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School Of Fish

Did a widely-shared video prove that a submarine appeared at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on June 22, 2025? No, that's not true: The local Coast Guard unit, which was said to have been "on the scene" on social media, told Lead Stories that, in reality, they didn't participate in any such incident on that day. The appearance of what was described as a "submarine" in the viral reel was consistent with previously documented instances of a school of fish traveling together in the area, and that was confirmed to Lead Stories by South Carolina's Department of Natural Resources.

The claim appeared a post (archived here) on Facebook where it was published on June 22, 2025, under the title:

Coastguard on the scene at

Myrtle beach where submarine

Was just spotted!

The description of the video continued:

Spotted myrtle beach off 7th Ave!!! #beach #MyrtleBeach #submarine #military #america #caution #usa #merica #war #vacation #upcharge #sharks #fish #school #baitfish #funny #omg

This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:

(Source: Facebook screenshot by Lead Stories)

The last seconds of the reel showed a dark spot in the water:

(Source: Facebook screenshot by Lead Stories)

Contrary to the claim made in the post, the U.S. Coast Guard Station at Georgetown, which is based 35 miles away from Myrtle Beach and covers that area, told this reporter over the phone on June 24, 2025, when asked about the purported sighting of the submarine two days earlier:

We were not involved in any of that.

When Lead Stories called the Myrtle Beach Police Department on the same day, an operator appeared to be surprised to hear the question:

A submarine?!

Erin Weeks (archived here), a media coordinator for South Carolina's Department of Natural Resources, told Lead Stories later on June 24, 2025, via email:

I am actually on holiday in the Myrtle Beach area and saw this in person today -- it is simply a school of bait fish :)

There were numerous visible schools of baitfish along this part of the coast today. The species was unclear.

According to the agency's guide to "saltwater fishes" (archived here), it could be more than one type of fish.

A Google News search for the keywords "Myrtle Beach" and "submarine" yielded a June 23, 2025, article in the Myrtle Beach Sun News (archived here) which reported that such dark spots in water are no more than schools of fish.

Similar videos showing some dark spots in the water in the Myrtle Beach area had emerged on social media before. For example, on July 3, 2020, a chief meteorologist for the local ABC affiliate (archived here) republished a similar clip (archived here) under the caption that, in part, read:

...a huge school of fish (my guess is menhaden) moved south along the Grand Strand today...

(Source: Facebook screenshot by Lead Stories)

Even the post reviewed in this article contained related hashtags:

#sharks #fish #school #baitfish.

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Claims about purportedly spotted submarines are not rare. For example, Lead Stories wrote that in May 2024, social media posts reused a 1992 photo to claim that a Russian submarine sighting near Los Angeles. On a different occasion, a trending post recycled a scene from a fictional American TV show, Hawaii Five-O, to speculate that the footage showed a Russian "most advanced" nuclear underwater vessel.

Other Lead Stories fact checks concerning stories developing in the United States are here.

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