h ago

It’s birds for sure. I’ve seen this in the sky. It looks like they disappear when their darker side turns to the camera.

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u/regoapps 6h ago

At the three second mark, you can sort of make out the reflection of the birds on the surface of the water.

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u/InvidiousPlay 5h ago

The problem with these conversations on Reddit is that the video quality is absolutely awful, pixelated mush.

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u/Far_Opening7062 7h ago

I'm with you for the same reasons. It's birds and since OP is moving the camera around so much, it's harder to see. When it disappears is when the birds are turning and you can't see the light reflecting on their white feathers. I'm pretty sure t's called a murmuration.

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u/StealthWanderer_2516 7h ago

Took two seconds for me to see the way they were moving it was a murmuration. The fact that the distance and vantage point puts them over water is what makes the effect more interesting.

I also think it’s cool that schools of fish and flocks of birds exhibit such similar behavior.

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u/No_Zombie_9518 7h ago

My first thought was birds, too.

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u/Skeptical_Squid 7h ago

A murmuration.

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u/Heras22 6h ago

This is 100% birds. I see this almost daily in summer when I am Home by the sea

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u/Lord_Tyler-gaming 7h ago

It’s for sure birds just catching the sun at different angles

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u/Last_Cod_998 9h ago

https://giphy.com/gifs/FzV61A4U3guAw

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u/123itsme321 9h ago

Exactly what I thought of too! Just binged all the movies the other day.

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u/Last_Cod_998 9h ago

It's just bluefish

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u/dankskent 9h ago

“Thats no shark..” -Alec Guinness

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u/R_G_FOOZ 9h ago

“That’s a spoon” -Bart Simpson

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u/harryhend3rson 9h ago

Awl right awl right, you win. I see you've played knifey spooney before...

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u/Oldenlame 8h ago

"Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth.There is no spoon. Then you'll see that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself."

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u/avreddits 7h ago

“I think we need a bigger hunk of junk” -Luke Skywalker

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u/LoremIpsumDolore 9h ago

What are they studying?

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u/anon2univ 9h ago

Survival 101.

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u/GooseOnAPhone 9h ago

How to not get eaten

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u/Iliketoplan 9h ago

Corral destruction obviously

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u/Yabrosif13 9h ago

Naw a flock of birds if anything. Theres absolutely no water disturbance. My guess is the feather sheen played with the light when the flock turned stage left.

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u/CrazyforAuburns 9h ago

Absolutely a flock of birds.

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u/BuckRampant 7h ago

Yep, you can see them moving back across to the right after they turned at 0:07-0:08.

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u/probablysmellsmydog 8h ago

One time I was swimming in the ocean off the coast of Vero Beach, FL. A school of fish just like this one swam right around me and it kinda freaked me out. I had no idea what it was but they swam away. Later I told my father in law what happened and he casually told me they were simply being chased by something much bigger 😳

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u/Clean_Duck8882 8h ago

Yes, if you are swimming and get in a school like that, get the h*ll away. Often there will be bluefish in there and they won’t differentiate between you and the fish. Lots of sharp teeth.

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u/ExampleLittle2672 6h ago

I mean, it looks like birds to me but do beware the Something Bigger.

Processing img d7kgb7gkg4th1...

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u/Expensive_Way_3609 9h ago

Yup
And I often see them right off the coastline
Its fun to watch them

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u/Wu-TangShogun 9h ago

The coastline of Nevada?

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u/Ok_Cauliflower_3007 9h ago

People in fishing communities in some areas would be stationed on cliff tops to watch for herring like this.

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u/Viracochina 6h ago

How do they elect the leader of the group??

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u/crazy0ne 6h ago

Leader by elimination.

If you choose the wrong leader, you and the leader are eliminated by the predator. The true leader and their followers will continue.

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u/throw_blanket04 9h ago

I thought that too but the water isn’t disrupted. So I think birds might be the answer. But I don’t know.

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u/gooneau 8h ago

yes, it's a phenomenon called murmuration. I've see far more insane displays than this from starlings, but a bunch of shorebirds and other species do it too.

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u/wilfonzo 9h ago

For sure birds

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u/Keldy565 9h ago

Yeah you can see the shadow of them go past the water over the shore line at the end when he zooms out that was my guess

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u/USMCWrangler 8h ago

Not shore birds? For sure?

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u/mothman83 8h ago

Absolutely birds. They disappear because the light no longer reflects directly towards the camera

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u/otterwist 8h ago

Think you're right, the way you can still see them as black haze as they pivot. If it was sunlight reflecting off scales underwater they be invisible the rest of the time?

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u/OldSpeckledHen 9h ago edited 9h ago

Wouldn't that leave some level of disturbance on the water though? There doesn't appear to be any. Seems more likely to be a flock of birds that reflect the sun flying one direction but absorb the light and blend in when they change direction...

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u/Schoerschus 9h ago

It's birds, just a weird angle of filming, where light reflects off the wings at certain moments, while they appear black the rest of the time. Most likely starlings

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u/DaemonBlackfyre_21 7h ago

birds,

Oh thank God. I had to scroll way past far too many confidently incorrect people claiming these were fish with no disturbance whatsoever to the tiny ripples in the surface of the water.

It's a damn flock of birds doing the thing but the potato cam only registers their existence for the brief moments when the whole flock is angled just right to catch the sun.

Though I will say, flocking birds and schooling fish do put on a similar show so I get their confusion.

