LEGEND: Mermaids

For centuries, legends have warned of a mysterious half-human, half-fish creature lurking beneath the waves. Sailors claimed to be hypnotized by their beauty. Deadly pirates have been frozen in fear over the very sight of them. And now, modern-day sightings suggest mermaids aren’t just a myth—they’re real, they’re out there, and they’re rising to the surface.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:33Yvette Gentile?

  Call me cliche, but there's something about standing on a beach. I mean, no matter where I am in the world, I always gravitate to the sea. Even if only for a moment, I mean, just to stare and soak it in. There's something so healing, it just soothes my soul. Maybe it's the Hawaiian local girl in me? Maybe it's all the mysteries and magic the sea holds? Or maybe it has to do with how powerful and overwhelming it all is? I mean, how the open waters could swallow us whole if Mother Nature commanded it to. But when you hear the ocean covers 71% of the Earth's surface

• 1:18Yvette Gentile?

  and 80% of our oceans have yet to be explored? Well, how can you not be mystified by that? And the things that live inside of it?

• 1:30Rasha Pecoraro?

  I couldn't agree more. The ocean has always been such a healing and mystical place to me, too. Maybe it's because I was born in a hospital that used to be right in front of Waikiki Beach. The crashing waves, the feeling of the sand between my toes, seeing thousands of beautiful sea animals, and even sharks have captivated my soul my entire life. Well, scientists say that there are approximately 1 to 2 million marine species that remain undiscovered. Let me say that again for everybody listening. 1 to 2 million. Which means there are living beings on our planet that we know nothing about.

• 2:15Rasha Pecoraro?

  They are completely alien to us. So when you hear about sightings of a half-human, half-fish creature, are you ready to rule that out as a possibility? Don't answer that just yet, because after today's episode, I think you might find that mermaids could be more than just storybook legends. I'm Rasha Pecoraro.

• 2:41Yvette Gentile?

  And I'm Yvette Gentile. And today, we're diving deep into an episode of So Supernatural.

• 3:22Yvette Gentile?

  I've always loved a good story about mythical creatures, dragons, unicorns, fairies, but especially mermaids. There's something so romantic about the possibility of an unexplored world under the ocean, where an entire society exists with its own laws, culture, and history. And of course, we're taught to believe these creatures are nothing more than a myth, metaphors for femininity, transformation, and the power of the ocean. So that's how I looked at them for most of my life. But there's a lot of people out there who think that there might be some truth to it after all.

• 4:05Yvette Gentile?

  Since 2013, there has been a huge jump in the number of people searching for terms like, "Are mermaids real?" or "Where do mermaids live?"

• 4:17Rasha Pecoraro?

  I totally searched that yesterday, BTW.

• 4:21Rasha Pecoraro?

  But anyway, that definitely makes me wonder, what would a real-life mermaid be like? I assume that when most people picture these creatures, of course, they think of Ariel from the Disney movie, right? Someone innocent, kind, beautiful, with the voice of an angel. I also know a lot of us remember the stunning Daryl Hannah as a mermaid in the classic movie Splash from the 1980s with Tom Hanks. But if you turn to old historic myths and stories about mermaids, they're actually so much darker than a Disney princess fairy tale.

• 5:02Yvette Gentile?

  Well, legends about mermaids date really far back. We're talking 30,000 years ago, to the Stone Age. Archaeologists have found paintings in caves from this time showing gorgeous fishwomen. And for context, these paintings were probably made around the same time that human beings were inventing their first boats. Meaning, we had stories about merpeople for as long as we've been able to sail the oceans. By about 5,000 BCE, and around the time humans were founding their very first cities, some cultures had even started worshiping mermaids as gods. This was especially true in the Fertile Crescent,

• 5:44Yvette Gentile?

  where early civilizations like the Babylonian Empire and Egypt would eventually rise. Throughout the area, religious tradition spoke of a fishman who was the god of the sea, and his female counterpart, a fishwoman who ruled the realms of family and fertility.

• 6:05Rasha Pecoraro?

