‘Shark fin’ spotted by dog walker in Sussex - but experts think it was something else

Video footage has emerged of what appeared to be shark fin off the coast of West Sussex at East Preston, our sister title SussexWorld reports.

Local 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.

While Ben believes what he saw was a basking shark, Stephen Savage, Sussex Regional Coordinator Sea Watch Foundation, 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.”