Mermaids declared not real by US government

Mermaids are officially not a part of our world, according to the government.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration took the unusual step by making a public declaration that half-human, half-fish creatures inhabit only our imagination – not our oceans, the Los Angeles Times reported.

“No evidence of aquatic humanoids has ever been found,” NOAA’s National Ocean Service division said in a recent blog post.

The division usually addresses coastal threats such as climate change, population growth, port congestion and contaminants.  But after the Animal Planet network aired a show titled “Mermaids: The Body Found,” the division felt it needed to make things clear once and for all.

According to TIME, some viewers may have thought the show was a documentary after two of the scientists testified that “they found the remains of a never-before-identified sea creature.”

The film acknowledges human’s loss of body hair and slightly webbed fingers as evidence of a long lost aquatic equivalent.

The NOS asked the question why mermaids “occupy the collective unconscious of nearly all seafaring peoples,” but noted that it’s a question “best left to historians, philosophers, and anthropologists.”