My Thoughts on Mermaids: A Body Found & Mermaid: The New Evidence

[Prince Calypso]

So I've just gotten through watching Mermaids: A Body Found and Mermaids: The New Evidence
Anyone who knows me knows I am an avid believer in Mermaids and most other Mythical beast and creatures:)
Now I was just excited as the rest of you were, I'm sure,when Mermaids: a body found first aired, and even more when the New Evidence segment aired today

The Mockumentary is very well done and a very unique way of exploring The Aquatic Ape theory and the phenomena of the show has spread doubt throught even the most skeptical of people.

BUT, i have my issues with the entire thing and here's why
First of all as much as I am sure that mermaids aren't what they been depicted as throughout history in art and film and such
I do not like the depiction of these mermaids for one single reason

HAIR!:doh:
now i get the point that hair is heavy under water and blah blah blah but it kinda annoys me that they just annexed the hair entirely instead of simply finding a creative way to explain it.
All depictions of mermaids focus on the hair from Africa to Greece part of the mermaid allure. our ancestors weren't idiots people. superstitious and easily excitable but not stupid so if throughout history from culture to culture mermaids have been depicted with hair then why would our ancestors do so if when they saw the beings they didn't actually have hair or something which acted, behaved and resembled it? so making the mermaids bald was just lazy and stupid in my opinion.

my second issue is the CGI.:mad:
i get that there are lo. ts of things CGI lets you do but to me it's just lazy. if they wanted to make the show more realistic then i say they could have invested in silicone body molds and figures. now for the swimming and such yeah CGi but for still shots and such i think Figures and molds would have done so much better to get the idea of these creatures being real. like in the photo of The Real Mermaid owned by P.T Barnum. the creature in the tank in the picture is clearly a photo-shopped CGI image when they could have simply made a large silicone dummy or figurine.

Finally i was annoyed by the fact that they didn't dwell deeper into the Mermaid Myth and legend. There have been over a thousand stories of mermaids interacting with humans and even marrying them, why was this not explored?
there is also the fact that they hint that the mermaids have a nomadic culture and humanoid behavior but they don't dig deeper into this?
When Animal Planet did Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real, they explored all of these in far more depth than they did with Mermaids.


Other then these few things I love the Mockumentary.
the appearance and features of the mermaids are believable and well thought out (all except the lack of hair)
the wide paddle like tail is freaking epic and the eyes gah!
Then there's the Bloop
I do believe that the bloop is real and the reason behind it may just be mermaids. to me it was just kinda suspicious the the navy and stuff were so quick to say that they had never seen mermaids. and the wording they used "aquatic humanoid." that seems kinda weird. if they weren't taking it seriously then why use just a serious term for mermaid. The sighting of mermaids i beleive are true as well. I mean the whole mermaid thing in that one country was on the news way before this Mockumentary as were several other sightings and stories.
So even though I don't agree with the description of the mermaids physical appearance i do believe that the story line and research are reliable and could be true

[Echidna]

All depictions of mermaids focus on the hair from Africa to Greece part of the mermaid allure...
Finally i was annoyed by the fact that they didn't dwell deeper into the Mermaid Myth and legend. There have been over a thousand stories of mermaids interacting with humans and even marrying them, why was this not explored?

That's quite simple: because the mermaids from our ancestor's legends throughout the world were water faeries.
They had magic. They were shapeshifters, thus they could change into a landform and interact with humans (and even give birth to human children).
It's easy to see that one cannot incorporate something as magical as fairies into the "Aquatic ape" theory,
which is nice and all, but in all probability has NOTHING to do with the origins of the legends.

If you happen to know anything about faeries of European descent, or nature spirits of Asia, you'll know that all of them share certain traits; for example, they have a glamour which allows them to appear as anything they'd like- a common animal, a plant, or be outright invisible if they so choose.
This explains wonderfully why it is futile to go around looking for them :p

Concerning the Bloop; we discussed this also in the thread "Animal Planet mermaid program".
While the Bloop is a real phenomenon, the sound played in the mockumentary is NOT the Bloop, but made up.
They just claim it's the Bloop to lend their thing credibility lol.

Disappointing, I know.
All in all, there is no harm watching it all the same, if only for the cgi and to mull a bit over the "what if it were so".

