From the unexplained to the mundane, come join us on a journey to the fringe.
Hello and welcome to Journey to the Fringe, maybe where those feet ended up, I don't know,
who knows, or where they came from, maybe even.
We are your throwback-sling podcast hosts Taylor and Chelsea here today discussing a
topic that would be very near and dear to probably like a nine-year-old podcast host
Chelsea's heart.
Oh my god.
Chelsea?
What is it?
Oh my god.
Mermaid sightings.
Mermaid sightings!
Yes!
It's not even nine-year-old.
It's however old I am, Chelsea's heart.
Because I've looked at this to-do before.
Did you see it on TikTok?
I did not see it on TikTok.
I got something from TikTok.
I don't think I'll end up showing it just because, you know, the medium which we use
is not conducive to TikTok all the time.
But this is a story that has captured the hearts and minds of humanity basically as
far back as we can go.
And pretty much most cultures have something along the lines of a water human in their
lore.
It's a ninja.
I think it's going to be fun to just look through time and see what people have spotted
for mermaids.
I've looked at this, but I never actually took the plunge on it.
And Chelsea, we're going to end up in some interesting places.
We're going to see some culturally different interactions and how it's used as we go through
the time.
And I think it's just fun.
I'm not going to talk that much about the mermaids themselves and how they differ.
I'm just more or less going to talk about the sightings and what happens from them.
We get to talk about if there's any sightings now.
Oh yeah.
We'll be talking.
Don't worry.
I saw them on TikTok, not in real life.
Okay.
And it was- it got me as TikTok does with those conspiracy theories.
I don't know why TikTok's so catchy, but anyhow, let's get to the episode.
Yeah.
Very sweet.
With that, Chelsea, we're going to start right from the first writing that we have about
mermaids.
And sorry, before we get there, I need to establish this because I just- I always feel mermaid,
not great.
Again, another sexed word that doesn't necessarily have to be-
Oh, and it has made it.
It's not good.
Yes.
And I don't know what you call- a merman just seems like kind of sexist to say he's
a man and it's not a mermaid.
She has to work.
So I've generally fallen back on calling them mercens because, you know, mer- merperson.
But-
I do like that.
It has a great-
One individual is a merson.
I don't know what you would call a group of them.
Would they be merples or meeples?
Mer-son-murples.
Okay.
I think in the end, you just end up going with what sounds better.
And I think it's murple.
Well, and most importantly, whether or not they have a seashell bra, because then we
can fairly, I think, assume that it's a mermaid or a what-have-you from there.
No genitalia, unfortunately, on these back sides.
Not on the tails, I don't think.
I think it's specifically whether they have the seashell bra or not.
Yeah.
And actually, in some cases, no, just the boobies.
Okay, I'm so excited to find out.
Anyhow, back to the story.
The first writing we have of this actually comes from a man who's come up before on
this podcast.
Chelsea, I don't expect you to remember him.
It's Pliny the Elder.
He writes about these exotic beasts way back in the day.
So we're talking like-
I would think I would remember whoever the elder.
Pliny the Elder.
He wrote in the hundreds.
I believe he's Greek.
Might be a Roman, but I'm pretty sure Greek.
Where have we talked about him?
It was another cryptid or beast that we were talking about because-
I feel like it was a meagre.
He might have talked about Atlantis, too.
I can't quite remember.
He talks a lot.
He's old.
He rambles.
Okay.
I can do that from his name.
So he describes a bizarre assortment of otherworldly sightings of supernatural sea creatures, including
mermaids, mermen, and gigantic sea monsters, back to mercens or murples.
He reports that an embassy was once sent to Emperor Tiberius to inform him that in a certain
cave, numerous people had seen or heard a Triton playing with a conch.
I believe a Triton is a kind of merperson, but-
I thought it was the king.
King Triton.
Well, that's-
Maybe he was a god.
Triton is-
Do you know what?
Yeah, Triton is the name of- what's his name?
It's the Greek name for Neptune.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
But when in a way I didn't expect, that wasn't the little mermaid.
He then proceeds to explain that the corpses of so many- and- and- and-
Neerids wash up on the French shores that the governor of Gaul once even wrote a letter
to Emperor Augustus to inform him of it.
Pliny claims that Neerids look exactly like they are shown in artwork, but states they
are completely covered from head to toe with fish scales.
Pliny mentions that a dying Neerid- then Neerids what they call, uh, mercens.
Okay, thank you for that, because I was wondering.
Yes, once washed ashore on the coast of Gaul and that the inhabitants of the coastal village
heard her singing a song of mourning as she lay dying.
Pliny also asserts that a merman with a human body was often spotted in the Gulf of Cadiz.
Had is.
Cadiz, I don't know.
This merman would often climb up onto the decks of ships in the middle of the night
and whatever part of the ship he sat on would become so weighed down by him that it would
instantly begin to sink.
If you remained there for a long time, the ship would actually go underwater.
So that's what Pliny tells us about from way back in the day.
Wise old man, probably happened obviously, he wrote about Triton, a god, and they exist.
Oh yeah, remember in the last episode when we talked about Zeus?
Definitely existed.
Yeah, she's one of the famous Greeks, remember?
Yeah, I believe it was just briefly mentioned.
It wasn't like a whole episode about how God existed, by the way.
Between Theor 1040 and 1105, we have writings in the Talmud from a rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki.
