That viral photo of the 'mermaid' skeleton was actually a 3D printed model from a college art project

I saw that mermaid skeleton picture floating around Facebook last week and totally bought it for a day. Someone in the comments linked to the original 2019 art student's portfolio showing the whole build process with resin and clay. They even had time lapse videos of them painting the ribs to look old and weathered. Kind of embarrassing how quick I was to share it without checking if it was even real. Now I make myself wait 15 minutes before posting any wild looking photo, just to do a quick reverse image search first. Has anyone else fallen for something that seems obvious in hindsight?

3 comments

3 Comments

lewis.brian1d ago

Oh man, I feel your pain on that one. I shared a supposed UFO photo years ago and felt like a fool when someone pointed out it was just a weather balloon with the sun reflecting off it. The whole 15 minute waiting rule is a good habit, I might have to start doing that myself.

julia_carter611d ago

Three years ago my cousin swore she saw a cougar in her backyard and posted it to our neighborhood Facebook group. It was just a REALLY LARGE orange cat with weird lighting from her porch light. She deleted the post after getting roasted in the comments but people still bring it up at family dinners. The thing is our brains are wired to see exciting stuff like mermaids or big cats even when it's just a stray cat or a student's art project. I've started noticing the same pattern with weather photos too where people call a normal sunset "the apocalypse" because the clouds look kinda red.

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anthonynelson1d ago

Ngl I used to roll my eyes at posts like that, thought people were just attention seeking with blurry photos of shadows. But honestly your cousin's story kinda hits different because I had my own moment last year where I was dead convinced I saw a mountain lion slinking behind my neighbor's shed. Texted my whole family group chat about it, even sent them the video. Turns out it was just a fat raccoon waddling through the tall grass with the sun hitting it weird. The whole situation was so embarrassing I still cringe thinking about it. Tbh we're all just walking around with pattern recognition on steroids and most of the time it just makes us look silly.