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Screengrab from www.worldnewsdailyreport.com's satirical story on an alleged Great White Shark being caught in Lake Michigan.

(Courtesy)

Some people will believe anything they read on the internet.

Even when it's so outlandish and over-the-top it should immediately trigger a smell test.

Take a recent worldnewsdailyreport.com report of a Canadian tourist and a Chicago angler catching - and then shooting - a 3,000-pound Great White shark in the waters of Lake Michigan.

The satirical website story has had to be dismissed by snopes.com after gaining international attention and traction via social media. The original report has nearly 7,000 Facebook shares and it has spawned thousands of others who are picking up the site's story and passing it along as fact to duped readers.

From the story:

But it doesn't stop there.

The story quotes a purported U.S. Coast Guard official and a fictitious university professor "confirming" the veracity of the catch.

The report also insinuates the shark is responsible for hundreds of unexplained disappearances from the lake and a waterside campground. The vanishings were covered up to not hurt the region's tourism industry, the report claimed.

The clarity from snopes.com marks the second time in two days the myth-busting and fact-finding site had to dip into Michigan. On Wednesday, it published a story debunking an error-filled report on the state's so-called "Right-to-Farm" legislation that culled info more than two years old and presented it as new.