The Navy Recovered a 12-Inch Tooth From a Submarine Hull in 1976 — And the Sample Disappeared

A machinist in a 1976 dry dock says he pulled a hollow, amber, twelve-inch point out of a submarine's sonar dome — and measured it before it vanished by morning. There is no animal on Earth with a twelve-inch tooth; the largest ever, the megalodon's, tops out near seven. That same year, a US Navy vessel off Hawaii hauled up a fifteen-foot shark so unknown that science had to build it a brand-new family — the megamouth, real and cataloged. Two years later, the Navy pulled squid hooks from the USS Stein's sonar dome and called the animal "unknown to science, and very large." Was it a misremembered number—or did something with a foot-long hook reach up out of the dark and take hold of a warship?