The Piltdown Man, perpetrated by Charles Dawson in 1912, was hardcore academic gospel until new technology in the 1950s proved it to be a hoax - one manufactured to prove the ‘missing link’ was English. Scientists in Japan have recently reported that one of many ‘mermaids’, or Ningyo, found in the county were actually a sophisticated forgery from hundred of years ago. They were manufactured to convince people of the mystical creature’s existence and possibly to sell health elixirs since, like the Unicorn, Ningyos are thought to possess magical powers. Other hoaxes carried out by charlatans today are no less a scam even if based on very real, or possibly real, things - consider all the fake alien, insider, and cryptid stories. As with mythology there is usually a basis for the fantastic in reality. When Europeans first saw the Flamingo, their reports were seen as fantastic stories of a cryptid creature. Sailors witnessing large squid told partly true stories of the kraken and when a women was in the ocean half under and half above the water she was therefore seen as half human and half fish - a mermaid. There is much more to myths, fairytales, and even hoaxes than absolutisms.

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