I'm sure it's a basking shark. I think the confusion comes from a misunderstanding about what a "basking shark" is. It's a really weird shark.
The first time I ran accross this Shark or Sea Monster thing was a report from a Japanese fishing boat that pulled something otherworldly out of the
water in 1977. When they said it might be a "basking shark" I thought they meant a regular shark who was "basking" in the sun like whales
sometimes do and it got stuck and died. Looking at the pictures, I thought, "There's no way that's a shark!" Upon further research, it became
clear that the carcasses in question were sharks, just a really big and strange species of shark.
Shark or Sea Monster? Japanese Trawler in 1977
Let Rotting Sharks Lie
Biology of the Basking Shark
Recently beached carcass of a Basking Shark.




