[[quoteright:189:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mermaids_the_body_found.jpg]]

''Mermaids: The Body Found'' was a 2012 [[FoundFootageFilms Found Footage]] {{Mockumentary}} by Creator/AnimalPlanet is about a group of scientists trying to uncover a GovernmentConspiracy to hide their research into an underwater sonic weapon, and to hide the existence of mermaids, which would have ended the testing prematurely had their existence been revealed.

It was made after Creator/AnimalPlanet’s previous mockumentary ''Film/DragonsAFantasyMadeReal'' and was followed up by ''Mermaids: The New Evidence'' in May 2013 and several mockumentaries including Creator/DiscoveryChannel’s ''Film/MegalodonTheMonsterSharkLives'' which are often considered as SpiritualSuccessor’s.

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!!This film provides examples of:

* ArtisticLicenseBiology: The explanation of how (and why) a tailless hominid re-evolves a tail in order to create the standard mermaid bodyplan never appears: one section shows a standard hominid bodyplan, the next is a mermaid. It's also noticeable that the head and face remain human(ish) and do not streamline. It seems implied that the hominids' legs fuse into a tail-like structure, as the flukes are shown to contain bones, presumably developed from the original foot bones, an incident that has never been known to happen in existing aquatic mammals, which is discussed by the interviewees. One scientist's reaction to bones in the flukes was, according to him, "WTF? This is unprecedented!"
** Also, the mermaids' evolution seems to have happened much too fast to be believable. The terrestrial ancestors of whales took nearly 10 million years to become fully aquatic, but the mermaids are shown doing this in less than 2 million years.
%%* FoundFootageFilms
* GovernmentConspiracy: For reasons beyond the main cast's knowledge, the U.S. Navy goes to great lengths to cover up the existence of merfolk. Possibly to continue the research into sonic weaponry, or possibly to continue tests on the merfolk themselves.
* GratuitousForeignLanguage: One of the 'witnesses' interviewed in the video is a fisherman who speaks in what sounds like a mix of German and Nordic dialects.
* HeroicSacrifice: A sentinel merman leads a hungry ''megalodon'' away from the rest of his group by cutting himself to get its attention.
* HumansAreTheRealMonsters: The film goes to great lengths to draw a contrast between the gentle merfolk who coexist peacefully with whales and dolphins, and the monstrous humans who will gladly tolerate the collateral deaths of unknown numbers of them in the name of weapons research, and will even go out of their way to cover up the very ''existence'' of mermaids so that they can continue said weapons research without worrying about potential [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman human(?)]] rights violations.
** It also implies that paleo-art shown in the film is evidence that primitive humans were also aggressors towards the merfolk.
-->'''Dr. Webster:''' We (humans) aren't so good at co-existence.[[note]]He's referring to humans dominating and exterminating Neanderthals.[[/note]]
* JitterCam: The footage from the kids' camera phone.
* JumpScare:
** [[spoiler: The cell phone video near the end features the seemingly-dead mermaid sitting up and screeching at one of the kids checking its "corpse".]]
** Also another video where a camera focuses in on a porthole on a holding tank [[spoiler: and a webbed hand suddenly appears, startling the person filming it]].
* OurMermaidsAreDifferent: The show carefully makes the evolution of hominids into aquatic creatures a plausible concept, using biological possibilities to pose an evolutionary "what if?" scenario, using the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquatic_ape_hypothesis Aquatic Ape hypothesis]].
* {{Mockumentary}}: Despite the creators saying that the film was made for entertainment (and the CG beach mermaid), many people believed that the portrayed events are real. The film however did little to make that apparent aside from a blink-and-you-miss it disclaimer during the credits.
* NotUsingTheZWord: A variant. It took the scientists a while, perhaps months, before they could say what they were thinking: "mermaids".
* SpeculativeBiology: Speculates what mermaids would be like if they were real.
* StealthMentor: Even more subtly than ''Series/LostTapes''. For examples, the documentary notes that Navy sonar tests have been directly implicated in whale beachings, and "The Bloop" is a real phenomenon, though no one knows what it is (although it's currently thought to be the sound of an "icequake").
* SuperPersistentPredator: While it doesn't go to crazy extremes to get food, the second ''Megalodon'' chases after the pod of merfolk, completely ignoring a fresh whale kill in favor of some tiny aquatic hominids. This would be the equivalent of a human rejecting a chicken dinner and going out of its way for a few crackers.
* TechnologyMarchesOn: Invoked by the fact that the Navy didn't confiscate a kid's cell phone, not knowing it had the very new video recording feature at the time.
* ThreateningShark: ''Megalodon'', a gigantic prehistoric species of shark, appears in a short segment where some hunt a whale and a merman is forced to make an HeroicSacrifice to keep the predators away from his pod.
* WhamLine: "Not flippers. Not fins. ''Hands.''"
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