  Thousands of years later, in Syria, people told stories about how the first mermaid was created.

• 6:13Rasha Pecoraro?

  These stories feature a powerful goddess named Atargathus, who's in charge of the moon, water, and fertility. But she does something goddesses aren't supposed to do. She falls in love with a human named Hadad. He's a shepherd who doesn't know anything about power or divinity. But the heart wants what the heart wants, right? So Atargathus proposes to Hadad, though some accounts say he asks her to move in. But either way, it's a yes. They get married and they end up having a child together. But since Hadad is mortal, he eventually passes away.

• 6:56Rasha Pecoraro?

  Some versions say that he tripped and fell on a mountain path, dying when he landed on the rocks below. Others say Atargathus killed him in an accident. But after Hadad is gone, Atargathus is devastated. She feels like she can't live without her husband. So she decides to take her own life, so she can join him in the underworld.

• 7:24Rasha Pecoraro?

  She rows a boat to the middle of a waterway and jumps in, planning to drown herself. Except, when her legs hit the waves, they instantly transform into fins. And instead of drowning, Atargathus realizes she can breathe underwater. That is how she becomes the world's very first mermaid.

• 7:49Yvette Gentile?

  Scholars say this story is more of a metaphor, representing the way grief can transform us. But it's far from being the only legend about a mermaid. The next one comes from the Inuit people, who live in the Arctic Circle. There's several variations of this story, but we'll share this one with you. According to the legend, a young woman named Sedna was getting to an age where she needed to settle down, get married, and start a family. But she was very picky about who she was willing to date or marry, mostly because, deep down, she didn't want a husband. But her culture didn't allow women to remain single their entire lives.

• 8:34Yvette Gentile?

  To get around this, Sedna pretended to have standards that were so high, nobody could live up to them. And she rejected proposals from most men in her village. Until one day, when a mysterious handsome stranger came to town. He was wearing layers of fur, and Sedna could tell by looking at him that he was wealthy. The man told Sedna that if she married him, he'd take her away to a wonderful palace and provide her with a life of luxury. Sedna still didn't love the idea of getting married, but she also suspected this was the best offer she was gonna get. So she accepted the proposal and agreed to become his wife.

• 9:18Yvette Gentile?

  But her new husband tricked her. He took her to some remote island where he revealed he wasn't even a human being. He was an evil bird spirit in disguise. Sedna was horrified. She ran away, and on the way home, she came across her father. After she told him what happened, he agreed to help her escape from her wicked, lying husband. So they hopped into a kayak to try and flee. But as they were paddling through an icy channel, a huge flock of birds appeared out of nowhere and attacked the boat. Sedna's husband had sent them to punish her. In a devastating turn of events,

• 10:02Yvette Gentile?

  Sedna's father gets scared and throws his own daughter off the boat. Almost as a sacrifice to save his own life, he even cuts off her fingers when she's trying to cling on. And eventually, Sedna just sinks into the freezing cold water. Except Sedna didn't drown or freeze to death. As soon as she went under the waves, her legs turned into a tail, and she became a mermaid. And not just any mermaid, but a guardian spirit of the water. And for the rest of eternity, she watched over all the animals in the ocean.

• 10:46Yvette Gentile?

  And she finally got what she always wanted, to live her best life as a single lady without a husband.

• 10:55Rasha Pecoraro?

  Which is why this legend, and mermaids in general, often represent female empowerment. And to be honest, until we did the research for this episode, I've never thought about mermaids that way, but I can see it so clearly now. Well, once Sedna found a way to escape her unwanted marriage, she discovered the untapped potential that had been inside her the entire time. And she became more powerful than ever before. I mean, talk about female empowerment. Come on, Sedna.

• 11:30Yvette Gentile?

  Come on, let's do it. So it's true that mermaids often symbolize feminine power and transformation, but other cultures imagined that female sea spirits were a bit more threatening. Just take the ancient Greeks, for example. Their nation has the longest coastline in all of Europe, and the country has thousands of islands. And as you can imagine, boats have always been a huge part of their culture since their economy depends on sea trade and fishing. So this also means that shipwrecks and other naval disasters are common in ancient Greek life. So their mythology is full of stories of sea monsters, angry spirits, and sirens.

