The Story of Mermaids: Are They Real After All?

hello everybody welcome back to another episode of decoding the unknown as always hello there i'm your host simon what happens here one of my writers in this case ilse has written her script from me the story of mermaids already the title are they real after all no no there's no one out like from the simple biology of it how would it that it's a how does a mermaid work what is that how does that work how does that work i mean there's probably a there's probably a way i don't want to think about it it's weird let's just okay look i'm starting from a very skeptical position here let's see if elsa commences convinces me in this enormous script they have in front of me [Music] from beautiful maidens saving drowning sailors to half-human monsters luring innocent men to their deaths mermaids have been a staple of fiction and folklore since man has been telling stories fresh water sea water ex-south african president zuma's swimming pool whoa [Music] okay yeah that apparently happens if there's a body of water there's probably a mermaid in it no there's not and a body of water does not include a swimmer i've got a body of water in my backyard it's a puddle stories of mermaids are as varied as the cultures who tell them they can be beautiful maidens warning soldiers of impending storms or they can be omens of bad luck if you see a mermaid at sea expect a death on board oh sh well good news there's never going to be any deaths on board ships because no one sees any mermaids because they're not real of course a mermaid who is angered can cause a storm so it's better not to cross them in other tales they're horrifying beasts they can grant immortality or make wishes come true i don't care how horrible the beast is if they can grant immortality i'm gonna make friends with that beast to me mermaid i was just imagine ariel from the little mermaid that's what mermaids are to me obviously fictional with their volatility and unpredictable nature mermaids are often considered a symbol of the wild and untameable ocean itself their likeness was carved into figureheads of ships as a means of protection and mapmakers often use mermaids to indicate dangerous or uncharted waters here be mermaids and monsters ah no not another mermaid i'll be honest when i started researching this script i expected to mostly tell the story of mermaids what they are where do they come from what do they mean you know more mythology than fact because everybody knows that mermaids aren't real right imagine my surprise when i learned that not only are the thousands of people who believe mermaids are very real some folks even believe that they are direct descendants of mermaids or actual mermaids themselves i mean yeah of course they do there are people out there who believe they're like napoleon does it makes them napoleon absolutely not does it make them crazy absolutely so this begs the question why this firm belief in the existence of mermaids is there a grain of truth hidden somewhere in all the tales well yeah probably i mean usually like there's some mythology thing and it's like well there's a little bit of truth there we could see how that got started um so yeah okay sure origins being a writer i like to start at the beginning where did the legends of mermaids originate mostly it seems that mermaids don't have a clear star they're a bit like a force of nature they simply are mermaids like the wind you can't see it but you know it's there inside people they're like you know god's real you can't see the wind either can you it's like it's not that works is it however i did find two tales that might shed some light on where mermaids came from in mythology at least the thing with sirens let's start with sirens if you think that a siren and a mermaid are the same thing you're not entirely wrong it's generally accepted the tales of mermaids evolved from the original tales of sirens and in a lot of the early literature siren and mermaid are used interchangeably however sirens were not in fact mermaids sirens were half women half bird creatures what who lured men to their doom with their captivating singing it's a bit weird is that oh my god i can't resist the beautiful voice this is like what i just listened to on spotify chill the sirens were the handmaidens of persephone after persephone was abducted and taken into the underworld by hades demeter gave them the bodies of birds to help in the search for her daughter in this form they were considered dangerous and deceitful see nymphs and appear in greek mythology a few times in the tale of jason and the argonauts they are distracted by the song of orpheus later when odysseus swings behind the odyssey he survived their temptation by ordering his men to tie him to the mast and plug their ears with wax it's not clear when exactly sirens became half fish but it was so what are they that half human half bird half fish it doesn't add up that's okay it doesn't have to it's mythology and fiction but it would make sense that later storytellers thought a dangerous sea nymph is more likely to be half fish than half bird for a long time a mermaid and a siren were considered to be the same thing but in modern times the words have diverged in meaning yet again today mermaids can be either friend or foe but mostly they're depicted as the good girls of the sea helping sailors on their voyages rescuing drowning victims and falling in love with handsome heroes sirens on the other hand those handsome heroes are going to be disappointed it's like there's no that that you've got a fishtail oh my why why does my mind have to go there sirens on the other hand are considered to be dangerous and sometimes malicious perhaps they are more an embodiment of the sea wild and unpredictable like the mermaids of old atagasis the first mermaid considering that sirens were technically birds at the time atargasis is mostly regarded to have been the first actual mermaid she was a mutant who was rather than being born half bird was born half fish i made that up let's actually carry on she was a syrian goddess of water the moon and fertility since gods have to be able to multitask there are multiple legends and stories about her but one thing is fairly consistent she had a thing for water atagatus was born from heaven's egg that fell into the euphrates river a school of fish found the egg and nudged it to the shore later i'm remembering these mythology stories are so wild it's so well like people whoever wrote mythology they were on whatever like crystal meth drug was back in the day because holy i made a video for another uh channel i do called side projects and it was all about i had no idea where to put it like it didn't doesn't really belong on side projects but it's all about these crazy mythology stories and that is wild like just go watch the video i'm sure it's out by now and it's just crazy like there are crazy stories i couldn't even keep my composure and it's supposed to be a serious channel moving on later in life she went to zeus and asked him to place a symbol of a fish among the stars her way of thanking her saviors this is how the constellation of pisces came about course it is there is more than one legend to explain how she became a mermaid the story goes that she fell in love with a mortal man and bore him a daughter sammy rammus who would later become the queen of syria in some versions of the tale aphrodite was offended or perhaps a bit jealous about a garter's beauty and it was she that created this fierce passion for the mortal man in the first place now from here there are two stories the first story states that atagatus accidentally killed a human lover and inner soros threw herself in a lake a different i'm still wondering how she had a baby how does that make biology work what is wrong with me a different tale claims that she was deeply ashamed by her sinful act of having a baby by a mortal man though this never seemed to bothers you so i reckoned she would have just been just fine and in her shame she killed her lover left the baby to the elements the baby was saved by doves of course it was and she threw herself into a lake either way into the lake she went however because of her immense beauty the other gods were unwilling to let her die instead she was transformed into a woman with the tail of a fish today known as a mermaid oh okay so she wasn't a mermaid yet so she had a baby with a mortal man even though she was a god which i mean it's gonna be a weird power dynamic isn't it you know i'm a god you're