Mystery Bay

Radiolab

WNYC Studios

Science, Natural Sciences, History, Society & Culture, Documentary

4.6 • 43.5K Ratings

🗓️ 19 June 2025

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This is episode four of Swimming with Shadows: A Radiolab Week of Sharks. Alison Kock was working at a car wash in Cape Town when she made a discovery that completely changed the course of her life. Inside a customer’s trunk, she found photographs of white sharks flying so high above the water they looked like airplanes. She followed those photographs to False Bay, “the Great White Capital of the World.” These sharks, in this place, are the apex of apex predators. Or they were. Until they mysteriously began to disappear. Special thanks to Kathryn Ayres. EPISODE CREDITS: Reported by - Rachael Cusick Produced by - Simon Adler and Maria Paz Gutierrezwith help from - Rebecca Laks Original music from - Simon Adler and Maria Paz GutierrezSound design contributed by - Jeremy Bloom with mixing help from - Jeremy BloomFact-checking by - Diane A. Kellyand Edited by - Pat WaltersSignup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)! Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today. Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [email protected]. Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Wait, you're listening.
0:03.1	Okay.
0:04.4	All right.
0:05.6	Okay.
0:07.0	All right.
0:08.5	You're listening to Radio Lab.
0:11.4	Radio Lab.
0:11.9	From W. N. Y.
0:13.9	C.
0:14.8	See?
0:15.1	Yeah.
0:18.7	Hey, I'm Latif Nassar. This is Radio Lab day four of our week of sharks.
0:23.2	Hello. Hello. And we're starting today with our shark guide in residence, Rachel Cusick, and this lady.
0:30.3	I'm Alison Koch. I'm a marine biologist. In South Africa, out of car wash.
0:36.2	Oh my gosh. Yes. Today, Alison works for South Africa's national a car wash. Oh my gosh, yes.
0:43.9	Today, Alison works for South Africa's National Parks, but back in the 90s, young, about a lot of money.
0:49.2	I was a student at the University of Cape Town working at that car wash that you mentioned.
0:54.3	It was a small little spot, not one of those drive-through car washes with those like flying sponges.
0:56.5	It was all by, yeah, by hand.
1:02.8	And my role was to check the cars for valuables and move the cars from the wash basin through to the dry basin.
1:04.6	I used to also love just being around water.
1:06.7	So that was another draw card for that car wash.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 14 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from WNYC Studios, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of WNYC Studios and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.