Mermaids: The Body Found (2012)

Directed by

Sid Bennett

Genre

docufiction

Country

United States

Runtime

123h 06m

Rating

4.8 of 10 from 25 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A scientific team investigates mysterious underwater recordings of an unidentified marine body. The program presents the aquatic ape hypothesis as evidence that mermaids exist.

speculativeseriousinvestigativemysteriouscontroversialatmosphericpseudo-documentary

What happens

Mermaids: The Body Found is a pseudo-documentary television program originally aired on American TV channels Animal Planet (May 27, 2012) and Discovery Channel (June 17, 2012). It tells a story of a scientific team's investigative efforts to uncover the source behind mysterious underwater recordings of an unidentified marine body. The show presents the controversial aquatic ape hypothesis as evidence that mermaids exist, along with a digitally manufactured video. A sequel broadcast called Mermaids: The New Evidence aired May 26, 2013. Mermaids: The Body Found and its sequel Mermaids: The New Evidence are examples of what is known as docufiction, in which documentary style and programming elements are combined with fictional – or sometimes, less egregiously, speculative – science and fiction. This type of programming receives particular criticism when, as in the original broadcast of Mermaids: The Body Found, there are only a few, easily missed disclaimers to indicate the speculative nature of the programming. On the contrary, the serious tone of the majority of the presentation implied that it was a factual documentary. The first airings of the two Mermaids programs apparently gathered the attention of millions of people and also drew some of Animal Planet's largest audiences ever. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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