No evidence of mermaids, says US government.

[atomic_joe2]

There is no evidence that mermaids exist, a US government scientific agency has said

Comments

[soundczech]

if it's not clearly denoted as fiction i can kind of understand how some people might get confused about this kind of thing, especially given it's airing on a network that generally deals in fact. especially because this is an ocean creature we're talking about, and the ocean is full of fucked up things that people thought were myths before they were proved to be real, like the colossal squid. who the fuck knows what else is down there. the ocean is crazy.

http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/undiscovered-monsters-lurk-in-ocean-depths-says-expert.htm

[maladaptive]

if it's not clearly denoted as fiction i can kind of understand how some people might get confused about this kind of thing, especially given it's airing on a network that generally deals in fact.

I saw the show because I love those fictional "what-if" documentaries (don't judge me) and it was seriously annoying because it talked about government cover ups a lot. Like "our plucky team of scientists found out that some government agency was hiding information about a mermaid sighting on a beach, so we went and hunted that info down and here it is!"

The mermaids were poorly CGed in the way of those low-budget documentaries, but I can see how people might have fallen for it (we're talking about a country where 30%+ believe in Bigfoot and 50%+ believe in ghosts, so believing the tv show about mermaids isn't that farfetched). I started in the middle of the program and don't remember seeing any "this is a work of fiction" disclaimers. They may have been there before commercial breaks and I just tuned them out, but I don't remember them.

[jettakd]

Ooooh anybody remember Ghostwatch in the UK and all the people that freaked out? I finally saw it the other week and I can definitely see why it did, since it was played straight. Stuff like that, where people end up taking it seriously, happens A LOT.

eta: thanks for the headsup on Alt3 btw, will be checking that out :D

[atomic_joe2]

Ghostwatch! I still can't watch some of that stuff on YT. Still spooks me out. That caused kids to have treatment for post traumatic stress and I think a guy committed suicide too.

[jettakd]

Holy crap I had no idea it caused that much trauma D: I mean it made me not sleep the night I got it, but I did know it was fake going in. That's so horrible :(

[atomic_joe2]

Yep here we are:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostwatch#Controversy

[mirhanda]

I saw the very beginning of that stupid show and it was definitely presented as a factual show, however the subject matter was so stupid I got up and googled the title and found out it was a "mocumentary" so I switched it off. I wouldn't blame someone for taking it as read though, especially a person who is naive already. And it was presented on Animal Planet which (used to) actually deal in factual documentaries about animals. It's mostly crap now though.

[crossfire]

Totes could be cross-posted to ontd_science :D

[simplefaith08]

To be fair, I saw that show with my friends and for most of it we were like "Not sure if srs |:" (as in, we couldn't tell if it was a work of fiction done in a documentary style or people trying to tout their lack of proof as fact).

[radges]

My mom was watching this and I could tell it was fake since the "actual video footage" had the same cgi as their made up footage of all the other mermaids underwater...