not a god ah do i have free will why are you doing this because of love or because you've messed with me like some bruce almighty asagasus was a powerful water goddess and a fierce protector of her people two qualities still associated with mermaids even today memorable mermaids in mythology mythological mermaids could make up an entire script all by itself not my channels some sources group all manner of water nymphs deities and shape-shifters from the scottish selkie to the slavic rusalka as mermaids but for this script i'm going to focus on our current idea of a mermaid half human half-ish the top half is human the bottom it would be weird if it was the other way around just a big carp just a big carp's body with human legs it'd be a lot less appealing wouldn't it be a disney movie with a big carp face and human legs be awesome someone should make that maybe it's already been made i'm going to look that up on you i was what you could look up on youtube i was like you see these walls if you're watching this i've got these walls in the background here and i was like i bet someone like that guy from free solo could climb just a wall like that you could fit your little fingers in there and i look it up on youtube and there's videos of people climbing walls just regular walls and i'm like this is amazing and after this i'm going to watch a video about a fish head human legs what am i doing with my life what do i what's wrong with me i don't have time to watch people climbing walls what's going on i'm not going to try and cover all of them there are simply too many so instead i decided to look at a few memorable and interesting mermaids that may not have a disney movie about them yet like my brilliant idea for a carp face human-legged fish monster melusine the starbucks logo who originally had her tits out by the way did you know that the original starbucks logo nude upstairs yes not all mermaids live in the ocean melusine the two-tailed mermaid best known for her appearance on the starbucks logo is in fact a freshwater mermaid she is best known in europe especially around northern western france luxembourg belgium and the netherlands know now she's known everywhere because she's on the starbucks logo they are everywhere the story except for russia ah the story goes that the king met a beautiful woman in the woods and begged her to marry him she agreed as long as he promised to never check in on her while she bathed apparently the requirements for marriage were tad bit more lenient back then some stories say that she had the lower body of a servant oh sorry not a servant that would be weird a serpent when she bathed i mean not it'd be less interesting like whoa your legs have changed into the legs of someone very similar oh it would explain the need for secrecy one day the king broke his promise and presumably got the surprise of his life the fairy then fled to avalon with her daughters melisine the eldest daughter finds her father once she's all grown up and imprisons him in a mountain as punishment for breaking his promise to her mother however when the mother learns what she'd done she curses melusine to become a fish from the waist down every saturday which frees up monday to friday for running errands very considerate of her [Music] thessalonique i have no idea if i'm pronouncing these correctly by the way and uh also don't care the sister of alexander the great what when is in 295 bc she was transformed into a mermaid and lived in the aegean sea whenever she came across a ship she would ask if her brother was still alive the sailors answered with [Music] her and she would create a storm condemning them all aboard wait that's the end of her story okay mama water an african mermaid tail an african legend mama water means mother of the waters the spirit can be found in various regions across the continent and so it can appear as either male or female never heard of a male male mermaids i guess that's not i get they can be male i guess why not you don't want to discriminate she is depicted as a mermaid a snake charmer or a combination of the two in some tales she could date human form but she's never truly human mamma water is considered a benevolent deity and is worshiped for beauty healing wisdom as well as protection against natural disasters has our roots in africa because of the slave trade the legend spread across the atlantic and different versions of the tale can be found in the americas as well wait do we have to go through all these mermaids i'm making an editorial description to skip ahead people are like sorry we're learning about the mermaids and i'm like oh my god i just don't care enough about the mermaids they're just stories and like even it's not like we're reading some genius fiction like uh the twilight saga we're reading about boring mythological mermaids let's just move on mermaids in the evolutionary chain unlike some conspiracy theories mermaid supporters actually have some science on their side in fact there are two theories that are considered to support the possibility of mermaids actually existing the aquatic ape theory and the possibility of convergent evolution now again some science this is why you guys come here for like mermaids i'm here for like how do the mermaids fit in is this actually possible this is my jam let's go the aquatic ape theory aquatic ape theory is one of those theories that drives scientists a little bit wild orthodox scientists consider it pseudoscience while supporters of the theory feel that their research is being overlooked and pushed out of the realm of scientists by scientists unwilling to consider radical ideas either way it has caused a division in the scientific community that would have made darwin proud according to the aquatic ape theory human evolution had an aquatic phase around 3.5 to 9 million years ago since bones were not well preserved in water it would explain the fossil gap humans died in the water and their remains including the bones were consumed by creatures perfectly adapted to crunching bones yeah but all of them forever nothing got trapped in like some weird like ocean equivalent of a mudslide and preserve before it could be captured come on supporters of the aquatic ape theory suggest that some environmental situation forced our ancestors towards the waters whether this was competition for food or some environmental disaster is unclear but it was necessary for the survival of the species they argue that human beings show a lot of psychological adaptations that would make sense for a species evolving in the savanna another theory of evolution but it would make sense for a species evolving to live in the water is there a gap though that we haven't plotted in that i don't know enough about this to talk about intelligently really but is there a gap in the fossils like is there like enough surely we'd know about this we'd have found some fossils or something because a lack of evidence doesn't mean it didn't happen of course but it does make it a little bit unlikely there are quite a few and i'm not going to cover them all or what theories of evolution or lie oh no about the adaptations but the most significant is probably the fact that humans walk on two legs instead of four humans would have had to walk on their hind legs to keep their heads above water while animals in the wild sometimes stand on their hind legs and could even walk on the handloads it's not a very efficient way to move around apes on four legs are faster and more agile which would have made it tough for a bipedal creature to compete when it came to climbing trees and hunting for food other arguments include humans evolving without fur that would make them more efficient swimmers i have only one comment on this seals the sliders they're like the the the scientists who are leaving this are like hey hey why do you have it look we don't have any fur we must have been in the water as some other side this is like bro bro bro bro seals mother that's why you're not getting published in nature it's not we don't like you it's just we think you're insane seals exist also those cats without any fur it's like the opposite argument they exist they're not that cats hate water and there are cats without fur i'm sure that's not an argument i'm sure someone just bred those cats not to have any fur because someone was a right dick or actually i think i know the story wasn't one born without fur and then they just made it out of kids so they had cats without fur and now there's a whole breed of cats without fur which is just