The new Georgia Aquarium is a apparently a super secret extra hush-hush covert operation. Bernie Marcus is trying to keep details about the aquarium secret in order to hype the opening in Novemember. It reminds me of those early previews for the first Batman movie where the screen was filled with the bat symbol and nothing else. Ooh what’s that? Why won’t they tell me anything about it? Oooh I must know more, super secret shiny mysterious thing.

From the AJC:

The 76-year-old billionaire, who is spending $200 million of his own money to build the ship-shaped aquarium in downtown Atlanta near Centennial Olympic Park, has revived and honed that Home Depot philosophy for his latest venture, which some in the very small universe of big-time aquariums have dubbed the “Cone of Silence.”
….
The run-up to the aquarium’s Nov. 23 opening has been marked by stacks of confidentiality agreements, secret flights, code names and covert tours for big shots. Even the governor of Georgia is on board.

This kind of strategy works for movies and new drugs (all though I believe the latter’s mysterious nature is government mandated), but is it really necessary for an aquarium? I think folks will be pretty excited when it opens. I was living in New Orleans when their Aquarium of the Americas and they had lines out the door and down the river for months. There was no need for a “Cone of Silence.”

But, I suppose that anything to convince more people to come into the city is a good thing. I’m just not sure how many extra folks all the secrecy will bring in, though.

In the interest of spoilers, here’s what will be in the Aquarium, according to public records:

5 million gallons of water
over 100,000 fish
500 species
2 whale sharks
2 beluga whales

That’s not a lot to go on. I’m looking forward to it. I’m mainly interested in what its going to cost me to get in.