by Nomad
A Shark Week hoax about long extinct monsters of the deep says a lot about our diminishing ability to discern fact from opinion and science from fantasy.
So there I am watching the Discovery Channel, and there's a program about a prehistoric shark, much much larger than even the Great White Shark. We are talking eighteen wheeler size big.
This
species used to roam the seas millions of years ago and then went extinct long
before man came along. Thank Goodness for that, because it is quite possible
that humanity would never have been able to cross the oceans with a monster
like that, ready to gulp us down like a slices of pizza at a frat party.
Shark
Week has always been a big draw for the Discovery Channel. The problem is
after spending years talking about a particular animal, inevitably there comes
a time when you run out of new things to say. It's big. It swims. It's fast.
And it will eat you. That's really all you need
to know. People can only remained scared for so long before they get bored. Then it's "Shark, shmark."
But
after racking their brains, the executives came up with a new angle.
Megalodon Fraud
According
to experts on the show (aptly named “Megalodon: The Monster That Lives”), there is strong evidence that Megalodon is not
extinct at all. The show spent quite some time reviewing photos, videos and
eyewitness accounts showing that this monster was actually still out there. Waiting on me to pluck up the courage to dip my big toe into the high seas.
Gradually, however, it dawned on me that there was something wrong here. There was something
unnatural about the interviews. The lighting too perfect. the words too precisely chosen and descriptive for
an average person. The rhythm of the speech was more like the delivery of a
stage actor. The shark expert was a little too photogenic and well-spoken. In
addition, the camera work for the video evidence was a little too polished.
That's
when it hit me.
The
whole show and all of the evidence were a well-orchestrated hoax. Ten minutes of being made a fool was my limit before I continued my search for something to watch.
