You may have to look hard to see the disclaimer, but the producers and Animal Planet make it clear that this program is totally and completely made up.Īt least they almost make it clear.
#MERMAIDS THE BODY FOUND TV#
The Los Angeles Times‘ TV skeptic noted of Mermaids: The Body Found that: It’s not that there’s anything wrong with a bit of speculative evolution, as long as you make it clear from the outset that you’re making stuff up. The documentary makes much of the fact that whales evolved from terrestrial ancestors, but that took millions of years, not the kind of evolutionary eyeblink that Mermaids seems to be talking about. Over what period of time is all this supposed to have happened? A few tens of thousands of years? A few hundred thousand years? From the waist up they’re slender modern humans (no insulating blubber? Brrr!), while from the waist down they’re dolphins - and to top it all off they’ve got a dolphin-like sonar system inside their skulls. It starts off talking up the rather fringe “aquatic ape” notion of human evolution and ends up with some classic-looking CGI mermaids that make zero evolutionary sense. The version that I saw doesn’t even do viewers the courtesy of admitting that it’s fake until the credits are about to roll. There’s grainy fake video of mermen being hauled up in fishing nets, the whole box and dice. It has actors playing scientists talking about how they did an autopsy on some mermaid remains, and how the US government swooped and covered the whole thing up. The thing that’s got my goat at the moment is a fake documentary on Animal Planet called Mermaids: The Body Found. Department of Justice and Homeland Security.Īfter this program aired in Australia in April 2011, Brad Newsome of the Sydney Morning Herald wrote of it that: Paul Robertson, former NOAA scientist.” To enhance the pseudo-reality aspect of the program, a web site was established at offering no content other than a opening page hoax proclaiming that the site’s domain had been seized by the U.S. The program was not fact but rather speculative science fiction, which included obvious CGI-produced video sequences like the one displayed above and actors fictional characters such as “Dr.
But are mermaids real? No evidence of aquatic humanoids has ever been found.On, Discovery’s Animal Planet channel aired a pseudo-documentary entitled Mermaids: The Body Found in the U.S., a purely fictional work dealing with a purported federal coverup of a discovery involving scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that proved the existence of a remnant population of mermaids (described as being an evolutionary offshoot of the “ aquatic ape” hypothesis, a generally discounted idea that early Hominid species went through an aquatic phase in their evolution). Magical female figures first appear in cave paintings in the late Paleolithic (Stone Age) period some 30,000 years ago, when modern humans gained dominion over the land and, presumably, began to sail the seas. “The belief in mermaids may have arisen at the very dawn of our species. NOAA released a statement earlier this month debunking the theory, saying, government felt the need to step in and put the rumors to rest. The film is science fiction, using science as a springboard into imagination and centering the story on the following real-world events."Īpparently that wasn't enough to stop people from believing that a mermaid body had actually been found, and the U.S. " MERMAIDS: THE BODY FOUND makes a strong case for the existence of the mermaid, a creature with a surprisingly human evolutionary history, whose ancestral branch splits off from a shared human root. Not only that, but the press release for the show clearly states that it isn't a true documentary. The show itself, though science fiction, is based on some real events and scientific theory." "What if there's a kernel of truth behind the legend of this mythic creature? Is the idea of mermaids really so far-fetched? Maybe so, maybe not. Discovery's description of "Mermaids: The Body Found" reads, When the special first aired in May, Discovery admitted that they used an actor to "discover" the mermaid body on a Washington state beach.Įven the description should have tipped viewers off that something wasn't quite right.
On Sunday night, Discovery Channel re-aired the two hour special, which originally aired on Animal Planet, and the Internet exploded with theories with rumors and theories about whether the sea creatures are real or not.īut it was all just a well-crafted hoax on Discovery's part. "Mermaids: The Body Found," a "documentary" about the possible existence of the mythical beings, is stirring up trouble again.
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