It's the nightmare scenario any ocean swimmer understandably fears the most: a huge shark lunging towards you ready to bite.
Footage has re-emerged online showing the terrifying moment this happened to a man who narrowly avoided being attacked by a tiger shark as he desperately clambered back onto his boat.
The scary incident from 2014 sees the swimmer somewhere off the coast of Queensland in Australia holding up a bird cage by the side of a boat.
He appears to scream then slams the cage down into the water right before the shark arrives speeding straight at it.
Its jaws are only inches away from him in the water while people onboard can be heard giggling away.
After panicking and climbing back on board he seems visibly shaken.
It turned out that the near-death experience was part of a prank by the Harrington twins, Shaun and Dean, a pair of surf-loving Australians.
They had planned to go out on to the ocean on a "B-grade shark -fishing tour" using a birdcage, reports Men's Journal.
Shaun said his brother pulled out the cage and announced that "we're going to go out there and find a shark".
A friend accompanying them caught an "eight-foot tiger shark" with a fishing line before Shaun jumped in with the cage, followed by Dean.
But the careless action nearly turned into something much worse as the man-eating shark almost grabbed hold of Shaun.
The tiger shark is the second most deadly shark in the world.
The species has killed 36 people with only the great white shark killing more (57), according to the International Shark Attack File.
In another terrifying near miss with a tiger shark caught on camera a paddleboarder was trapped between the massive predator and a turtle in Western Australian in April.
The shark ended up chomping on Brodie Moss's board and he can be heard shouting: "Oh this is intense, they're underneath me. Oh, I don't know if I'm in the best position right here. Oh, I'm between a tiger and a turtle. Uh oh!"