like why why would you why the best thing about cats is you could stroke them because i mean i guess you could stroke the weird skin cats it just sounds horrible ah so you just straight just like shudders down it's got this weird like you can imagine it's slightly sticky and clammy weird humans also have a layer of fat underneath their skin to help retain body heat since heat is quickly lost in the water to cool down human sweat however sweating leads to the loss of vital salt which could be a problem for a land animal but not a sea animal in fact aquatic animals sometimes have to get rid of extra soul which humans can do through sweat and tears then of course there's the argument that human babies instinctively know how to hold their breath underwater which would certainly make giving birth in the water easier in fact water birthing is still an accepted practice today of course there's more to this theory but the important takeaway here is that there is a school of thought that holds that at one time in our evolution human beings were mostly or at least very partially water dwelling creatures i don't know the babies automatically knew to hold their breath underwater who tried that so what we're gonna do we're gonna dunk that baby in water and see if it breathes in the water you need to be reported to an ethics board scientist who said that and now we go from the realm of pseudoscience the realm of what are you smoking and can i have some science some believe that when our human ancestors returned to land and continued their evolution from flint tools into the tech-savvy creatures of today another branch of humans went deeper into the water where they evolved and adapted to living underwater by growing fish tales the ability to breathe underwater and amazing singing voices to lure sailors to their deaths because obviously you'd need that yeah why do you have a beautiful singing voice well evolution has uh led me to capture sailors and lead them to death so it's like what mate do you know long evolution takes have sailors even been around that long i don't think so this is the crack smoking theory isn't it convergent evolution this theory wasn't covered in so much depth because it's crazy but it's interesting and perhaps a little more plausible convergency oh i'm sorry no the convergent evolution theory we're talking about that one now so are you confused god i can't keep up today i didn't sleep very well last night my kids having nightmares or something just wakes up like every hour screaming and i gotta go comfort them and i said oh come on why i was asleep i was having abusable dreams were you ever in nightmares you bastards convergence evolution is when two species reach the same evolutionary endpoint but through different means think of wings and the ability of flight found in insects birds and bats yes super cool also eyes develop independently which makes me wonder like if there are aliens out there do they also have to like did they also i mean we just can't know but it's not insane to think that eyes if they developed completely independently on different species that they'd also develop on aliens which is crazy some mermaid supporters suggest that mermaids evolve from a different aquatic ancestor but still develops humanoid features one reason this may be plausible is the mermaid's fin while we call it a fishtail it isn't actually a fishtail a fishtail moves horizontally however aqratic mammals like dolphins and seals have fins that move up and down while mermaid tails are usually described with scales or compared to that of a fish in many images they're depicted with the tail of an aquatic mammal of course this could also be because people have been confusing aquatic mammals like manatees with mermaids but that really is a far less interesting take on events also also some people would describe that as a far more realistic take on events like me so if these theories are to be considered seriously perhaps mermaids evolved either from humans or some other aquatic ancestor but surely if mermaids were real someone would have seen one by now right well people are always i've seen them but it's like yo show me a believable video that isn't a grainy piece it's like you know what people are like have you seen that alien video that ufo video it's always some grainy piece of [ __ ] where there's like a light and it's flashing around and i'm like yo show me some mother hd independence day [ __ ] and i'll be like well that was made in the hollywood studio but if i it's never very believable show me something proper mermaid sightings apparently man has been seeing mermaids since the dawn of time a quick look through some of the hard-hitting internet publications brimming with journalistic integrity we'll show you a collection of mermaid sightings more numerous than stars in the sky on this channel however we require a little more so instead of grasping at every single mermaid sighting ever recorded i'm just going to go through some of the more popular and interesting stories second century gaul pliny the elder while a bit overlooked today was a well-regarded greek author and scientist to pen to work the natural history that appears to cover pretty much everything from medicine art to the natural world and of course mermaids and sea monsters it's okay this was nearly 2 000 years ago and i'm betting that most of the people listening to this right now have heard of pliny the elder i would say if anyone has ever heard of you or in any way has a record of you in 2000 years i would not describe you as overlooked you're probably one of the most important people of today's era according to pliny the elder there were several sightings of nereids which is basically a greek version of a mermaid in fact one of these creatures had washed up on shore and its plaintive cries as it lay dying could be heard from quite a distance word had also been sent to emperor tiberius informing him of a triton playing a conch shell being seen and heard in a cave the government this is ah historians in the past yeah some of it's true and also some of it's just made up because i got to fill in the details didn't i a governor of gaul also wrote a letter to emperor augustus to inform him about a great number of narried bodies washing up on the shore another report was of a sea man who would climb onto ships the side of the ship where he sat would immediately sink and if the sea man remains sea man which remains remains on the ship it would sink completely of course you've got to push him off the side real quick of course the stories don't end there one story goes that at one time 300 sea creatures resembling regular land animals among them elephants and rams washed up on shore the conclusion to draw from this if you were a part of the mere folk family gall always the place to be rabbi [ __ ] between 10 40 and 1105. the ancient greek philosophers and scientists were not the only ones who believed in mermaids of course not people still believe there are probably people watching this video now who are still like simon mermaids are real cause thousands of people watch these videos how does that sound i'm not even sure how many views this channel gets anymore but statistically one of you out there and i want you to hit me up in the comments has been like if you're watching this or scars as a podcast i know i know um if you're on youtube you can leave a comment and there will be someone who's been like well simon i've seen a mermaid i had a conversation with a mermaid when i was sailing my boat and i'm like how many mushrooms did you take that day uh or tell me your mental history you like the bat you know you got some issues you guys have issues you do you i know you do because they're not real how many times do i have to tell you the talmud makes reference to dolphins it's like dolphin but with an f creatures that reproduce like humans my first thought was that dolphins sound suspiciously like dolphin it works better when it's written out but it's like f and then ph okay why don't we just spell ph with f why are we so stupid dolphin even looks better dolphin with a ph looks stupid which is a mammal and therefore reproduced like humans however apparently the dolphins with an f referred to actually considered to be people more literally the children of the sea according to rabbi [ __ ] also known as rashi these creatures called uh sarin in old french are fish with half the form of a fish and half the form of a man it's going to be the fishtail isn't it it's never the fish head it's never my