• 12:15Yvette Gentile?

  Now sirens aren't mermaids by definition, but they are very similar. They're also these beautiful but deadly women, only they're painted as villains who lure sailors into dangerous situations.

• 12:31Yvette Gentile?

  Legends say sirens also have these incredible voices. They sing hypnotic songs that entice and lure sailors out to sea. The men are so mesmerized by her singing, they actually jump into the water and drown, or wreck their ships on the rocks.

• 12:53Rasha Pecoraro?

  Sirens can look very different from one depiction to the next. Some stories say they have the bodies of giant birds, but the heads of human women. But in many accounts, they have the bodies of human women from the waist up and fish tails below. In other words, they look exactly like mermaids.

• 13:13Yvette Gentile?

  Well, the ancient Greeks weren't the only ones to talk about sirens. One of my favorite versions comes out of Africa. There, they described a water spirit with fins of a fish and the upper body of a human woman. Her name is Mamawata. Like Atargadis, Mamawata is a goddess of fertility. She can also grant wealth to her followers. But legend says Mamawata likes making deals. So if you ask for something, say like money or a child, you might have to give up your own life or that of someone close to you in exchange.

• 13:55Rasha Pecoraro?

  Which actually sounds a lot like one of the most famous mermaid stories to date. "The Little Mermaid" by Hans Christian Andersen. You know, the very inspiration for one of my favorite Disney movies of all time. The one where the mermaid really wanted to be human, so she traded her voice for legs so she could pursue a handsome prince? We all know it's a work of fiction, a metaphor for a lot of things, depending on how you look at it. It could be for unrequited love, emotional sacrifice, the acceptance of society, coming of age. I mean, I could go on and on. But the truth is,

• 14:38Rasha Pecoraro?

  while mermaids might be a great literary tool, there are some stories out there that suggest they're a lot more than just metaphors, including some accounts from well-known historical figures.

• 14:57Speaker 04

  Hi, I'm Ashley Flowers.

• 14:59Speaker 05

  And I'm Britt. And if you're on the edge of your seat, listening to this show, Crime Junkie needs to be your next listen.

• 15:05Speaker 04

  Every Monday, I dive into a new true crime case that our reporting team has been on the ground looking into. From lesser-known disappearances to the most chilling cases hitting the headlines. And I'm gonna walk you through it the way I tell my best friend, because, well, that's what I'm doing.

• 15:20Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's me. And I'm right there with you as we listen together, react to every wild detail, and of course, I ask all the questions.

• 15:28Speaker 04

  And I'm gonna have the answers, because we have case files. We're talking to detectives and family members, and we're gonna stay focused on the facts.

• 15:36Speaker 05

  So if you're not already listening to Crime Junkie, what are you waiting for? There are over 300 episodes available right now.

• 15:42Speaker 04

  And you can listen to new episodes of Crime Junkie every Monday, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 15:52Rasha Pecoraro?

  People have been telling stories about mermaids since the Stone Age. They've appeared in legends from Africa, ancient Greece, and the Arctic Circle. They've even starred in Disney movies. The question is, do mermaids actually exist? Well, if you were to ask Christopher Columbus, he would say, of course, they're real. He has seen them with his own two eyes.

• 16:23Yvette Gentile?

  But I first have to share a misunderstood fact about Columbus. He actually never stepped foot on the mainland of North America. The closest he got was the Bahamas, where he and his crew made contact, and they did some very, very serious injustice to the indigenous people living there. Columbus and his crew stole from the locals. They sexually assaulted them and kidnapped them to be sold into slavery. So let's just be clear. Columbus is not a good dude.

• 17:00Rasha Pecoraro?

  Yeah, I have to agree with you. I know he's a polarizing figure, but in my mind, not cool.

• 17:07Yvette Gentile?

  And we're only bringing him up here because of something that he wrote in his diary on January 9, 1493, roughly three months after making landfall.

