Status: Probably fake
Peter Wenker sent along this picture of a giant jellyfish. He doesn't think it's real, and I'd agree. I know that giant jellyfish do exist, such as the ones that
recently appeared off the coast of Japan, but those were about the size of a washing machine, not the size of a truck. I've never heard of a jellyfish this big. So is this picture another product of Worth1000?
Update: Accipiter found
a version of this same photo minus the diver, which would seem to indicate that the version with the diver has been photoshopped. (Unless it was the diver who was photoshopped out, but that seems very unlikely to me... [Wait a second, on a closer look it does seem that something might have been removed from the version without the diver. This will require more investigation.] ) The page he linked to also had some interesting jellyfish trivia, such as
"The largest jellyfish ever found was a lion’s mane, with a bell 2m (7ft) across, and tentacles extending more than 35m" and
"A collection of jellyfish is known as a smack."
Peter Wenker sent along this picture of a giant jellyfish. He doesn't think it's real, and I'd agree. I know that giant jellyfish do exist, such as the ones that recently appeared off the coast of Japan, but those were about the size of a washing machine, not the size of a truck. I've never heard of a jellyfish this big. So is this picture another product of Worth1000?
Comments
NOW PLAYING AT A THEATER NEAR YOU:
Medusa Park
A real jelly fish, and a real diver shot on a vastly different scale.
It's just like those giant animal postcards from circa 1900 where the chicken's as big as a barn or the pig is bigger than a house.
Look halfway down the page.
Of course we can't discount the possibility the photo you linked to had the diver photoshopped out of it.
...and you'll get a useful thread. Consensus seems to be that "giants" up to 6 - 8 feet in diameter exist, and have possibly been increasing in numbers, but that there is little/no evidence of anything larger.
Also, the picture at the *top* of the article that Accipiter posted is said to be photoshopped as well; there's a larger version of the photo on the Snopes thread.
Also check out
Oddly enough, searching both Snopes and googling "giant jellyfish snopes" came up either blank (the former) or with "no longer exists" pages (the latter).
Hmmm...
Yes, I did notice that the picture I found was a little suspicious. But that's the only other copy of that picture I've been able to find. I was sort of hoping that somebody with a bit more computer skills than I have might be able to tell where they got their version of the picture.
There is another possibility: Maybe the jellyfish was relatively small and the diver was behind it, much further away. A photoshopper could have removed the object (camera?) carried by the diver and pasted it on top of the jellyfish to make it look like the diver was in front and the jellyfish was a giant.
The skinny:
The lion's mane jellyfish is the largest cnidaria (jellyfish) species, with some attaining a bell diameter of 2.5 m (8 feet) and tentacles as long as 30 m (100 feet) or more.
A cnidaria twice that size would make headlines. The largest catfish (found in Thailand) made news.. and that was just a big ol fish!
If you want a more realistic picture, which is honestly more impressive to me since it IS real, check out the Times Online at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,25689-1910322,00.html
Ta ta,
Nickleye
That's not to say it's not a hoax, just that you really can't prove it one way or another from a biology standpoint. You'd have to look for signs of photo-manipulation.
Cheers,
S
Also, the photo with the diver has a few more tentacles than the photo without the diver. It could be easy to add a diver to the image, but it's not so easy to add tentacles that match with the image.
So why would anyone trying to get the diver off the image move the "camera" closer to the jelly and leave part of it there? And why would they do such a "horrible" job to cover up the diver, yet manage to add realistic looking bubbles and other background noise?
http://theshadowlands.net/serpent2.htm#whale
1st
the picture WITHOUT the diver, is a fake, the chunk that looks strange matches perfect the camera of the diver, i've resized both and did 2 layers over each other so i could easily see that its a 100% match (btw. the faker did a bad job by using the clone stamp tool on such a fine thing like the tentacles).
2nd
the other picture is very strange to be honest, the diver has a minor light blue/green line around him that u see with extreme zoom (could be from getting pasted in, or the cam that did the picture was a bad one and didn't get the contrast between him and the water correctly). The color of the diver also doesn't really match the rest of the picture, but nobody knows the light at this moment under water. Not 100% sure, but if its a fake its done not bad, although a faker of that skill would have corrected the diver color i think....
bye.
Nicole.
On the other hand, the one with the diver could also be fake (as in, someone took the jellyfish, added a diver and then someone else took the fake pic and removed the diver...)
as to the diver the only problem i can find is that the lighting doesn't seem quite right, there should be a bit more light on top of him or her. but it's hard to say for sure lighting underwater is weird and the shadow of their boat could always be covering the diver.
I'll agree that a jelly this much bigger than the record should have made news but if the people that found it were amateurs and the only documentation of it was this photo. it's easy to call it a hoax and dismiss it since finding it again would be nigh impossible. If scientists had found it and thoroughly documented it then it would surely make news as a confirmed record. the current record holder was washed up on shore so it was hard to deny it's existance.