genius carp creature no i'm not jewish and i don't know the torah or the talmud all that well so i'm relying on internet sources here but i find the idea of a jewish mermaid quite intriguing fascinating oh what wait what makes your burbage unique from all the other mermaids it's a jewish mermaid okay can't eat a pizza with a pepperoni and cheese on it sounds rubbish the dutch mermaid of edam edam edam he don't care according to the story a mermaid became trapped in burma lake close to edam in the netherlands in 1403 when the dykes broke during a storm man netherlands is on its game with all this water 1403 and they're building dikes now it's like half their country would be underwater if it wasn't for all these like powerful i made videos about them there's this big thing that keeps all the water out it's pretty awesome after the storm had subsided the dyke was fixed and the mermaid was trapped in the lake where she lived hunt hunted for fish at first the local women were frightened by the creature but eventually after seeing her daily on their trips to their cows they got used to her and decided to capture yeah after i you know when i meet someone for the first time and so i don't know you very well then you become their friends and then you capture them it's the natural progression of a friendship and then you lock them in your basement after catching her and cleaning off all the seaweed and moss the mermaid species dirty bird eight the mermaid had to be placed under guard as she constantly tried to flee back to the sea later the city of harlem acquired the mermaid she never learned to speak but she did learn to spin and eventually was able to sign to the woman who visited her to indicate that she knew them after about 15 or 16 years she died but by then she'd made the sign of the cross so often that she was considered christian and given a christian burial fascinating and real there seem to be some questions about this tale oh no i'm sorry about the tale as in her literal tale one source claims that the original story never mentions a fishtail but rather the woman had legs this actually makes one of the possible explanations more likely we'll get to that in a little bit another source claims that she's still at the tail of a fish but that a tail rested in a tub of water placed under a chair made especially for this purpose you love these crazy stories a third story claims that she did have a tail but the mermaids can remove their tails if they wish and it's like a costume and that she what is going on and since she was now on land she removed her tail and went about on two legs it's just seemed to can someone else put the tail on some historians have suggested the mermaid was in fact a woman who had fallen overboard in the storm and somehow washed up in the lake it's possible that she was mute or mentally disabled which would explain why she never learned to talk whether she was a real mermaid or an unfortunate victim of a time where disabilities were not understood or tolerated to this day there are statues and artwork dedicated to the mermaid of edom this is so sad it's like a mentally anticapable fell in the lake oh look at the mermaid look at this is flashing about like an idiot inappropriate people in the past inappropriate christopher columbus on january the 9th 1493 intrepid explorer christopher columbus came across three mermaids off the coast of hispaniola today known as the dominican republic while looking for a western route to india apparently mermaids weren't the only thing christopher columbus couldn't find apparently columbus was rather disappointed by the encounter as he described the creatures to not be as beautiful as they were usually painted though their faces did resemble human faces like oh they've got two eyes i got snouts christopher lovers he's like those women are not very beautiful hey chris mate that's a seal or whatever that would be in portuguese it's portuguese right or was he spanish and then he went to portugal to get the money it was one way round he was either spanish and he went to portugal to get the money he was portuguese and he went to the spanish to get the money i feel like i should definitely know what nationality christopher columbus was i want to say spanish and the money was portuguese he also claimed to have seen mermaids another time off the coasts of africa in the area of guinea though not much is available on that encounter it's generally accepted today that what columbus actually saw were manatees or the now extinct stellar sea cow some feel an experienced explorer would not confuse a manatee for a mermaid while others consider having been at sea for five months without female company the crowner captain simply saw they wanted to see be like what's that chris that looks like a woman to me ah no as far as i'm concerned it's columbus we're talking about here he's not exactly a reliable narrator so i'll take anything he says with a generous helping of skepticism not hard for me henry hudson and his crew on june 15 1608 on the second voyage of henry hudson an english explorer looking for the elusive north east passage thomas hills and robert rayner crewman of the hopewell spotted a mermaid while traveling along the coast of norway of course they immediately called everyone over to take a look since you really didn't see that kind of thing every day the mermaid was described as looking like a woman with a very pale skin and black hair from the navel up while below a part of her was a fish a porpoise to be exact but speckled like that of a mackerel to my knowledge hudson was a tad bit more reliable than columbus so who knows maybe we have credible witness to an actual mermaid but again maybe it was a woman dressed up in a suit you know it's more likely than it's more it's really more likely to be that than it is an actual mermaid because there's just no evidence this is just the habitable world described a reverend dr john trussler pen to work on well the habitable world described that span 20 volumes and was published between 1788 and 1797. sadly i didn't have a chance to read all 20 volumes disappointing elsa come on don't you even where's the research you don't read 20 volumes but from what i was able to grasp he really covered everything when i tried to view the entire text i was warned that some of the volumes contain up to a thousand pages so i decided not to try it oh my god 20 000 pages guys it's a lot of work the last part of the first volume deals with norway which is also where hudson saw his mermaid according to bishop pontoperden the bishop of bergen in norway several hundreds of people of credit and reputation had seen merman sometimes at a distance and other times quite close to their boat standing upright with the upper bodies of humans down to the middle though none could apparently see whether they had fish tails apparently one person of credit reverend peter angel once found a dead moment according to angel in 1719 when he had been around 20 he and a few fellow villagers found the body of a dead merman near the sea he described its length as about three fathoms dark gray in color and with a lower part of a fish and a turn like a porpoise the face resembled that of a man the nose was flat and pressed down to the face but the nostrils were very visible the arms seemed to hang by the side and were joined the body by a thin skin the hands were like the pore of a seal and the back of the creature was very fat honest it sounds just like a seal it sounds like a seal that just looks a bit [ __ ] up for a seal to me this sounds like a manatee that this is a reverend telling the story not a naturalist so we'll give him a pass the age of the mermaid the 1800s saw a lot of mermaids so i only included a few sightings some of the sightings i read like the popular dns mermaid were fairly obviously a seal or another sea mammal based on the descriptions of course the increasing popularity of mermaids in freak shows which we'll get to a little bit later probably helped to fan the imagination of victorian society greatly increasing the number of mermaid sightings by credible folks here are a few sightings from the 1800s the mermaid of kent that's where i'm from kent it's a county in the southeast of england it's my home county it's fine they call it the garden of england i guess it's quite naturey if the kentish gazette is to be believed not one but two people saw a mermaid about 12 years apart in kent in 1797 william rowe a school teacher told the story of how he saw a mermaid while taking a walk on the