Now the Russians have found a weird sea creature-- really, really weird

[flippyshark]

Not only a hoax, but you used to be able to buy these at tacky dockside gift shops. Sometimes, the wings of a small ray would be cut to form little arms and legs, which curled up as the carcass dried out. The result was a twisted looking monster, usually dangling from a wire to hang as a mobile. It would be accompanied by a little card identifying it as the rare "devil fish" or similar nonsense.

I haven't seen one of these in a long whle, but I do remember, about a decade ago, some friends of mine at the Great Movie Ride got suckered into believing that an acquaintance of theirs had acquired an alien corpse from a government facility. They were completely fooled, and thoroughly freaked out about it. When I explained to them what it was (they had xeroxed pictures of the critter with them at the ride) they got kind of pissed off. Not at the guy who hoaxed them, but at me!