Remember the summer of 2001 the news kept reporting on all the shark attacks and spotting a dark spot in the water would trigger breaking news alerts? Then it turned out that 2001 was actually a lower shark attack rate than previous years.
http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/sharks...ttack2001.html
It was just hyped so much, you'd swear you were going to be carjacked by a great white. Time magazine even ran a cover story: Year of the Shark!
http://www.time.com/time/2001/sharks/cover.html
And long before that folks, it was Killer Bees coming to kill us!!! They were set to enslave mankind back in the 70's I think. zomg, they're africanized! Run for your lives!