shore of sand side bay his description of said mermaid is in line with the beautiful maidens we imagined she had blue eyes flushed cheeks and was sitting on a rock brushing her light brown hair he couldn't see whether there was webbing between her fingers or the shape of her teeth both apparently vital clues yeah the big fishtail doesn't give it away mate in his letter he pointed out that there had been others in the area that had seen this mermaid but that he had never believed them until that day when he saw the mermaid for himself the second account is from a miss mckay daughter of reverend d mccabe who had been walking on the beach with her cousin when they came across three people standing on the rocks looking at what turned out to be a mermaid the moment she described was very similar to the one of mr monroe though perhaps not all that pretty the mermaid had the upper body of a woman in the tail of a fish but according to miss mckay the eyes and nose were small the mouth was large and the forehead nose and chin were white the sides of the face are pinkish color clearly miss mckay wasn't as taken with the mermaid as mr monroe unfortunately it doesn't seem as if any of the people with ms mckay on the beach that day or any of the other people who had seen the mermaid according to mr monroe ever came forward to tell their stories of what they saw so we only have the word of a school master and the daughter of a reverend and i guess that'll have to be enough no it's not enough other people need to come forward it's like if a whole group of people is like yeah together we were standing on the rocks and we saw this weird mermaid rather than a school kid being like i saw a mermaid with some other people do we know can we can we get any talk from any of those other people no then i'm sorry but i don't think it happens and i'm not against there being creatures like this because like this is over a really long time span it's totally possible that there's some like mutant manatee that's just got like a super ruined manatee body from like some birth defects or whatever that kind of looks like a person like this sounds like just a mutant manatee the ben pecular mermaid in 1830 crafters were out cutting seaweed on the west coast of the island of bembacula when one woman spotted a mermaid she called the others working close by the men went into the water to try and capture the mermaid but she escaped a boy standing on the shore threw a rock at the mermaid and hit her in the back she cried out in pain before disappearing into the sea apparently throwing rocks at things is not a great way to make friends [ __ ] children a few days later the creature's body washed up on shore she was smaller upper body the size of a three or four year old child with abnormally developed breasts and she had long dark glossy hair her skin was described as white soft and tender now i'm not sure if the person who wrote this was hungry at the time but i am thinking of chicken multiple people including the sheriff were called to inspect the creature and they all agreed that it was definitely a mermaid she was given a christian burial in the graveyard so i'm thinking someone was feeling a little guilty and her funeral was one of the largest on the island so weird what is this weird muting creature if you're thinking let some archaeologists go and check this out while you're out of luck there was never a grave marker for the mermaid and some claimed later that she wasn't buried in the graveyard at all but rather in the dunes so where exactly the remains of this mermaid are is a total mystery all on its own a brief encounter at cape brenton in 1886 a mermaid was spotted off cape brenton an island off the coast of nova scotia in canada by fisherman gabarus there isn't much about this sighting but i'm including it since the mermaid was apparently witnessed by multiple people here we go according to the cape brooklyn eagle newspaper of august 1886 a mr bagnal accompanied by fishermen out in a boat found what they first thought to be a corpse they decided to take it ashore but as they approached it the corpse moved now that must have been a bit of a shock that creature turned around in a sitting position looked at them and then vanished they described the creature as having the face head shoulders and arms of a human being but the lower part of a fish its hair looked like a horse's mane the arms were shaped like a humans but the fingers on one hand were very long there's no mention of them seeing the mermaid a second time so perhaps she was just passing through of course if i came across a corpse that suddenly sits up and looks at me i'd think twice about approaching anything remotely strange in the future again this one i'm wondering like at what point am i satisfied that mermaids are real because some of these is like people are definitely out there seeing real stuff and i guess the thing is for me it has to be that same level of discovering a new species right and that same level of scientific rigor and documentation you can't just go into the jungle with a few mates and be like yeah i saw a a a purple gorilla i saw a bright purple gorilla out there in the woods people be like you need to have some sort of evidence of that you need to like let's have a little first sample let's uh find you know maybe just trap him shoot him whatever it needs to i don't know how they prove things but before a new species is accepted by the scientific community there needs to be a process and i don't think we're getting there with this yet the creature of the k islands we're skipping ahead now to well yeah that's a big jump a time far better known for world war ii the mermaids everyone was busy with the big war the sighting is often listed as a well-documented mermaid sighting and the story is very detailed however since i can't find any of this documentation let's just stick to the basics the creature sighted is not actually a mermaid but the wrong it can japanese soldiers a surveillance team stationed on the k islands during world war ii claimed to have multiple encounters with the orang icahn in their time on the island the creature was spotted on land but it was most comfortable in the water it was described as around 150 centimeters tall with spikes on the spine shoulders and neck they were light pinking colorings similar to a salmon with a mouth like a carp instead of a single tail as is most cased with mermaids these creatures had two frog-like fins and long arms it made a hideous gurgling noise smelled strongly official was not particularly friendly this just sounds like a scary-ass fish not a mermaid it's got carp mouth while it may have been a brand new sight for the soldiers the locals apparently known about the orangutan's existence for years sergeant taro hariba the man in charge of the surveillance team asked the villagers to let him know if any of the orangucan were ever captured alive or dead apparently one was found dead and the chief of the village called for sergeant ariba who went to inspect it he was so taken by what he saw that he tried to get the scientific community involved after the war but since he never took pictures and there's no hard evidence of the orangutan he never could get anyone interested in researching the story further now this story left me curious since it claimed to be so well documented i decided to dig a little bit more hoping to find all that documentation so i could do an entire script on this creature alone however every site i found told the exact same story sometimes word for word welcome to the internet however i couldn't find any of the original sources to back it up i'll keep digging in should i find something worthwhile i might do a script on this in the future but for now i'm going to talk this one up to a writer's imagination gone viral and move on yeah this is the thing it's like you read so many things and so many youtubers like a preponderance of evidence because someone else wrote a preponderance of evidence and someone before that wrote loads of evidence and some before that said there was some evidence and then someone before that just made it up and it just circles around and you re you watch some youtube videos like there's all this evidence you know like these creepy channels or whatever there's all this evidence that this is absolutely true i was like no there isn't what are you talking about there's no evidence you just read that there was evidence and you did a check did you come on do a better job this is youtube it's basically a peer-reviewed