bunjywunjy:

the cryptid “6-foot long giant dragonfish” seen in the depths off bermuda by William Beebe in the early 1930′s?

it’s a fun story, but I 1000% don’t think they’re real animals.

for starters, while they do look extremely cool, the very largest dragonfish max out at a little over a foot long! they look super intimidating in pictures, but these are all macro images:

the actual animal is like this:

which is fine! (IMAGINE how many dragonfish you could fit in your pockets)

so it would be kind of bonkers to suddenly discover a species of these things that’s described as being more than six feet long! but I guess stranger things have happened. which leads me to the next point-

water magnification!

light moves differently through water than through air, and this different means that water becomes a natural magnifying glass when you view objects in the water through an air medium, like a scuba mask… or a submarine window. objects in the water can be magnified up to 33% this way!

(this is why biologists 1000% don’t believe you when you tell them how big that shark was- it probably was at least 30% smaller than you thought)

and not only this, it’s really stupid hard to judge distances in transparent mediums like air or water when it’s dark and you’re mostly judging by eyeshine/bioluminescence!

that’s either a large creature far away, or a small creature WAY TOO FUCKING CLOSE AAAGH

add this up to the fact that this creature was only ever seen once by one dude in a very early submersible with tiny tiny windows, and I think we can chalk the Untouchable Fish incident up to the fact that deep in our hearts, all humans everywhere Just Want Gyarados To Be Real, Dammit. 

sigh… someday……..

(I’m sure Beebe saw SOMETHING, it might have even been a large dragonfish more than a foot long! but I really don’t think Giant Six-Foot Long Dragonfish Are Totally Real You Guys, I Saw Some is a valid scientific observation. it’s more likely that all of these factors and high emotions combined to make him think what he saw was MUCH bigger than it actually was. or it was an oarfish.)