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On June 21, 2023, TikTok content creator @sqayl shared a few videos talking about the missing Titan submarine. He urged the authorities leading the search-and-rescue operation to use Ocearch, a shark-tracking app, to find the OceanGate submersible that went missing on Sunday, June 18, after losing communication during its dive to visit the wreckage site of the Titanic.
While search teams are racing against time to locate the submersible, which now has less than a day of oxygen supply, the internet has been going into a frenzy with wild theories as to what might have happened to the under-water vessel.
The app Ocearch uses a SPOT Tag, aka a Smart Positioning and Temperature Tag, to follow great white sharks in real-time on the Global Shark tracker. These tags create “ping” locations when shark fins collide with the surface of the water.
TikToker @sqayl claimed that the shark-tracking app might have accidentally tracked the missing Titan submersible.
TikToker's shark tracker theory about missing submarine
In the first video shared by @sqayl, where he requested authorities to use Ocearch, the creator spoke about how the ocean remains a more mysterious place than space. He claimed that people have never gone missing in outer space but wondered why it is that the ocean constantly keeps making people disappear.
In the next video, which was posted on June 22, the creator said that Thursday morning, the app received two pings from two different sharks.
@sqayl further explained that two sharks, Andromache and Simon, who were previously tracked by Ocearch, triggered pings on the app displayed at locations that did not match their usual patterns. He further claimed that it was unlikely for the two sharks to swim to the coordinates where they had been detected at. The TikToker added:
“The statistical likelihood of both of these sharks swimming to the exact same location where the Titanic sunk and Titan the missing submarine is located [sic] is an imaginary number that doesn’t exist."
Sqayl believes that Ocearch may have somehow accidentally pinged the submarine but thought it to be the sharks. He remained adamant that those pings were not regular glitches on the app. The TikToker urged authorities to get hold of the coordinates before they get deleted by Ocearch.
The TikToker also expressed his theory that the extinct shark species, the Megalodon, might also have swallowed the submarine. He claimed that it is unknown if this extinct species still exists since humans have not yet been able to explore the oceans in their entirety.
Internet reacts to TikToker's Ocearch theory in finding the missing submarine
After @sqayl shared his theory about the possible location of the missing submersible, people flocked to the comments to express their opinions. While some believed that the shark-tracking app might actually help to find the Titan submersible, others disagreed.
One user mentioned that nobody talked about how the wreckage site of the Titanic was close to the Bermuda Triangle, a part of the North Atlantic Ocean where ships and aircraft are said to have mysteriously disappeared.
Another user said that the app Ocearch uses a physical tracker which was made for only tracking sharks, adding that sharks don't dive as deep as the submersible did.
However, a few people misunderstood @sqayl's theory and thought that he meant that the sharks were near the Titanic'e wreckage site where the missing submarine also lies. So, they objected that great white sharks or any other sharks cannot swim that deep into the water. But others clarified that the TikToker was talking about the tracker possibly pinging the submarine, not sharks.
However, it is not yet confirmed whether or not the pings on Ocearch's shark-tracking tools actually pinged the missing submersible.
