"'Feejee Mermaid' has become the generic term for the many fake mermaids that can be found around the world..."
This article contains information relating to a hoax. According to Cambridge dictionary a hoax is "a plan to deceive a large group of people; a trick." |
The creature designated Organism 46-B was an aquatic beast allegedly captured by a Russian scientific team near the research outpost Vostok Station.
Description[]
Organism 46-B was an enormous 33ft (10m) long, 14-tentacled squid-like creature which lived in Lake Vostok, a subterranean subglacial lake located under two miles of ice beneath Vostok Station in the Antarctic. The animal had limbs that were animate and aggressive even after amputation, could release a toxin into the water to immobilize its prey from a distance of up to 150 feet, displayed an astonishing degree of shapeshifting, and showed a considerable degree of both hostility and intelligence.
Sightings[]
Vostok Station, established by the Soviets in 1957, was discovered to have been sited atop a vast body of liquid water beneath the ice in 1974, which was subsequently named Lake Vostok after the station. After 30 years of ice core drilling, the research team finally breached through to the lake on the 5th of February 2012. This must have occurred sometime between then and the 30th November 2016 (when the story first broke), although exact dates have so far proven impossible to track down.
Dr. Anton Padalka claims to have been part of the first scientific expedition to explore the lake. “We encountered Organism 46-B on our first day. It disabled our radio - which we later learned, to our alarm, was intentional. It is also able to paralyze prey from a distance of up to 150 feet by releasing its venom into the water. Tragically my colleague and lifelong friend was killed this way."
Later, while diving in the lake, the group was attacked, the creature releasing its venom which took hold of one of them. The Organism then proceeded to kill and eat him. As Padalka stated "He tread water wearing a blissful smile as the organism approached him. We watched helplessly as it used its arms to tear off its head then popped its remains in its mouth. It was as if it had hypnotized him telepathically.”
Still, later, 46-B stalked the group, displaying its shapeshifting ability. "It shaped itself into the form of a human diver. We thought it was one of my colleagues swimming towards us in scuba gear. By the time the closest scientist had realized what it was, it had grabbed him and torn him to bits.”
Escaping the creature, a member of the team managed to lop off one of 46-B's tentacles, although the severed limb attacked the group again. "Later that night it slid across the ice bank and strangled her," stated Padalka.
After finally trapping the creature in a tank, the surviving members of the team brought it to the surface where they claim Russian officials seized the beast and told the international press that nothing had been found.
Hoax[]
Elements of this report suggest that this was something of a hoax. For example, not only is it extremely far fetched, but ice core drilling typically produces a passage only a few inches in diameter, certainly not large enough to transport a person through two miles of ice, never mind a tank capable of containing a 33-foot long aquatic creature.
Moreover, the extreme pressures would have made many parts of this implausible.
Example 1: The first casualty could not have been affected by the toxin as the only way to survive at such pressures in water would be within a pressurized vessel or suit. Thus there would be no contact with any toxins in the water.
Example 2: The second casualty was tricked by an image of a human diver in scuba gear. However, a human would have been killed had he been in scuba gear, meaning he should have been somewhat suspicious of an unprotected human in such a pressurized environment.
Another inconsistency involves the fact that the ice directly above the water in the lake is formed from lake water itself. This was why the drilling team realized that there was an underground lake in the first place. This means that there is no space between the water and ice and thus no ice shelf to set up camp on.
However, it is certainly possible that the team was doing more than drilling core samples. Another point to note is that Dr. Padalka has so far proven impossible to locate (although this may be due to his being in hiding), and the account is known from only a handful of vague sources.
Dr. Padalka and his story was made up by the fiction author C. Michael Forsyth [1]