The new season of MonsterQuest, the History Channel’s cryptozoology-themed show, started airing last week. The first episode was titled “Monster Sharks,” though the subject of the episode were completely non-monster great whites in the oceans off the U.S. Increasingly I suspect the MonsterQuest people are running out of good subjects, judging from episodes like “Monster Sharks,” “Gigantic Killer Fish” (goliath groupers), and “The Real Cujo” (packs of dogs — really).

But last season MonsterQuest had a whole episode entitled “Sea Monsters,” focused mostly on something that could, at least in theory, be an unknown animal. Some guy in South Florida had a bunch of footage of an animal frolicking in an inlet. Though the footage appeared to show a manatee, much hay was made out of the fact that the animal’s tail appeared to be shaped roughly like a trident. The possibility that a manatee’s tail could be mutilated by a boat propeller to look like that was broached, but dismissed. Florida Fish and Wildlife keeps track of mutilated manatees, the show explained, and none  has a tail that looks like a trident. They also managed to find a scientist from a local university to look at the footage and exclaim that the head of the creature looked nothing like a manatee, even though it looked exactly like the head of a manatee.

Guess what? A manatee has been found with a tail that looks exactly like the one in the video tape. As reported by WPTV, Florida Fish and Wildlife biologists found the manatee huddling for warmth near a power plant. For the sake of comparison I’ve included pictures both from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission and the original videos seen on MonsterQuest.

When the economy turns sour people turn to psychics, as attested by this small story from West Palm Beach.

Mindy Mitchell has been reading palms for years in South Florida. Business has always been good, everyone hoping for a glimpse into their future, but now things are really picking up. She says the economy has changed the questions she hears. It’s not just about love and kids, now, “They want to know what their financials will be. They wanna know if career is right? If their job is gonna be sturdy?” And people around the nation aren’t holding back. They’re still shelling out hundreds for tarot cards and palm readings. One customer says, “Stability is mainly on my mind, because so many people are out of work and, you know, everything’s so expensive, you can’t pay bills, you get paid and it’s like, your money’s gone.”

You know what’s a good way to make sure you have more money? Don’t give it to charlatans and fraud artists.