In the old days, people had very good imaginations about things. When it came to whales, people thought they had eight arms and seven feet with a flea collar around its neck! The people would only see the shape or the tail of the whale going into the water and thought they had seen something monstrous. They drew pictures and stories about their sightings.
When the word got out about whale sightings, people began drawing fantastic and completely unrealistic pictures of them. Other people who had never seen whales would believe them. Today, we call this exaggeration, claiming that "you're just seeing things." Here's an example of one of these unrealistic pictures that people drew.
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