Reply #34: Untrained viewers give crazy estimates of shark sizes.

[LeftyMom]

First of all, they generally don't see the whole length of the shark at once, and they don't know the proportions for estimating size from the parts they do see. Second, they're in a panic. Third, in the water they usually don't have a good reference object for size. As a result, almost every eyewitness report of a shark attack involves an impossibly large shark. Hell, untrained observers aren't even very good at telling you what species attacked half the time.

Luckily, it's pretty simple to figure out the size of the shark based on measurements of the bite radius, if they find any remains. It's not unusual to do the measurements and figure out that a shark witnesses claimed was 20+ feet was barely half that.