[Mermaid Momo]

I tried to reply with a quote, but I'm on mobile so it's a bit hard to get just the section I want. But anyway :

On the topic of hair,
I think they chose to make them bald because in some accounts they actually don't have hair but a dark back which is mistaken for long hair, if you watch the part of mermaids:the body found where there one mermaid swimming in a circle giving birth I suppose, it looks like she has hair trailing behind her because of the dark spots on her back, and I think they were trying to get as close as a scientific possibility as they could get and this trying to get as close to the aquatic ape theory which say that they wouldn't have any hair for survival purposes. But being a mammal I'm sure there are very fine hairs covering their body like a dolphin.

sorry for any typos , as I said, I'm on mobile and my phone is being a butt.

[Mermaidmechanic]

Navy isn't trying to "hide" any evidence of mermaids. I work in tandem with them and believe me when I say navy boys are the worst at keeping secrets. I would like these shows much better if they didn't villianize the navy, and my service by extension. Otherwise, I think the science concerning "mermaid evolution" is quite clever. A few of my friends thought it was actually real. XD

[Prince Calypso]

I tried to reply with a quote, but I'm on mobile so it's a bit hard to get just the section I want. But anyway :

On the topic of hair,
I think they chose to make them bald because in some accounts they actually don't have hair but a dark back which is mistaken for long hair, if you watch the part of mermaids:the body found where there one mermaid swimming in a circle giving birth I suppose, it looks like she has hair trailing behind her because of the dark spots on her back, and I think they were trying to get as close as a scientific possibility as they could get and this trying to get as close to the aquatic ape theory which say that they wouldn't have any hair for survival purposes. But being a mammal I'm sure there are very fine hairs covering their body like a dolphin.

sorry for any typos , as I said, I'm on mobile and my phone is being a butt.

Actually if you research most of th written accounts of mermaids sightings they do indeed have hair there is only i think two which describe bald mermaids.

[MerAnthony]

Alot of the stuff they said is based on facts. Like we have been to the moon more then the bottom of the ocean. An our planet is mostly made of water so there are alot of places to hide. Plus like Prince Calypso said that our forfathers were not stupid. An why is it that so many cultures have almost the same pictures of mermaids when we were never in contact with them or vise versa an so on. Also Legends were based on facts. Now this was a mocumentary but it did hold some truth as to some of the information that was given. Like the beaching of the whales an dolphins, an some things that could not be explained. So I believe that it could be possible that mermaids could be real you just never know.

[mermaid_nixie]

I liked the mockumentary, and also disliked it. One thing that bothered me personally is the appearance and characteristics of the mer people. It's wonderful that they showed what it would be like if they really did evolve that way, but I prefer they not be real :) I like the image of what a mermaid is as it has always been. Beautiful, enchanting, alluring, and much more human like. If they were real like in this, it would take away the imagination.

[LittleTreasure]

I enjoyed watching both shows, but they have, from the beginning, left a really bad taste in my mouth. Their lack of disclaimers in the beginning about the show being fictional, plus the dialogue that seemed too well written, just turned me off. There are disclaimers, yes, but they're pretty small and in my opinion hidden. The writers seemed to want people to believe this was real and I just don't like stuff that sounds like conspiracy theories.. So yeah. The ideas behind the shows were cool and I kind of liked their 'explanation' of how merfolk could exist. It was cool to watch as a 'what if' situation.

[AniaR]

I still haven't seen the second one but I had seen the first one when it came out a few years ago. I just found it all a little campy, in the same way I find some of the dinosaurs ones they have campy where they go into this whole believable thing about their social patterns etc and it's kind of like, wow you can't prove any of that. Iona and I were joking this morning, they tell you the government seized all their stuff, but yet they have all this "footage" and stuff to refer to. They really go the extra mile though. For the first one they had the government remove their website, but the government logo was hosted on animal planet haha. It all just kinda makes me think of the ancient aliens one, but I think at times even that one can be better.

I like the underwater realm's version of aquatic apes. I kinda figure slap a tail on those characters and then you have my interpretation!

I enjoy these for what they are. Mockumentaries. It doesn't mean I don't think things could actually come to light that mermaids do or did exist... I just get frustrated as an educator when they present a mockumentary as if it's truth, and they trick loads of people into swallowing it. I wrote about it on my page last night and someone announced they were unliking my page because I told them it was a mockumentary. LOL