Mermaids aren't real?

[Chad]

In what has to be the high point of my afternoon, I ran across this news article that says "Mermaids aren't real..." Big shocker, eh?

 

It seems that NOAA decided Animal Planet had it all wrong in their "documentary" and posted this page after getting several public inquiries about claims made in the show. Animal Planet's owners (Discovery), jumping on the free publicity bus, keep the fire going by responding to NOAAs page here.

 

Somehow the fact that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is sparring with a cable television company over "facts" and dramatizations that were intended to increase ratings is really funny to me.

[BowieReefer84]

In what has to be the high point of my afternoon, I ran across this news article that says "Mermaids aren't real..." Big shocker, eh?

 

It seems that NOAA decided Animal Planet had it all wrong in their "documentary" and posted this page after getting several public inquiries about claims made in the show. Animal Planet's owners (Discovery), jumping on the free publicity bus, keep the fire going by responding to NOAAs page here.

 

Somehow the fact that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is sparring with a cable television company over "facts" and dramatizations that were intended to increase ratings is really funny to me.

 

Did you see they tried to hire a clown... I mean "magician" as well... I used to work there too

 

http://www.msnbc.msn...lans-disappear/

[Chad]

HAHAHAHAHA!! That actually makes it even better!!

 

 

[flooddc]

Really! I've always wanted to marry a mermaid!

[treesprite]

Can't prove what you can't see. For all we know there are millions of mermaids.

[Jan]

I know a real mermaid. I'm not telling who she is. I just know she sprouts a tail when she's in the ocean swimming with the Manatee, Rays and fish. She's got Neptunes touch when it comes to caring for her tanks and livestock. No joke!

[LCDRDATA]

I can't remember if it was Animal Planet/Discovery, but a year or so ago I stumbled across a similar special on dragons. In that one they took the approach of explicitly assuming they were real and then using science to explain the various characteristics found in dragon legends. The science fiction "hook" was the "discovery" of a frozen dragon body in a cave that had been buried in a glacier since the middle ages. It was a neat show, but much like the famous "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast, you would have had to be actively NOT paying attention to miss the fact it was a dramatization, not a documentary.

Edited July 6, 2012 by LCDRDATA

[treesprite]

Well, she hasn't been seen for a while, but there is Christina The Mermaid.

[treesprite]

Oh, I just remembered something. Once when I was a kid, we went to some weird little museum in Delaware with some freaky exhibits. One was a preserved mermaid! Guess what it was? A real (deceased) monkey with a real (deceased) bottom half of a fish sewn onto it where the monkey's lower half was supposed to be! Someone had a really sick mind.

Edited July 7, 2012 by treesprite

[Jan]

Yes they are. Look------> http://weeklyworldnews.com/mutants/2663/half-human-fish-revealed-by-hurricane-ike/

 

...it's got to be true if it's in the WWN!