mermaid fairy tale 3

   It never aired

   What we posted before was what could best be called a rough draft transcript for the episode written up with video clip testimonies placed where appropriate by the host of the show Josh. The reality is those town names, are made up; the show was never intended to be taken *too seriously* its just entertainment after all. More a travel program showcasing other cultures, exotic locations, and weird local legends. The producer decided we should change the name of the towns so tourists don't go flocking to them and to avoid grief from local officials as a result. Normally our team would look around, get some testimonies for authenticity; and then wander around with night visions cameras for ambience and it is what was expected at the time from programs like this; even if the sightings were in broad daylight and the sort of thing that was more a legendary encounter than some ghost or cryptid. I mean, hell, mermaids. We had footage from the night waiting to charter a boat of nightvision cameras sitting on the beach by some rocks near that cove that was a massive waste of memory card space aside from seeing a crab wander by during the night. But that was the usual method; put the cameras in some god awful spot so it looks like we tried to the casual viewer; but at an angle where if anything; as in bugs, wild life, garbage blown in the wind; is caught we could claim (oh there might be something). It was embarassing to me personally as a camera man when we did an episode that another show had footage of the real animal in broad daylight swimming around their feet while we tried to play off shadowy images at a bad angle to a river could "possibly" be the legendary monster...dumb; locals give supernatural traits to real animals; we should never have done this crap with a real animal we could be called out on. But I digress.

  Someone on one of our forums once said, if we ever saw anything real we'd never be able to air the episode. Because when it comes to the supernatural everything is either grainy footage that could be anything or is too clear and clearly hoaxed in some way; had people call a statue CGI because everyone thinks they're an expert and everything has to be CGI; but I digress. The thing was the way this person said it was all something like a leprechaun would have to do is walk out in front of us and ask us what we wanted and that would be the end of it; no one would believe it. Despite what some believe, in this day and age no "discovery" of the supernatural is going to be international headlines, with every scientist believing and asking for evidence. Too many hoaxes, and besides they only act like that with bodies they can examine, seeing something (clearly fictional) on camera; would kill our credibility even if it was 100% real. and that leads into what I am talking about.

   When we took the chartered ship out and ran into trouble, my first impression was that it was a set up. The producers had paid off locals to make it look like there was a conspiracy to keep us from discovering some secret underwater world of mermaids. The fact we were using fake names for the area cemented this idea in my head at the time. So I thought it a laugh to take the seer stone the apparent focus of this investigation had left behind; in what also felt like an overly dramatic way to be real. But what I saw made no sense; when looking through the stone the coast guard boats were gone, just open water and a strange very large silvery shape just beneath the water; like a flying saucer only just under the waves. I looked back and forth a few times; I guess I turned pale; but considering the next thing I knew was an ear peircing shriek that made my entire body feel like it was being vibrated apart I didn't have a chance to say anything or pick up the camera to see if it saw them; we got no footage of any coast guard; camera was still set up below deck from the interview. But it really rattled me, next thing I knew we were back to shore and I was coming out of it, temporary memory loss of what happened to. By the time I remembered what had happened we were packing up to leave the next day, apparently local authorities confirming the fish farm story despite the locals knowing nothing about it.

   But it occured to me, the producers had basically announced our intentions to everyone by looking for a ship with someone on the crew they could interview who knew the guy; Jack. So someone got out there ahead of us to prevent us from finding something. Since we were back down to the little town; which the producers made up a long name for; I decided to get up early and get some handheld camera footage of the area around the beach as the sun was rising with no host talking over it or any city sounds.