• 17:19Rasha Pecoraro?

  Columbus was out sailing the waters around the Dominican Republic. And that day, he made a fascinating diary entry. It read, quote, "I saw three sirens that came up very high out of the sea. They were not as beautiful as they are painted, since in some ways, they have a face like a man." End quote. Unfortunately, that's all Columbus wrote, but the account sounds pretty straightforward. Columbus saw three mermaid-like creatures, and apparently, they weren't as hot as he thought they'd be, I guess. Honestly, it's the nonchalance of the entry that I find most interesting and kinda douchey at the same time.

• 18:03Yvette Gentile?

  Yeah, but you don't have to just take his word for it. Other historical figures say they've spotted mermaids too, including another not-so-great guy, the infamous pirate Blackbeard. Now, nobody's entirely sure of Blackbeard's real identity. Historians believe he may have been a man named Edward Teach or Edward Thatch. And this may surprise you, even though Blackbeard is one of the most famous pirates in history, his criminal career only lasted for two years, from 1716 to 1718. He sailed the Atlantic and the West Indies, seizing and robbing any ship that crossed his path.

• 18:47Yvette Gentile?

  Unfortunately, Blackbeard's original journals from his adventures have been lost, though some people debate whether they ever existed at all. So the next account is pretty vague, and maybe more of a legend than history. But at some point while he was at sea, Blackbeard apparently saw a mermaid swimming near his ship.

• 19:10Yvette Gentile?

  He heard the legends about killer sirens and murderous mermaids before. He knew he did not want to get mixed up with a sea creature like that. So right away, Blackbeard grabbed all of the maps and charts that his crew used to navigate, and he marked the exact spot where he saw her. And from that day on, he refused to sail through that particular region. Which is impressive, because Blackbeard was pretty hard to rattle. I mean, he commanded a fleet of roughly 300 pirates. He robbed countless vessels. And it's even said that he lit his beard on fire every time he went into battle, just to scare his enemies.

• 19:55Yvette Gentile?

  And his favorite cocktail was rum mixed with, get this, y'all, gunpowder. So this was a pretty rough dude who was apparently terrified of crossing a mermaid. I mean, that says a lot.

• 20:13Rasha Pecoraro?

  It does. Well, there are other historical sightings that aren't quite so upsetting for the people who reported them. Take this one, for example, which has another Disney connection. Fans of the film Pocahontas, myself included, will remember the love interest, a man named John Smith, who was a real historical figure. He was 26 years old in the year 1606 when he joined a group of colonists who traveled from England to what would later be known as Virginia. And that's when he met Pocahontas, who at the time was somewhere between 10 and 11 years old. What the movie gets wrong is, there obviously was no epic love story there.

• 20:58Rasha Pecoraro?

  John and Pocahontas had more of a father-daughter relationship. However, other plot points from the Disney movie are based on reality. There was a lot of tension between the indigenous American community and the European colonists, which should come as no surprise. But at one point, fighting broke out and the indigenous people did take John as a hostage. Then, Pocahontas's father, Chief Powhatan, said he was going to publicly put John to death. But before anyone could lay a finger on John, Pocahontas ran out and stood between him and his would-be executioners.

• 21:39Rasha Pecoraro?

  She refused to leave until her father promised not to hurt John. Most historians now believe that her act was a symbolic adoption of John Smith into the Powhatan world. And that's how she saved his life. But the film left out one other pretty big detail. When he wasn't settling new European colonies or getting captured, John Smith occasionally went mermaid spotting.

• 22:12Yvette Gentile?

  And accounts say that he had some success with this in 1614. About seven years after he met Pocahontas, at this point, John was reportedly on a sailing voyage through the Caribbean islands when the crew decided to dock the ship and take a break on the shores. He was walking on the beach when he happened to glance out at the ocean. And that's when he saw something completely unexpected: a woman swimming. She was close enough for John to get a good look at her. And the thing that he noticed was that her hair was green, which isn't exactly a popular color in the 17th century. It was odd, but all John could think about was how stunning this woman was.

