How The 60-Foot-Long Ancient Shark, Megalodon, Ripped Apart Giant Whales

Discovery Channel kicked off Shark Week on Sunday with a fake documentary about the Great White shark's prehistoric ancestor, megalodon.

Megalodons did at exist at one point. But the powerful ocean predator went extinct 2 million years ago.

The "documentary" — with fictional scripts and phony research — asks us to consider the possibility that megalodon is still roaming the oceans and toppling fishing boats. It upset many Discovery Channel viewers who were briefly convinced that megalodon was terrorizing humans today.

The ancient shark is long gone; however, the 50-ton beast could do some serious damage when it ruled the prehistoric seas.

Last year, the Shark Week team built a full-size model of megalodon, to see if it could hunt and kill giant whales.

You can see video on the Shark Week website.