WASHINGTON (UPI) -- As Discovery Channel's annual Shark Week celebrates one of the ocean's most fearsome and interesting creatures, we complied a list of five of the strangest shark encounters from the past year.

South Carolina surfer says a shark bit his board in half

Jack O'Neil, 27, brought his severely damaged surfboard into Ocean Surf Shop in Folly Beach, S.C. claiming that it was bitten in half by a large shark.

"He estimated the shark at 8 feet, and it knocked him off the board as he was paddling for a wave," they wrote on Facebook. The board snapped as it bounced to the beach after he pulled his leash off and escaped the shark. You never know what's lurking...

O'Neil said he merely caught a glimpse of the shark, which South Carolina Aquarium senior biologist Arnold Postell believed could be a sandbar shark or a black tipped shark, before being thrown from his board.

"It felt like somebody had put on the emergency brake. It felt like you had hit a rock," O'Neil said. The board just wobbled. It peeled off a shank of my board, peeled off the complete bottom down to the stringer.

Florida teens film encounter with great white shark

A pair of Florida teens managed to catch their encounter with a great white shark on video while fishing for grouper off the coast of Florida.

Wylie Phelan and Taylor Magone, both 18, recorded video of the shark swimming calmly amongst a group of smaller fish 20 miles off Ponce Inlet.

"He probably did 20 or so circles around the boat," Magone said. I was just holding the camera and just sticking it in the water so I could get some great shots of him.

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