• 22:58Yvette Gentile?

  She had big, round eyes and a short, little nose. In fact, an almost supernatural wave of attraction washed over him. John instantly felt like he was in love with her. Then the mysterious woman dove back into the water. And as she went down, she kicked in the air. And John was shocked to see she had the tail of a fish.

• 23:26Yvette Gentile?

  At that moment, the spell was broken. John realized he hadn't been staring at a human, but a mermaid. And he was horrified. Because if she hadn't flashed her tail and broken the enchantment, he might have been tempted to jump into the water after her. He could have drowned, just like the sailors in the old stories.

• 23:49Rasha Pecoraro?

  Or at least, he could have drowned if this story was real. Many historians think it never happened. There's no mention of the supposed mermaid in John Smith's diaries or letters. And he wasn't even in the Caribbean in 1614, when the encounter supposedly took place. So I guess a Pocahontas Little Mermaid crossover film is out of the question sadly. As for Columbus and Blackbeard, we know they saw something in the ocean. But it may not have necessarily been a mermaid. Though some say they may have spotted an aquatic mammal, like a manatee or its cousin, the dugong,

• 24:33Rasha Pecoraro?

  and just mistook it for a mermaid.

• 24:36Yvette Gentile?

  I just have to say, I looked up a dugong, and they look like a miniature elephant that can swim.

• 24:43Rasha Pecoraro?

  Manatees kind of look like a miniature elephant.

• 24:45Yvette Gentile?

  I mean, I'm just saying, so. Manatees and dugongs are gray creatures with flippers instead of hands and whiskered faces. And they're also huge. Both species can grow to be about 10 feet long. And adult dugongs, which are called sea cows, can weigh more than 800 pounds, which is nothing compared to an adult manatee, which can clock in at about 3,500 pounds. So, I am just saying, it's got to be pretty hard to mistake a 10-foot-long, massive gray-looking beast for a beautiful mythological creature.

• 25:30Rasha Pecoraro?

  Look, I do not disagree with you. Except, the theory goes that men like Blackbeard, Columbus, and other sailors were simply seeing what they wanted to see.

• 25:43Rasha Pecoraro?

  It can be stressful being cooped up on a ship with the same handful of people for days, weeks, or even months at a time. Day in and day out, they were staring at the same rooms, the same decks, and working alongside the same people. So they were probably longing for contact with someone, anyone new, particularly a beautiful woman. Then imagine, one day, they looked out at the waves and they see something vaguely human-shaped with a long fish-like tail. And naturally, they think, "Look, that's a mermaid."

• 26:23Yvette Gentile?

  Okay, I can definitely see how, under the right delusions, someone might mistake a manatee or a dugong for a mermaid. But it's a stretch, I just gotta say. It's harder to explain it away with some more modern sightings, many of which have been confirmed. And not with old diary entries. I'm talking about encounters that have been verified by multiple witnesses. Some that have even been caught on film.

• 27:02Speaker 04

  Hi, I'm Ashley Flowers.

• 27:03Speaker 05

  And I'm Britt. And if you're on the edge of your seat, listening to this show, Crime Junkie needs to be your next listen.

• 27:09Speaker 04

  Every Monday, I dive into a new true crime case that our reporting team has been on the ground looking into. From lesser-known disappearances to the most chilling cases hitting the headlines. And I'm gonna walk you through it the way I tell my best friend, because, well, that's what I'm doing.

• 27:25Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's me. And I'm right there with you as we listen together, react to every wild detail, and of course, I ask all the questions.

• 27:33Speaker 04

  And I'm gonna have the answers, because we have case files. We're talking to detectives and family members, and we're gonna stay focused on the facts.

• 27:40Speaker 05

  So if you're not already listening to Crime Junkie, what are you waiting for? There are over 300 episodes available right now.

• 27:46Speaker 04

  And you can listen to new episodes of Crime Junkie every Monday, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 27:57Yvette Gentile?

