Charlotte the Stingray has died... https://www.cbsnews.com/news/stingray-charlotte-pregnancy-dies-aquarium-shark-lab-north-carolina/

I think this means I will resolve the market to N/A if possible, as we may now never know the full story, and part of the premise was that we would eventually see pups

@mods please resolve this market to N/A

The bad ending 😭

An understandable N/A but we all know what really happened here...these aquarium owners are worse than Boeing!

Poor charlotte

Noooooooo 😭

But Ramer also acknowledged that her staff had only recently learned how to use the ultrasound machine.

"It's kind of like trying to read Chinese, isn't it?" she said as she gestured at the screen, noting that rays' cartilage makes ultrasound images hard to decipher.

If anyone watching also happened to read ultrasounds for a living, she added, "Please chime in."

https://www.npr.org/2024/06/03/nx-s1-4990216/charlotte-stingray-pregnant-not-disease

It's going to be hard to prove the not-ever-pregnant view, I suspect, but the circumstantial evidence is piling up. Even if this N/As, I'm calling it a win in my prediction diary 😀

I am absolutely living for the fact that thanks to this market I am super invested in this story.

Charlotte has a disease. Although the article leaves question open of whether she was pregnant at an earlier point. https://www.npr.org/2024/06/03/nx-s1-4990216/charlotte-stingray-pregnant-not-disease

Market extended to 30th of June

@ConnorTabarrok confirmed(?) not to be pregant(?):

https://cw34.com/news/offbeat/charlotte-stingray-pregnancy-update-hendersonville-north-carolina-team-ecco-aquarium-shark-lab-viral-fame-worldwide-mystery

@ConnorTabarrok and I can see this is going to be hard for you to judge since we are unlikely to learn much more from this point. I still think she was not ever pregnant, but bought some "pregnant but didn't carry to term" to hedge against a decision that took the untrustworthy aquarium owner's word at face value.

This story is going to blow wide open some time this year. I mean, look at this sus behavior:

I wasn’t allowed to conduct any interviews in the aquarium, and I’d seen all there was to see, so I decided to leave and come back at 3:15 for the ray feeding, hoping to learn more official information about Charlotte. I did a person-on-the-street interview outside on the sidewalk with visitors who’d come to pay homage to Charlotte, then settled down on a public bench to wait. 

That’s when I was approached by a member of the Hendersonville police. Officer Marianna Tinoco asked if I was a news reporter, then explained that they’d received a call that I was harassing people. I told her I’d only interviewed one couple who’d been eager to talk. Tinoco said I could carry on with my work, as long as I wasn’t harassing anyone, then she and a second officer walked into the aquarium.

When they came back out, they told me that Ramer wanted them to book me for “trespassing.” They weren’t going to charge me with anything, they said—I looked “sweet.” But if I went back into the aquarium, they would have no choice but to arrest me.

This was my second dust-up with police in 15 years of journalism. The last one was reporting on neo-Nazis in Germany. This one was about a stingray. 

I requested the recording and report from the 911 call a few days later. In it, an unnamed female caller claimed a reporter was outside “harassing” guests and an officer was needed to “make sure everybody’s safe out there.” They had young volunteers, the caller said, who “didn’t need to see this.” 

@AlQuinn so this is what I think:

1) Charlotte developed cysts or a tumor

2) this was mistaken for being a pregnancy

3) the story went viral and raised the prospects of this aquarium

4) the expected due date passed, and the prevarication started (maybe innocently at first due to confirmation bias and wanting badly for this to be true)

5) at some point, the aquarium owners started to doubt themselves, which caused them to increasingly act in a dishonest manner

6) they are now stuck in their narrative with no game plan

Regarding #6, it's clear these people are not too bright given the 911 call over a petite female redhead reporter doing reporter things near their place of business. I'm guessing they will milk this and then basically do a ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ down the road.

Still nothing, hmmm...

https://www.eonline.com/news/1400632/why-pregnant-stingray-charlotte-is-sparking-conspiracy-theories

@AlQuinn it's so frustrating... I think I might close the market and return everyones bets if there is no answer by end of May

@ConnorTabarrok the truth will come out eventually. Unlike Boeing, I don't think the aquarium is going to start assassinating whistle-blowers that will prove me right

@ConnorTabarrok noooo keep it up at least until the end of the year!

Personally my theory a month ago was the pregnancy timing is hard to predict and the pups are coming

Extended again as we have not seen any stingray pups yet

@ConnorTabarrok still no birth yet, will check back in a week I guess

@ConnorTabarrok still nothing. And I'm still of the opinion she may not be pregnant, but I don't think "hoax" captures that scenario.

@AlQuinn I agree. I've added a few other options

@AlQuinn if she was never pregnant ant the aquarium knew that and kept advertising about it, I would resolve to hoax. If she was never pregnant but the aquarium wasn't scamming, I'll probably go to N/A.

@Mad I can resolve to multiple right? I think theres a good chance it was parthenogenesis and that the pups failed to fully develop as a result.

@ConnorTabarrok I don't know anything about manifold 😂