Invasion Of The Fish People

quote:

He had the whole body of a fish, but above his fish's head he had another head which was that of a man, and human feet emerged from beneath his fish's tail. He had a human voice,

.......

And when the sun set, this being Oannes, retired again into the sea, for he was amphibious. After this there appeared other animals like Oannes.

An account rendered by Berossus, a Babylonian priest of the 13th century B.C.¹

The Invasion Of The Fish People

TIoTFP was something like a collborative sotrytelling project combined with a heavy dash of delusion so that it was often difficult to work out what we actually believed at anyone point (although at various points we did believe it all) and it went something a little like this:

Basically The Fish Man used to go around the pubs selling his fishy wares but he always seemed awfully pushy - granted he had to make a living but I had a bad encounter with a crab as a child and most certainly wasn't interested in his crab sticks!!

Anyway at some point I commented to my best mate that he didn't look quite human (more like a good quality mask) and in fact I thought I could see the seam running down behind his ears (as you do).

Next time he came into the pub my best friend confirmed that there was certainly something slightly "unfinished" about his appearance and he never seemed to fit his white coat properly.

We kicked the idea around for a bit and kept an eye on him and came to the conclusion that he was probably a large octopus wearing some kind of latex "human suit".

Its unclear at what point this got from a vague joke to something we actually believed but while not strictly a classic folie à deux (where a dominant person's delusions are taken on by another person) it was certainly a self-supporting delusion that, at some points, we certainly believed was true - at the height of the Invasion my friend wore a disgusting old fishing hat to the pub all the time as we'd decided it kept them away.

Although we probably never believed in it consistently we certainly bought into it a number of times and I remember we were both awfully nervous when there was a wildlife documentary on about the intelligence of octopi and their ability to squeeze through small space (like letter boxes!!!). We also discussed this with other friends down my local and it did take on the proportions of a folie à famille (which incidentally was used a defence by one of the Manson Family) and we had a lot of people believing it.

We tracked developments over the years and noticed that The Fish Man's suit went through a couple of upgrades until he looked nearly human (although not quite). We also thought a tunnel had been dug form the sea to a roundabout just outside the pub which acted like a lid on the exit.

Its unclear where being stupid graded into actually believing it but we did crapped ourselves when the fishing hat was "stolen" as we thought it mean the Invasion was imminent.

We look back on it and laugh (nervously) now and The Fish Man died a few years back - its lucky we still weren't caught up in the belief as I'm sure someone would have suggested digging him up to check - not that we would have done of course or would we?

From a version I posted in the "human suit" thread over at Fortean Times message board:

http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=21110

Footnotes

1 http://oannes.home.mindspring.com/oannesstory.html

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