Fishermen aren’t used to being surprised when they haul up their nets, but this time they caught something so wild they accidentally dropped it back in the water. A clearly humanoid arm with a webbed hand reaches back at them from the net, as if trying to grab the men. The men lean back to avoid it and the net slips and falls back into the ocean. They scramble to lean over the side of the ship to see if they can catch another glimpse of the aquatic cryptid.
Did these sailors make the catch of a lifetime, nearly capturing a live mermaid? While a half-fish half-human is clearly impossible some cling to the Aquatic Ape Theory that there may be a human-like relative that evolved and adapted to life underwater. This theory is, of course, widely dismissed by most anthropologists as it has no fossilized evidence. There is not just one missing link in the evolutionary chain but a complete lack of evidence of a chain at all according to conventional educational. Or is there?
The giant squid was long dismissed by the scientific community as a hoax or myth until the early 2000s when they were found to be quite alive and a real species living in the depths of the ocean. Since then a second species has been found. These historical giant squid sightings have many similarities to mermaid sightings over the years, including past specimens that have been lost and later claimed to be fakes or misidentified by scientists who came after.
One such example was presented by P. T. Barnum himself, the Fiji mermaid. This monstrous creature was described as about three feet in length and was claimed to be a juvenile monkey sewn to the back half of a fish as a taxidermy oddity. What was most interesting about this specimen is Barnum never claimed its authenticity, believing that people would want to see it even if he declared it a fake. He was right.
This phenomenon of willing embracing of fakes was further perpetuated by the Animal Planet mermaid hoax, in which a fake documentary was created claiming to have discovered the body of a mermaid. It was so successful a sequel was even made.
The main claim against the existence of mermaids is “why haven’t we caught one” but that is the same claim that was made against the giant squid for centuries before we managed to capture them on camera let alone alive.
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