美國政府稱世上不存在美人魚

中國日報網 2012-07-05 08:47

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File photo of Hannah the Mermaid in the Mermaid Lagoon exhibit at the Sydney Aquarium. The United States government has assured citizens that much like zombies, mermaids probably do not exist.

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The United States government has assured its citizens that, much like zombies, mermaids probably do not exist, saying in an official post: "No evidence of aquatic humanoids has ever been found."

"Mermaids -- those half-human, half-fish sirens of the sea -- are legendary sea creatures," read the online statement from the National Ocean Service (NOS).

The agency, charged with responding to natural hazards, received letters inquiring about the existence of the sea maidens after the Discovery Channel's Animal Planet network broadcast "Mermaids: The Body Found" in May.

The show "paints a wildly convincing picture of the existence of mermaids, what they may look like, and why they've stayed hidden... until now," a Discovery Channel press release says.

Conversely, the US government declaration offered no conclusive proof to deny the existence of mermaids.

The statement comes after another government agency, this time the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), declared there was no conclusive evidence for the existence of zombies.

The CDC had published instructional materials on how to survive a "zombie apocalypse," in what the agency now calls "a tongue in cheek campaign to engage new audiences with messages of preparedness."

The campaign was followed by a series of cannibalistic attacks in North America.

In one such attack on May 26, a 31-year-old Miami man stripped naked and chewed off most of a homeless man's face.

The Twittersphere was suddenly alive with people talking about the real and present danger of a zombie apocalypse.

The CDC was quick to respond to allegations of corpses rising from the dead to eat the living.

"CDC does not know of a virus or condition that would reanimate the dead," a government spokesperson wrote in an email to The Huffington Post.

While zombies would be a big problem, popular folklore holds that mermaids are relatively benign creatures.

But the NOS statement associated the finned friends with more threatening mythological beasts.

"Half-human creatures, called chimeras, also abound in mythology -- in addition to mermaids, there were wise centaurs, wild satyrs, and frightful minotaurs, to name but a few," it said.

(Read by Nelly Min. Nelly Min is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)

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(Agencies)

美國政府向其公民保證，美人魚在很大程度上就如僵尸一樣，很可能根本不存在。一項官方聲明稱，“沒有任何證據表明曾發現水生類人動物。”

“美人魚——那些半人半魚的海妖——只是傳說中的海洋生物。”美國國家海洋局的網上聲明如是說。

探索頻道動物星球欄目五月份播出了《真實美人魚：科學的假設》之后，負責應對自然災害的國家海洋局便收到了數封詢問美人魚是否存在的來信。

探索頻道的一篇新聞稿稱，《真實美人魚：科學的假設》節目中“展現了一幅極具說服力的畫面證明美人魚的存在，描述她們可能擁有的樣貌，以及為什么一直隱于世間……直至今天。”

相對地，美國政府的聲明卻沒有提供任何決定性證據來否認美人魚的存在。

在這份聲明發布前，另一個政府機構——這回是美國疾病控制預防中心——宣布沒有確鑿證據證明僵尸存在。

美國疾病控制預防中心曾出版了一些指南資料教導人們如何在“僵尸末日”避難。而該機構現在稱“這只是場不必當真的宣傳活動，給新近聽說的人一些預防僵尸的信息。”

這場宣傳活動過后，北美發生了一連串食人案。

在5月26日的一次襲擊中，一位31歲的邁阿密人脫得精光，啃掉了一個流浪漢的大半張臉。