Warning: That 'vintage photo' of a mermaid washed up on a beach in Maine is a hoax I saw shared 50 times in one week

I was scrolling through a local history group and noticed the same grainy photo from 2019 kept getting reposted as 'newly discovered' - it's actually a sculpture artist's work from a 2015 exhibition in Portland. Has anyone else seen this same photo pop up in different towns claiming the same thing?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_robin3d ago

Tbh the same photo is now being used as "proof" in cryptid NFT scams.

lucast813d ago

I've seen that same mermaid photo pop up in Facebook groups for at least three different states now. Someone always acts like they just found it in their grandpa's old box of negatives and it's the real deal. It really shows how fast stuff spreads online when people share without checking first.

jessem593d ago

I was in that same boat until like last year actually. I saw a photo of a supposed "sea creature" washed up on a beach in Oregon and shared it without looking too hard. Then a buddy of mine sent me a link showing it was just a rotting whale carcass photo that had been floating around since 2014. That one really opened my eyes to how easy it is to get caught up in the excitement and not double check stuff. Now I try to reverse image search anything fishy before I hit post.