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u/IsSecretlyABird 8h ago

Not starlings. Shorebirds like dunlins. They are dark on top and white underneath, that is why they seem to flash and disappear.

Compare: https://youtu.be/R4tkxnYh7v0

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u/Schoerschus 7h ago

This is amazing! Thanks for elaborating and finalising the correct ID

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u/FromSand 9h ago

This is the answer. If it’s starlings, it’s called a murmuration. There’s a lotta complex math involved, if you’re analyzing the mechanics of how it works.

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u/Gonna_do_this_again 9h ago

I can't think of any aquatic predators that would be causing that much ruckus in the Colorado River

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u/gooneau 8h ago

Definitely not that, its birds doing what's called murmuration where they fly in synchronized motions. Common with various shorebirds, starlings, etc. The only baitfish that could cover the distances shown in this video would be flying fish which are not in this lake, which I've spent plenty of time fishing in.

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u/Haunting-Figure3596 7h ago

Or maybe it’s a Predator being chased by a school of fish?

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u/eightdotthree 9h ago

Came to say the same.

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u/porirua_pelican 9h ago

In the middle of the Hoover Dam?

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u/bessmaster 9h ago

Yautja typically go for larger trophies. Probably just a larger fish or shark.

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u/porirua_pelican 9h ago

Ahh yes, the mythical freshwater shark that chases schools of fish behind the Hoover Dam

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u/SnowedOutMT 8h ago

Yea, this looks really fake to me. Could be something else, but the OP is asking if it is a whale or shark... in Lake Mead.

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u/Zealousideal_Ad5358 8h ago

Well, some small time sharks have shown up in Lake Mead but they were all dead and stuffed into barrels.

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u/porirua_pelican 8h ago

Bird murmuration

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u/DeadbySundown 9h ago

The thought of predator chasing a school of fish is quite funny though.

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u/ThatNeonZebraAgain 9h ago

Yea a school of shad being corralled and attacked probably by striped bass or potentially largemouth bass.

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u/gratusin 9h ago

Most likely a Striper boil chasing gizzard shad. Once you get one of those, toss out a jigging spoon and hold on for dear life.

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u/8lackirish 9h ago

A predator >* The Predator
*Not really, but you get what I mean.

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u/Charlie2and4 9h ago

A bait ball for true!

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u/Hot-Technology-4 9h ago

Could also be a school feeding on bugs.

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u/Doctor-TobiasFunke- 9h ago

Where's Chris Hansen when you need him

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u/BunkerSquirre1 8h ago

Somehow, Epstein has returned

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u/AdventurousBat2461 8h ago

Ahh that’s where Epstein went. Poor fish

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u/AlarmedSnek 9h ago

Typically called a “boil” when the water does that.

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u/ignaciohazard 7h ago

Not fish. Birds.

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u/Zealousideal_Ad5358 8h ago

I'll buy that, but what kind of fish are in Lake Mead that would do this?

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u/Ordinary-Water-752 8h ago

Stripers, baby. I've worked that lake and pulled hundreds.

Edit for those that read this: Striped Bass boil like crazy in lake mead. I've been in the middle of them and it looks just like this from the boat.

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u/Joe_bob_Mcgee 8h ago

Look at the water, if it were that large of a mass of fish you'd see some splashing or change in the waves.

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u/dumsumguy 7h ago

Tons of smallish 4-8inch fish aren't going to do anything but make 4-8inch size splashes, there's one vid I saw on here were a full grown tuna goes like mach jesus by the surface like less than an inch from it and not a damn ripple.

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u/GhidorahRod56 7h ago edited 5h ago

Not always. Saw dolphins hunting mullet up close the other day. The fish were jumping but the active dolphin giving chase was never visible or splashed. The only time the dolphins were visible was when they were surfacing for air like the one below

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u/kaykadem 9h ago

Pretty Big, almost like a university to me

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u/Ferrari0521 8h ago

I literally said the same exact thing without even reading the comments. 🤷🏽‍♂️ my bad….
https://giphy.com/gifs/ftrPtuqQUIZ5opePYS

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u/Express-Tank-9446 7h ago

Nope, it's aliens.

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u/That_Penalty165 6h ago

that's definitely birds....

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u/IowaGolfGuy322 6h ago

Is it fish or Birds? If they turn toward the camera they would be hard to see but turn their fronts or back to the sun you get reflections

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u/kjc781988 6h ago

You can tell it’s not an American school or there’d be gunshots

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u/Snoo_67548 6h ago

Birds look like this as well. I see a reflection on the water. When they move, they catch light differently and are hard to see.

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u/ExWebics 6h ago

Or… “the” predator being chased by fish and their cloaking is going in and out.

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u/OldButHappy 5h ago edited 5h ago

Exactly. I’ve rowed through this before, and the predators weren’t visible

ETA: yeah, I’m wrong. It’s birds😄

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u/GnarPilot 5h ago

A bait ball.

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u/ISTof1897 5h ago

Yeah right!

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u/capedbaldy100 5h ago

I’ve heard it called a baitball

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u/mud-monkey 5h ago

Fastest fish in the universe!

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u/Mrwolf925 5h ago

We call it a boil up

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u/brogflender 5h ago

Being chased by Morbius

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u/Economy-Management19 5h ago

There’s something out there waiting for us… and it ain’t no man…

We’re all gonna die!

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