On 1 June 2016, the web site NetLiveMedia published an article that a "mysterious 4-metre long sea monster" washed ashore in Mexico:
The odd-looking beast was found by sun-worshippers on Bonfil Beach, in the city of Acapulco
This is the horrifying sea-creature washed up on a beach which has been baffling oceanic experts.The odd-looking beast, a huge four metres long, was found by sun worshippers on Bonfil Beach, in the city of Acapulco, in the south-west Mexican state of Guerrero.
The photograph bore a strong resemblance to the "Montauk Monster" of 2008, down to the distinctive facial feature and creases in the creature's flesh:
As it turned out, the primary image in this digital manipulation was used in several older marine anomaly hoaxes:
The photo was a fabrication that melded a picture depicting a dead whale found in Chile back in 2011 with a picture of a giant squid that washed up on a Spanish beach in 2013:
This photograph has been repurposed several times for "sea creature" hoaxes:
A second image originated with a March 2016 beaching in Mexico involving what was initially an unidentified animal carcass, but the remains were later thought to be the decomposed head of a sperm whale. As is often the case, tabloids widely covered the initial discovery and failed to follow up when the "mysterious" find was explained just days later.
The "mysterious 4-metre long sea creature" from Mexico was a fabrication, created by splicing a photograph of the 2008 "Montauk Monster" into a 2011 image of a beached whale.