  Throughout history, countless people claimed to have spotted mermaids. This included famous figures like Christopher Columbus and Blackbeard the Pirate. Skeptics tend to dismiss their accounts as a fake or a trick of the mind, but some sightings are just too compelling and well documented to ignore. Rasha, can you tell us about what happened in 1943?

• 28:23Rasha Pecoraro?

  Well, World War II is raging at this point, and Japanese forces are occupying Indonesia. On one Indonesian island, the locals keep telling Japanese soldiers about a creature that's said to live there. When translated into English, it's called "a manfish." Most of these reports say it's lurking in the waters, but others say the manfish can climb onto land and walk around on its flippers, almost like a seal. For the most part, the Japanese soldiers just dismiss these accounts and they figure the islanders are just being superstitious. That is, until one group of Japanese soldiers gets orders to march to another part of the island.

• 29:09Rasha Pecoraro?

  To get there, they have to cross a wet marshy lagoon. They're part of the way through when they hear a splashing noise somewhere nearby. Everyone looks to see what's making the sound, and that's when they spot a manfish, burst out of the water and leap onto a partially submerged rock. Except it's not a beautiful seductive mermaid. This thing has the legs of a frog, the mouth of a carp, and long, sharp claws. It's covered in pink skin that almost looks like a salmon, and it's making this horrible noise, something between a burp and a gurgle. The soldiers are frozen in shock.

• 29:53Rasha Pecoraro?

  And while they're trying to make sense of what they're seeing, one of them spots something else. A second figure is swimming through the water. It's pink and vaguely human shaped, and it's headed right towards them. These soldiers aren't willing to stand around and see if these things are going to make the first move. So they just open fire. But the two creatures dive into the depths, and they're never seen again. It's impossible to say if they were hit or if they escaped unscathed.

• 30:27Yvette Gentile?

  The soldiers are understandably shaken after all of this. So when they make it back to their base, they tell their superior officers what happened. But the military officials don't believe them. But they do agree to look into it. They even reach out to the villagers to see if they have proof that the manfish actually exists. And within a few days or so, one of the locals tells them they've managed to kill a manfish. Then they hand the body over to the stunned Japanese officer. It looks exactly like the creature the soldiers described. Pink skin, a human-looking face with a carp mouth, frog legs, and long claws.

• 31:10Yvette Gentile?

  So the officials decide to send the body for testing. They figure there have to be biologists somewhere in Japan who can study this creature and explain what it is. The problem is, as we said before, World War II is raging. The nation's top scientists are focused on developing weapons and supporting the military. And nobody's willing to drop what they're doing to examine a mermaid-type corpse. So the investigation comes to a halt. Nobody's sure what becomes of the dead manfish afterward.

• 31:48Rasha Pecoraro?

  The good news, at least for us, is the sightings don't end there. So let's jump ahead to 24 years later, to Main Island, just off the shore of British Columbia, Canada. On June 13th, 1967, the ferry to the island is loaded with travelers who are enjoying a midsummer getaway. And then, as they're reaching the shores of Main Island, they all see something remarkable. It's a blonde woman sitting on the beach. She's topless and eating a dead salmon. Oh, and by the way, she has a long, porpoise-like tail.

• 32:29Rasha Pecoraro?

  One of the people on the boat has a camera, so they snap a photo of the mermaid. Meaning, they have physical, actual proof that this isn't a manatee, a dugong, or a hallucination. This lady, or creature, or whatever it is, is real. Now, of course, the locals want to learn about the mermaid. One businessperson even offers a $25,000 reward to anyone who can capture her alive. Nobody ever produces another photo of the creature or the mermaid. She's never seen again. So rumors, of course, started swirling that the whole thing was just an elaborate hoax.

• 33:13Rasha Pecoraro?

  Then, in the year 2016, a Main Island native named Judy Allred claims she helped stage the photo back in 1967. And according to her, a local businessman wanted to drum up publicity and tourism, so he paid her to sit on the beach in a big prosthetic tail, pretending to eat a raw fish with a chunk already taken out of it. And to be fair, I've looked at this photo, and it looks real to me. I can't really see the fish because it's a little grainy, it's in black and white, but she looks like a real mermaid, and it does not look fake.

