In a rare underwater view, a great white shark was spotted swimming off Block Island — marking what the Atlantic Shark Institute said may be the first time a white shark has ever been caught on camera in Rhode Island waters.

The potentially historic sighting occurred last week during a 50-square-mile, hours-long search led by Jon Dodd, Executive Director of the Atlantic Shark Institute, and Sarah Callan, Manager of the Animal Rescue Program at Mystic Aquarium.

The team launched the mission to track a drifting 40-foot humpback whale carcass after initial videos from the public surfaced showing a massive great white feeding on it.

According to the Atlantic Shark Institute, the team eventually located the whale floating several miles south-southeast of Block Island. 

It was there that they documented an estimated 8-foot great white shark feeding on the remains, as Dodd was able to capture the rare and exciting footage underwater. 

“It was a great opportunity for Sarah to take samples from the whale for research, and as luck would have it, this great white was found feeding on it,” the Institute shared on Facebook regarding the encounter, echoing a previous post where they emphasized the sheer rarity of the event.

“White shark sightings are few and far between until a whale dies, and then they seem to appear out of nowhere as this one did,” the Institute said when the initial video surfaced of a whale carcass being preyed on by a great white. 

Just a few days later, the carcass washed up on Crescent Beach with innumerable shark bites on it, and with that, “the saga of this whale and the sharks it attracted ended!” the Institute concluded in their Facebook post.