you know it's important what we do is fact guys come on that's semi-sarcasm a south african mermaid story call it patriotism if you will but when i came across a mermaid story from south africa had to include it oh elsa's from south africa i had no idea south africa had its own mermaid technically we have at least two but this mermaid called the caiman who was actually seen early in january 2008 daniel kubiroa resident of a village near swellendam in the western cape reported that he and his friends were relaxing and enjoying a pochi that's like a kind of stew next to the buffles jag river that is a brilliantly named river at 11 30 am he had something that sounded like someone bashing on a wall so he decided to inspect the noise thinking that it might be vandals upon reaching the water he saw a figure like that of a white woman with long black hair thrashing about in the water at first he thought she was in trouble and he waded into the water to help her however when he saw the reddish shine in her eyes he stopped and called for his friends to come over and take a look according to mr capido's mother the woman made a strange sound such sorrowful crying that her heart could take it no more turns out the group had encountered the kaiman a creature of a legend that lives in deep pools in the river and is responsible for drownings in the area the lost sighting had been recorded 15 years previously so apparently this mermaid doesn't particularly like company again this is weird but there's no real evidence other than eyewitness accounts i need more i need more a mermaid visits yam this is a pretty big deal and made quite the sensation in 2009 multiple witnesses incur yam reported seeing a creature resembling a young girl swimming close to shore and doing tricks in the water this wasn't just one of sighting either the mermaid was seen for a few days for some reason it took a while for the news to get around to it but eventually the public and finally the government got involved a one million dollar reward was off to anyone who could provide proof of the mermaid you didn't need to catch her a proper photo would be good enough i can imagine that for once there were more blurry mermaid photos than blurry bigfoot photos in circulation finally nbc got around to investigating the story and filmed morning and night both above and below the water hoping for some footage of the mermaid then at last success according to the crew they saw a human figure in the water they tried to follow and film the mermaid but sadly she vanished leaving them without any clear footage some footage was collected from bystanders and it was sent to the center for coastal ocean research in los angeles according to michael schacht the center's director who examined all the footage it's impossible to state whether the figure is in fact a mermaid or not seeing as how the reward is split for grabs though i'm going to assume that the government decided no yeah this is the thing it's like it's like the grainy photos and grainy video of ufos it's like show me something real why is it not in hd mermaids in zimbabwe zimbabwe has a long problematic history with mermaids who are considered to be mischievous to downright demonic whereas western mermaids might lure sailors off a ship mermaids in zimbabwe have been blamed for kidnappings torture and murder did you matter this person i didn't do a mermaid did it for most people they are very dark entities and many people are deeply afraid of them in 2012 at the osborne dam divers had to investigate the reason for blockages in the pumps but after going down once they refused to go down a second time sadly we have no idea what they saw down there because whatever it was frightened them enough that they refused to share it with their colleagues workers from other areas were brought in to finish the job they had not been exposed to the mermaid reports and would also be less vulnerable to the mermaids themselves okay however these workers also reported suspicious creatures and refused to go back down a second time now from what i could find it looks like the necessary ceremonies were performed at the osborne dam as well after which the situation stabilized nothing like a bit of magic to get things going so i guess the mermaids were happy enough to leave people alone and get on with their work i skipped over a lot of sightings today but i reckon i made my point mermaids have been seen across the world from early gall to contemporary zimbabwe now you may be skeptical i know i sure am also fact boy here or so but all these people are adamant that they saw something yeah but it's just eyewitness testimony where's the fishtail where's the bones why doesn't someone capture one of these and put them in a swimming pool and while they can't prove they saw something we really can't prove they didn't yeah that's how it works you gotta prove it you i i don't it's not my job to prove a negative guys so i guess we'll all have to agree to disagree on this one now we're all agreeing that it's bull right but there have been more than sightings the remains of actual mermaids have been found so does this prove the theory i'm gonna guess no because look it's not generally accepted like yeah we know gorillas exist we've seen them whereas mermaids you're like no no that's fictional right there's no no one's in their mind being like no no they're definitely real and there's consensus on that some people believe they're real but they know there's not consensus it's not like gorillas where some people believe they they're real but people aren't sure it's like we know they're real even if you've never seen one you know they're real fake mermaids my apologies to anyone got a little excited at this point basically every single dissected mermaid corpse that has ever shown up has proven to be a fake so it doesn't prove the existence of mermaids fake mermaids were a roaring trade in the 1800s and some folks almost got away with it captain john smith's mermaid this is not so much a mermaid as a mermaid sighting so we all know john smith not the doctor hughes pseudonym the historical character from both hunters but don't get me started on that oh my god i made a video about that guy's story is crazy in 1614 john smith apparently saw a mermaid while sailing off the shore of massachusetts he described her as swimming with all possible grace near the shore her upper body was battle wound she had large eyes but according to smith they were too round she had a finely shaped nose a little too short well-formed ears which he considered rather too long and green hair which was apparently just fine below the waist however she was a fish it seems that he had ample opportunity to compare mermaids since he was so particular about the shape and length of their features however he did describe her as being by no means unattractive he's that fish body that does it for you right john for many years this was considered to be a factual account but there are some problems the main problem being that john smith was nowhere near massachusetts in 1614. another article states that smith saw the mermaid in 1611. this too doesn't help as smith was only in those waters in 1607. what's more after carefully searching through all of his writing historian vaughn schreibner i feel the need to give some credit here because this guy did a lot of reading and searching found that smith himself never wrote anything about meeting a mermaid green head or otherwise while this myth has been entirely dispelled vaughn eventually traced the story back to an article published in the 19th century newspaper gazette of the union on september 29 1849 back when he could just make it up the story however was written by one alexander dumas what author of the three musketeers in the counter monte cristo fictional works he had also written a story about a frenchman's quest to find a dutchman who allegedly had four children with a mermaid in mermaid law this is not uncommon dumar also used a historical figure to add some validity to his own tale because you know we writers do that however it doesn't seem as if dumar ever claimed it as fact which was done by numerous historians that followed don't be like in a hundred years someone being like yeah during harry potter's time and it's like it's not real good lord the fiji mermaid this is probably the best known hoax when it comes to fake mermaids and it was the brainchild of none other than well-known shonen p.t barnum i know this story this uh i won't spoil while barnum made the fiji