Fake

Stentor Danielson
National Geographic News
August 15, 2002

A photograph that has been circulating on the internet showing a shark leaping out of the water to attack a helicopter, is a fake.
The composite image, which claims to be National Geographic's "Photo of the Year," was spliced together from a U.S. Air Force photo taken near San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge and a photo of a shark from South Africa.
The photo of a breaching great white shark was taken by South African photographer Charles Maxwell [see the link to his Web site at the bottom of this page].
The Air Force photo of an HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopter was taken by Lance Cheung.
They were spliced together by an unknown person, and reportedly began making the rounds on e-mail in August 2001.

"I'd like to make contact with the person who did this—not to get him or her into trouble, but because it's a lot of fun and it is a good job," Maxwell said. "However, I must make clear that I would not like to see this happen to one of my photographs again. It is wrong to take images from a Web site without permission."
Maxwell said he has sold quite a few photographs as a result of the attention the hoax has drawn to his work.

The e-mail containing the hoax photo says:

AND YOU THINK YOUR [sic] HAVING A BAD DAY AT WORK !!

Although this looks like a picture taken from a Hollywood movie, it is in fact a real photo, taken near the South African coast during a military exercise by the British Navy.

It has been nominated by National Geographic as "THE photo of the year".

Other versions of the e-mail credit it to Geo, a German periodical similar to National Geographic magazine.