Additionally, the description of the skin screams shark to me-shark skin is covered in denticles which typically point towards toward the tale: pet a shark in the direction of the tail, and it’s smooth. Pet it the other way, and it feels quite rough.

So I think basking shark is the logical conclusion here (I know this is old, but felt obliged to point this out).

My point? That those who do not believe in the possibility of sea cryptids are more likely not to see sea cryptids even if they come across their lab table…human beings being basically lazy are more than willing to toss something into a known category rather than do extra work to find out what something is that may be new but similar to something else….I know I’m stretching here, but in the early days of the 19th and 20th century there was not a lot of openmindedness for things like sea serpents and those who were open to the possibility were vastly out numbered.

Just as you can’t always trust the believer, you have to take the same grain of salt with the professed non-believer…as some of our skoftics are so fond of pointing out—people try to rationalize things and make mistakes or misinterpret things…the same can be applied to scientists who enter into an investigation with a pre-conceived idea about the world around them.

I don’t know how someone can be so sure that the vertebrae in the jar say shark. They are as clear as a blobsquatch. In fact, if anything, they don’t look anything like the picture results from Googling ‘vertebra basking shark’ under Images.