Fake Fish Photos

2014
Giant Squid in Santa Monica
This photo accompanied an article that ran on the site lightlybraisedturnip.com in January 2014, claiming that a giant squid (grown to mutant size because of Fukushima radiation) had washed ashore near Santa Monica. The article was intended as satire. Nevertheless, the image soon began to circulate online. The image was a composite of a squid washed ashore in Spain and a beach scene in Chile.
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July 3, 2008
Jumping Shark
A photographer happened to take this series of photos just as a shark was leaping from the water behind a surfer.
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Circulating online since late 2004
Modern-Day Diplocaulus
The mysterious creature in the bucket was actually a clay model, not a surviving prehistoric Diplocaulus.
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Circulating online since Aug 2001
Helicopter Shark
Despite what this photo shows, a Great White shark has never attacked a helicopter in San Francisco Bay.
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Jan 22, 2001
Pike Swallows Trout
This award-winning photo was taken at the Alaska Department of Fish & Game aquarium in Anchorage. It was not photoshopped!
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1939
Biggest Fish Ever Caught
The Honolulu Star-Bulletin ran this picture on its front page on Apr 1, 1939, accompanied by a report claiming that Norwegian scientist Dr. Thorkel Gellison (an "authority on prevaricana") had caught the largest fish ever recorded while on holiday in Hawaii. The fish was said to be of the species Gellisoni Fabricata. The doctor caught it "with ordinary Mason & Dixon line, with a leader of Associated Press wire."
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1909-1910
William ‘Dad’ Martin’s Freak Postcards
Martin made a fortune selling "freak" postcards that featured midwesterners interacting with oversized animals and vegetables.
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1906
Pacific Sea Monster
A group of men show off a sea serpent that washed up on the beach at Ballard, Washington. However, the "sea serpent" looks suspiciously like the trunk of a tree.
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