• 33:50Yvette Gentile?

  I agree with you. I did look at the photo as well, but there's that other side of me that can totally see that it was, you know, she was paid to do it, like, kind of looks like a hoax, but...

• 34:00Rasha Pecoraro?

  To this day, Judy hasn't offered any proof that she was actually the woman in the photo. And I'll note, again, that the picture was taken at a distance, so it's hard to make out the mermaid's facial features and confirm whether it really was Judy or not. Still, a lot of skeptics, like my sister Yvette, believe Judy's account.

• 34:25Yvette Gentile?

  Okay, well, the next story is a little harder to debunk. It's from 2009, and it happened in a town called Kiryat Yom. It sits right on the Mediterranean Sea, and every night, the locals go out to the beach and watch the sunset beneath the waves. But at some point that year, these rumors start flying. They say every night at dusk, the people of Kiryat Yom keep seeing something odd in the water. It looks like a young girl with a fish tail. So it seems like they're seeing a mermaid. And apparently, she likes the attention she's getting.

• 35:06Yvette Gentile?

  Every time the locals gather on the beach, she jumps and does flips in the air. Sometimes, she swims right up to the shoreline, like she wants to make sure people see her. But she doesn't get close enough for anyone to talk to her. And eventually, the local government decides they need to figure out what's really going on. So Kiryat Yom officials make an announcement. If anyone can produce proof that the mermaid is real, they'll earn a reward of 3.7 million New Israeli shekels. And that is equivalent to 1 million US dollars.

• 35:48Rasha Pecoraro?

  Naturally, everyone is motivated to claim that reward, including professional journalists.

• 35:55Rasha Pecoraro?

  A team from an NBC documentary even travels all the way from the US to Kyriatyam. They camp on the beach and set up their cameras every night at sunset, hoping to capture the mermaid on film. They even hire a team of scuba divers to look for her underwater. They spend about a week filming nonstop. One day, while the sun is still up, a cameraman is walking along a rocky shoreline when he spots something on the cliffs beneath him. He immediately points his camera at the object and starts filming. I've actually seen this video, and I heard him ask his colleague, "Is that a seal on the rocks down there?"

• 36:38Rasha Pecoraro?

  And then the cameraman zooms in, and it becomes clear to the colleague and to me that this thing isn't a seal. Unfortunately, the animal is pretty far away. And even though the camera is zoomed in as much as it possibly can be, the creature is small and kind of grainy in the footage, but it absolutely looks a bit like a mermaid. She seems to have a purple or a gray tail. There's something dark on her back, which could be her long wet hair, or her natural coloring, or even a shadow. And she's looking away from the shore out towards the ocean.

• 37:20Rasha Pecoraro?

  That is, until 30 seconds or so after the cameraman spots her. At that point, she turns around really quickly, almost like she heard him. Or maybe she just got that eerie feeling that someone was watching her. But as soon as she spots them, she dives headfirst into the ocean and disappears under the waves, which are very choppy and violent. The cameraman keeps filming the water for maybe 10 seconds or so, but there's no sign of her by the time the clip ends. But when she jumps into that water, she absolutely looks like a mermaid, to me.

• 37:58Yvette Gentile?

  Yeah, because you can see the tail go up.

• 38:00Rasha Pecoraro?

  Yes.

• 38:01Yvette Gentile?

  Yeah. Well, the good news is the cameraman captured exactly what the NBC crew wanted: proof on film that mermaids exist. And let's just keep in mind, these are supposed to be professional documentarians. Their reputation as serious journalists is on the line. So if you were to trust anyone to tell the truth, it would be this team, right?

• 38:28Rasha Pecoraro?

  Right.

• 38:29Yvette Gentile?