mermaid famous his story started well before barnham came into the picture it's believed that the mermaid was created by a japanese fisherman in the early 1800s and probably sold to a dutch merchant after trade opened with japan in the 1810s the merchant ship carried the mermaid sag but an american captain samuel barrett eads saved the crew and as it happened the mermaid fascinated by this hideous specimen that looked nothing like the image we have of a beautiful woman luring hapless sailors eids decided to buy the mermaid for six thousand dollars in 1822. that's around 145 thousand dollars today in fact he had to sell his ship in order to pay for the mermaid in desperate need of travel money and without a ship eads first showed them a made in cape town where a well-regarded missionary wrote in a well-circulated newspaper that the mermaid was in fact real yeah let's listen to the religious dude he's definitely a scientist not in september 1822 eats finally arrived in london with the mermaid and exhibited the creature at a coffee house people had to pay one shilling to see the mermaid and hundreds of people happily parted with their money eid's apparently convinced the mermaid was real even invited two prominent naturalists to examine it both declared it a hoax though however reeds was not dissuaded and found a lesser known and perhaps less knowledgeable naturalist who was more than happy to declare it a real thing so as i allegedly suburb palms were greased there doesn't it it's like you told me it's real right it's real this crisp shilling note tells you it's real then he'd made a big mistake he claimed that sir everett home a well-regarded naturalist considered the mermaid to be authentic homer said no such thing and outrage published pieces in several newspapers declaring the mermaid to be a fake this was the beginning of the end for eids the mermaid lost his appeal and it soon became apparent that edes had in fact sold a ship that wasn't his to sell legal action was taken against him and long story short he ended up broke sailing the seas for another 20 years to pay off his debt but he died impoverished with only the mermaid in his possession it was the only thing his son inherited i'm sure some were too bad but i yeah oh what's the thing that ruined you dad why are you carrying this around with you should have got rid of this years ago and moved on with your life i'm just gonna throw this in the trash you loser this should have been the end for the fiji mermaid and it probably would have been if it hadn't been for pt barnum possibly one of the greatest showmen that ever lived in an absolute genius at marketing the story of barnum's campaign may not strictly be about mermaids but it was inspired moses kimball owner of the boston museum had and a friend of barnums bought the mermaid from his son in 1842 and wanted to exhibit it barnum had just bought a museum in new york and gimble thought that it would be a fantastic attraction barnum agreed but he already had a bit of a reputation after a prior hoax had blown up in his face he knew no one would accept a mermaid he exhibited as the real thing so instead he created the character of dr d griffin a member of the british lyceum of natural history played by his good friend levi lyman dodge griffin was apparently a successful knowledgeable naturalist exhibiting all kinds of wonderful creatures like the platypus and of course the fiji mermaid the platypus is so weird people are like you that's not real why has it got a beak but i'm orchestrated a bit of a bit of a tiff with dr griffin he wanted to exhibit dr griffin's mermaid but dr griffin refused anonymous letters were sent to newspapers mentioning the mermaid and the disagreement between the two men when it became clear dr griffin would not change his mind barnum generously gave all of his promotional materials to the newspapers as he would no longer need them all the newspapers were under the impression that they had an exclusive and so of course they all ran the story the mermaids in barnum's materials were beautiful young women with glossy hair not the little abomination that would soon enter the spotlight conveniently dr griffin had to stop over in new york for a few days on his way back to london and he decided to show the mermaid to a select group of people most of them journalists the story was a sensation and everyone wanted to see the mermaid so dr griffin relented and put the mermaid on show in the new york concert hall for a week along with the mermaid dr griffin also gave lectures on his adventures and discoveries just making it up this is great it's just all fake he claimed that all animals had an equivalent in the sea sea lions see horses see cows etc so obviously there would be a human equivalent as well anyone who knows anything i feel like i know like i'm not a naturalist i don't know that much i'm not that clever but i'll be like yo yo mate i don't think that's how that works like a seahorse isn't like a horse it does it's it's tiny what are you talking about the mermaid was on show in the museum for another month and even though it was technically leasing the mermaid from kimball barnum made his money back tenfold after the stint in new york there was a tour in the south that didn't quite go so well apparently the southerners were far more skeptical than their northern neighbors and after some threats from a reverend in charleston to destroy the mermaid it was quickly returned to new york where it was exhibited at the american museum again there was another successful tour in london after which the mermaid was apparently returned to kimball at the boston museum it's not entirely clear what happened to the mermaid after that there were multiple fires kimball's museum burned down in the early 1900s and a few of barnum's exhibits burned down too possibly whenever he needed the insurance money to build something new he's just throwing a strong allegedly there as a big accusation the harvard university peabody museum has a specimen that some people consider to be the fiji mermaid but it doesn't really look that much like the creature described by barnum so we're not sure if it's the original fiji mermaid or one of the many other mermaids barman exhibited some speculate that due to all the fires the original may have been damaged and was rebuilt with parts from other specimens hence the difference in appearance now what exactly was the fiji mermaid if not a mermaid apparently it was the dried semi-mummified remains of a monkey attached to the dry tail of a fish not exactly the little mermaid from the anderson fairy tale yeah the advertiser is like beautiful mermaids and it's like oh they say it's it's a mummified monkey attached to a fishtail great animal planet special into the is animal planet like the history channel where they just make it up or are they more legit than that i feel like they're more legit like animal planet in my mind seems like a channel that'll actually be about animals rather than like cryptids and [ __ ] and telling us they're real i like the history channel on aliens and the pyramids come on guys in 2012 animal planet is a channel considered to provide true and factual content yes ran mermaids the body found uh-oh animal planet sounds like someone's trashing their reputation and in 2013 they ran a sequel mermaids the new evidence apparently the show did provide a very brief disclaimer that it was science fiction based on scientific theory but most people apparently missed that little detail the show and its sequel for thousands of viewers allegedly we don't want to get sued here well they said it was fiction we're just saying it's fiction and they fool people that's kind of i mean i don't know if that was the point well fiction needs to fool people like you suspend your disbelief what's the difference i don't think we're in hot water there this sounds kind of like fun whereas this youtube channel is it's just it's just crazy i'll be honest i didn't watch it i have this strange compulsion not to watch fictional shows on factual channels yes mermaids the body found deals with a supposed government cover-up of a discovery that proves the existence of mermaids by scientists of noaa the national oceanic and atmospheric administration cgi sequences and fictional characters like one dr paul robertson former noaa scientist all played by actors set out to present the aquatic ape theory as accepted scientific fact this is so strange i this is a clever joke except you're publishing on a channel that is just known for factual