Eyewitnesses, like all the rest of us, don't see the world around us merely as it is. Our ideas about the world influence how we interpret everything we see (e.g., Sharps, 2024).

Take Christopher Columbus, for example. Like many seamen, he knew stories of mermaids; but unlike many seamen, Columbus actually reported seeing them, although he said they weren't nearly as attractive as he expected (e.g., Bergreen, 2011).

He was actually looking at West Indian manatees; but he’d never seen manatees before, so he interpreted them in terms of his prior frameworks for understanding (e.g., Bransford & Johnson, 1972). Those frameworks included mermaids, but lacked manatees.

The same psychological factors still influence us today. There is a wonderful ancient bas-relief, held today in the British Museum, depicting what are frequently characterized as “ancient divers.” It includes images of men swimming with their mouths pressed into what appear to be inflated goatskins.

The basic concept on many internet sites, and on a variety of “documentaries,” is that this relief depicts ancient people diving with, essentially, an antique form of SCUBA apparatus. People really believe this.

However, this bas-relief, about 2900 years old and hailing from the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud, doesn't depict any such thing. It actually shows soldiers of Assyrian King Ashurnasirpal crossing a river. If you look closely at the relief, you will also see swimming horses and troops ferrying chunks of chariots across the same river.

But what about the men breathing away into their inflatable goats, perhaps, according to the internet and satellite TV programs, preceding........

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