  Well, they hand the clip over to the local government and try to claim the reward. But a group of video experts review the film. Their findings are inconclusive. The footage is just too grainy, and the mermaid is too small and far away for them to say it's definitely real. And the experts can't identify any signs of CGI or digital alteration either. All they can say is that the footage could show a mermaid, but it also might not. And ultimately, the federal officials decide not to give the NBC crew the cash reward

• 39:12Yvette Gentile?

  until the video is verified. And to this day, the footage is considered highly controversial. Those who believe in sea creatures say this is hard proof that mermaids exist. And then the skeptics maintain that the clip must have been faked, although they still can't say exactly how it was done.

• 39:38Rasha Pecoraro?

  It looked pretty real to me. But it's mysterious enough for Animal Planet to produce and air two different specials on mermaids not long afterwards in the year 2013. They're called "The Body Found" and "The New Evidence." And both programs feature biologists, scientists, and film crews presenting the evidence that mermaids are real. They also show footage, like the clip from Curiaotium, and brand-new clips that were filmed just for these specials. Tons of people tune into Animal Planet, and lots of them come away as true believers by the end of the special. They feel convinced that mermaids exist.

• 40:24Yvette Gentile?

  Except only a few viewers catch the language that appears in small print during the credits of each program. It says, "This show was a work of fiction." Damn it! I'm just saying. The supposed scientists and biologists they interviewed were all paid actors. The body found and the new evidence aren't documentaries. They're mockumentaries, and they fooled a lot of people. And since then, many people have followed in those filmmakers' footsteps. The internet is full of photos and videos from other alleged sightings that are pretty

• 41:06Yvette Gentile?

  much, let's just say, all fake. Some are pranks, others are AI-generated videos and photoshopped content. So I can see why people feel skeptical about any alleged mermaid sightings. But there is a bright side to this for the mermaid believers. A few scientists still maintain that mermaids could theoretically be real. And they may be closely related to us. To explain how, I have to tell you about something called the aquatic ape theory.

• 41:46Yvette Gentile?

  It comes from a biologist named Alastair Hardy, who proposed it in 1960 and it's since grown. It says that at some point in human evolution, our ancestors might have lived in the water like other aquatic mammals. After all, most mammals are covered in hair, but human beings, like our ocean-dwelling relatives, are mostly bare-skinned. This theory could also explain why we walk upright on two legs rather than on all fours. We might have begun holding our bodies in this position when we lived in the water because at times, we needed to keep our heads above the waves to breathe.

• 42:31Yvette Gentile?

  But at some point, our ancestors supposedly returned to life on land, and they eventually became Homo sapiens. Us. The aquatic eep theory is very controversial in scientific circles. Some researchers think the evidence to support it is pretty strong. Most dismiss it entirely. But let's assume for the sake of the argument, it's accurate. If so, maybe some of our ancestors never left the ocean. And while our predecessors returned to the land and were evolving into human beings,

• 43:14Yvette Gentile?

  maybe their cousins were sprouting tails and becoming mermaids. And just maybe, they've been hiding in the depths of the sea ever since.

• 43:26Rasha Pecoraro?

  As Yvette and I mentioned at the top of the episode, so much of the ocean is completely unexplored. And there are so many species just waiting to be discovered and classified. No one knows what could be lurking in the ocean's deepest trenches. It could be undiscovered species of coral, fish, crustaceans, or even mythical creatures like sea serpents, sirens, or even mermaids. But we believe there's more out there, just out of sight. And I don't know about you, but the mysteries of the ocean are always calling to me,

• 44:09Rasha Pecoraro?

  like a siren singing a magical song.

• 44:23Yvette Gentile?

  This is So Supernatural, an AudioChuck original, produced by Crime House. You can connect with us on Instagram at So Supernatural Pod and visit our website at sosupernaturalpodcast.com. Join Rasha and me next Friday for an all-new episode.

• 44:44Yvette Gentile?

  I think Chuck would approve.

• 44:50Speaker 06

  When the nights grow longer, the shadows start to stir. And that can only mean one thing. Full Body Chills is back. This season, step inside original tales where every doorway leads somewhere darker, every stranger carries a secret, and nothing is ever quite what it seems. Each story takes you somewhere new, but be careful. You never know what might follow you home. So gather round, listen close, and stream Full Body Chills wherever you get your podcasts.