Lemmings unwillingly launched to the sea

Lemmings don’t leap off cliffs and commit commit suicide as they migrate. 

It turns out that the phrase “like lemmings to the sea” is nonsense. 

The metaphor derives from the 1958 Academy Award winning Disney film White Wilderness, in which staged footage was shown with lemmings jumping to their death in a scene of faked mass migration. 

A Canadian Broadcasting Corporation documentary revealed that the lemmings used for White Wilderness were actually flown from Hudson Bay to Calgary, where they did not jump off the cliff, but were in fact launched off the cliff using a turntable.

And thus “like lemmings to the sea” was created. 

Lemmings flung into the sea and killed using a turntable? 

You can’t make this stuff up.