Is this plesiosaur photo a deliberate hoax?
Plesiosaur washed up on beach?
SOMEONE SENT US THE PHOTO AT LEFT of a plesiosaur washed up on a beach, and asked if we thought it was a fake.
Yes, we said. We do believe it is a fake. The first thing we noticed was that the lines along the back of the creature (leading down to its tail) are too sharp for a genuine photo. It's the digital equivalent of cutting out a picture of a Martian and pasting it on a photo beside George Bush. The cut-out will have sharp edges.
Likewise, when this photo was manipulated, the faker did not blur the edges.
There is also a ghostly patch at the top end of the shadow of the person walking along the beach, as though someone or something has been erased.
But we asked the person who sent it to us for more information. Where did you get the photo? Where was it supposedly taken? Who is the photographer? When was the photo allegedly taken? Did any news media give it coverage? Who is the person walking along the beach?
We did not receive this information.
Since that time, a number of people have written to us about this photo. We thank the people who told us it was a megamouth shark. And that our conclusion was correct that the first photo we received had been faked.
Several people sent us the photo at right, which seems to be closer to the original genuine source.
It was on the Sharkman's World website for several years, and was identified as a megamouth shark that washed up on the beach at Natures Valley, near Plettenberg Bay in South Africa, on April 20, 2002.
Although the photo has now been taken off that page, we thank one of our readers for letting us know that you can still see some of the page containing the photo at Web Archive.
This megamouth shark (Megachasma pelagios) was identified as a female that was 3.5 metres long (11 ft 6 in). A news report from the time is on the CDNN website.
You will notice several important differences between the original and the fake — particularly the give-away “megamouth” that has been shaved in the fake to make it look more like a plesiosaur.
Related topics:
- See an amazing photo of a plesiosaur filmed underwater in the Pacific.
- Confessions of a Loch Ness monster faker.
- Was the Loch Ness monster photographed in Sri Lanka?
- Extinct pteranodon filmed over African waterhole. Amazing!
- Is this sand sculpture of the September 11 attack genuine?
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