content which is insane they're going the history channel direction or maybe they considered it and then they were like what have we done what have we done they even created a website to go to with the show however the website had conveniently been shut down by the u.s department of homeland security the government was quick to confirm that this too was a hoax but that's exactly what a government involved in the cover-up would say right no they'd just shut it down and then be like what website mermaids the new evidence builds on the theory presented in its predecessor with more actors i mean scientists presenting new evidence to prove the existence of mermaids complete with newly discovered cgi sequences sorry i mean found footage of mermaids animal planet was quick to point out that they never intended to present it as fact but merely used science as a starting point for creativity so many people believed it was the real thing though the noaa released a statement assuring people that mermaids are not real and no evidence has ever been found to prove mermaids as real creatures so the next time you watch an unbelievable documentary on a factual channel like animal planet or our favorite here at dakota the unknown the history channel be on the lookout for very brief disclaimers and don't believe everything you see on tv why would you betray your viewers like this animal planet it's like history tower used to be about history actually did it it must have been right and now it's the animal planet you're doing the same thing so you're gonna be watching like bbc it'll be like this segment of the news actually just made up then we just we just needed to fill our time so we just made it up none of this actually happens oh my god this is like the dystopian idiocracy future we're heading for japanese mermaids so remember the fiji mermaid made in japan she wasn't the only one in the 18th and 19th century in japan sideshows called misamono became very popular these were similar to sideshows in the west like the famous coney island and the sideshows of hucksters and charlatans like petey barnum who we already chatted about these side shows were basically carnivals with dancers acrobats fortune telling and important for our story exhibits of interesting creatures from far off lands most of the exhibits were of actual animals and plants from other parts of the world however soon enough mermaids made an appearance most of these fake mermaids were very small they mostly consisted of the torsos of monkeys or other primates attached to the body of a fish however this is japan we're talking about and the craftsmanship on these specimens was so well done that occasionally they managed to fool even trained naturalists in the west for a while the very creative form of taxidermy became a bit of an arthur in itself japanese mermaids started appearing in sideshows in the west and while those buying specimens actually knew that they were not the real thing the japanese craftsmen were considered such masters at making these mermaids that collectors paid top dollar for them lots of these mermaids still exist in museums private collections and a few have turned up at temples around japan one example is a mermaid that is claimed to have been caught off the island of shikoku between 1736 and 1741 the mermaid is currently being kept at a temple in asakuchi in march 2022 there were plans to take the mermaid for a ct scan to get a better idea of what exactly it is the scientist in charge of the project is convinced it's a fake but the local villagers firmly believe the mermaid is real so who knows maybe the ct scan will reveal a real mermaid i promise you one thing it won't if it does i will eat my hat i put this under fake mermaids but one article i read did pose an interesting question what if among all the fake mermaids manufactured there was a real specimen or two surely the creators of the fakes did need to copy something the original [ __ ] and it like didn't they'd just be like yeah let's go there's a skeleton of a monkey looks a bit human in a skeleton of a fish boom glue them together at the spine and we're done the original japanese mermaid was more beast than humans so was there perhaps a species of mermaid probably now extinct that once roamed the waters of japan there is of course no way to prove this but the ocean is vast and many species of animal went extinct before humans even discovered them so was the original japanese mermaid among them are they real so are mermaid's real scientific research says no there's no archaeological or scientific proof that mermaids are real or ever existed the sort of proof that we need here on decoding the unknown this isn't the animal planet this isn't the history channel we need evidence come on on top of that humanoid mermaids would most likely be mammals however aquatic mammals can't breathe underwater they can hold their breath for an extended period of time elephant seals can hold their breath for up to two hours whoa recently scientists also found that diving mammals have oxygen binding proteins called myoglobin in their muscles which allow them to store more oxygen thus allowing them to stay underwater for a long time i'm excited about when we can crisper ourselves like genetically engineer ourselves to be able to do this it's going to be great you just go diving and you just hold your breath for hours just like cruising around having a great time it's gonna be great since mermaids if they were mammals would have to breathe they wouldn't be able to live in the unexplored depths of the ocean and with the number of boats planes satellites submarines and humans taking selfies wherever they go mermaids would have been documented to the same extent as seals dolphins and other ocean mammals if mermaids were fish odds are divers and marine biologists would have found some proof of their existence however if they were fish we probably wouldn't have all those sightings of beautiful maidens sitting on rocks brushing their hair cause fish need to be in the water most mermaid sightings are considered manatees do gongs okay or in the case of older sightings the now extinct stellar sea cow of course seals have also been considered culprits however as one researcher pointed out you'd have to be at sea a really long time and possibly have a bit of a poor memory for you to see a manatee and think damn that's a hot chick christopher columbus we're looking at you i tend to agree personally i think mermaid sightings have more to do with vivid imagination masteria and masalusa nations or just good old-fashioned drink and drugs oh yes of course if you really want to see a mermaid you're in luck mermaiding has become a profession professional mermaids are performers usually at kids parties and aquariums or other high-end shows and events with detailed silicone tails bright mermaid costumes and an outgoing personality it requires training you need to learn to swim with a mermaid tail and hold your breath under water for an extended time and many mermaids also invest in scuba diving free diving life saving and cpr certifications it's more than just a job it's a lifestyle and as an occasional charlatan myself i'm not going to judge but despite all the sightings and mermaids and aquariums i think we've decoded this mystery mermaids not real at least not these singing maidens luring men to their death's variety however i'm open to the idea of an extinct species that looked half mammal on half fish like the japanese ningyo and i do believe the oceans are full of interesting creatures yet to be discovered or at least properly documented i play a lot of dungeons and dragons and call of cthulhu so i totally believe in the kraken and our great lord cthulhu eater of souls but on mermaids i'm unconvinced maybe i'll be proven wrong in time but this is one mystery i think we can consider solved totally agree totally agree it's just sailors and people being like i saw a mermaid people being like oh okay because there's no evidence archaeological or scientifical as we said scientific as we said so uh yeah they're not real are they question answered in a very long and roundabout way but i hope you enjoyed the history of mermaids you did like this video if you're listening as a podcast leave us a review that would be amazing and thank you for watching or listening i suppose [Music]

Channel: Decoding the Unknown

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Id: _9tkd4r34Yg

Length: 65min 47sec (3947 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 20 2022