At least three surfers reported seeing a shark fin in the water off the coast of Gloucester, Massachusetts, Monday morning, prompting lifeguards to shut down area beaches and triggering a search that stretched into neighboring Rockport.
The sightings, which happened around 11 a.m. at Long Beach, sent swimmers running from the water, eyewitnesses said.
"I saw, like, a little fin just pop up," said surfer Shane Johnson of Needham. "The lifeguards — they brought everybody in. Everyone was really scared."
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Another surfer, Xander Smith of Gloucester, was nearby and also spotted the fin.
"I looked over to my right, kind of tapped him, 'Yo, look over there!'" he recalled. "It was kind of swimming around, and we were like, 'Alright, we better get out of here.'"
Long Beach and Good Harbor Beach were closed for two hours.
The harbormaster sent a crew to scour the area for a shark, but the choppy surf made the search difficult.
No shark was found.
If what the surfers saw was, in fact, a shark, it would be the first such sighting this summer, according to Deputy Harbormaster Chad Johnson.
