Cthulhu awakes! - or perhaps not...

During the last few days, this rather impressive photograph have started doing the rounds on the internet. It was sent to me by FB friend Margit From, who had found it on the website of The Lightly Braised Turnip, which we all know is a bastion of truth. They basically claim, that an enormous squid has beached itself on the coast of California, and that it was a result of radioactive pollution from the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan.

Impressive picture one must say, although the shadow under the creatures looks a bit iffy to say the least. Maybe because this squid had already beached itself in october 2013 in Spain. On that occasion it was considerably smaller, although the photographer by creative use of forced perspective did his best to make it look monstrous. This picture can be seen on the www.live.science.com.

All in all, a nice piece of photoshop work - but thanks to eagly-eyed FB contact Martin Relsted, I can also show you the original picture the squid was superimposed upon. In this case a picture from a whale-stranding in Chile in November 2011. This can be found, on among others the website of english.cntv.cn. This shows the roped off carcass of a dead whale and a large group of spectators, corresponding exactly to what we see around the monstrous squid.

So, a fake if ever there was one. And although I can only agree with the underlying sentiment, that the radioactive pollution from the Fukushima plant in an environmental disaster, this is not the way to highlight the problem!!