It's an ancient Jewish book of laws and legends and he wrote, there are fish in the sea with
which half is in the form of man and half in the form of fish called serene in old
French.
A later rabbi comments on this phrase by saying, quote, this refers to the creatures in the
sea which is similar in part to a person from the naval upward and similar to a woman in
all aspects in that it has breasts and long hair like that of a woman and from the naval
downward is a fish.
So they've got writing about it in Jewish law books from that way back in the day.
Law book?
What was the law about it though?
Talmud, it's just a mention of it, like laws and like religious laws.
Oh, okay.
Kind of like, you call the Bible a book of laws.
It's probably an oversimplification, but just to give you an easy idea for it.
The Dutch have some interesting stories, first one happening in the 1400s, 1403, the city
of Kampen in the Netherlands.
It's recorded a dike had a crack which opened to the sea.
Water started flooding the river in massive amounts.
After the locals repaired it, they saw a mermaid swimming in the river near the town.
At first people were scared, but the mermaid didn't bother anyone and just kept swimming.
Later, the villagers captured the mermaid and she transformed into a human with two
legs.
They didn't speak, but they forced her to join their society and the mermaid tried to
escape and jumped back into the water multiple times, but someone was always there to stop
her.
What a story.
Yeah, I'm very confused.
No, it's not.
They're real dicks, hey?
Yeah, I'm not really quite sure what to make of that story.
That's that story.
In 1493, right around the time that Christopher Columbus was sailing across the ocean blue,
1492, in his three ships, he writes in his logs that he saw mermaids.
He describes seeing three sirens that came high out of the water.
However, he noted they were not as pretty as they are depicted.
For somehow in their face, they look like men.
Interesting, because I've also heard, and I don't know if you're going to get to this,
that they don't look as human as are depicted in like Disney movies.
So it's interesting.
Some of them say they do look that way, like the Dutch one.
And I'm sure that the little mermaid's based off of a Scandinavian book.
So that makes sense. It actually sounds a lot like her because she couldn't speak and
she had feet.
Hey, like that 1403.
Yeah, others of them are depicted of more similar to monsters.
Am I?
Yes, yes.
Correct in that.
Okay.
Yes, you are correct.
And we're going to see just like kind of a whole array of them.
Okay.
That was my comment, I guess, that that's what Christopher Columbus saw was they look like
men.
And he's assuming they're women.
Maybe they were actually.
Yeah.
And he's just going to say like he was focused on genociding things at the time.
Like he was really busy.
So he probably saw them said like, I can't genocide that is in the water.
So I'm just going to keep doing my genocide.
How would I ever genocide that because that's not my realm?
He said, angrily in Italian and or Spanish, depending on who you ask at the time.
That to ocean gate.
The future.
Spoiler alert, they fail miserably.
Also it's regularly reported with the Christopher Columbus one that what he saw was a manatee.
But that's just people guessing from now.
They don't know what he saw.
Generally it's thought of that when people see mermaids as manatees or seals.
That's generally the given story.
That woman sure is ugly.
Sir, that is a manatee.
Maybe that's why it's called manatee.
Can you imagine though seeing a manatee?
They're so cute and actually being like, wow, that is one ugly girl.
Is she not wearing a bikini at the beach?
Why is she not covering her bosom?
Okay.
Next sighting I have is from 1801 by Governor Van Battenburg.
Van Battenburg, who was the governor at the time at the island of Burbis in the Caribbean,
gives the following account of the description of their local mermaid.
The upper portion resembles the human figure, the head smaller in proportion, sometimes
bare, but often covered with copious quantities of long black hair.
The shoulders are broad and the breasts large and well formed.
The lower portion resembles the tail portion of a fish.
Is of immense dimension, the tail forked and not unlike that of the dolphin as it is usually
represented.
The color of the skin is either black or tawny.
The animal is held in veneration and dread by the Indians who imagine that the killing
it would be attended with the most calamitous consequences.
It is from this circumstance that none of these animals have been shot and consequently not
examined, but at a distance.
They have been generally observed in a sitting posture in the water, none of the lower extremities
being discovered until they are disturbed, when by plunging the tail appears and agitates
the water to a considerable distance round.
They have been always seen employed in smoothing their hair or stroking their faces and breasts
with their hands or something resembling hands.
In this posture and thus employed they have been frequently taken for Indian women bathing.
So that's his account of it.
And all over the world too, you're just going to keep seeing that.
Like we have rabbis, so I'm assuming it's either European or Middle Eastern at that
time.
We have Greeks, we have the Caribbean now.
I think we're heading up to Scotland now actually.
Citing from the 1890s, this is the Deerness Maid Citing.
This mermaid's sighting is unique as it took place over a few summers around the 1890s,
with a creature becoming known as the Deerness Mermaid who regularly visits Newark Bay in
Deerness Scotland.
This mermaid made multiple appearances and hundreds of eyewitnesses swear to the validity
of their encounter.
One person wrote, quote, it is about six to seven feet in length, has a little black
head with neck, snow white body in two arms, and in swimming it just appears like a human
being.
At times it will appear to be sighting on a sunken rock and will wave and work its hands.
Of course we have to assume that's what they said, again they're saying it in Scottish,
which is it's hard to know for sure.
It's one of the hardest languages to know for sure and even worse than German.
Although probably more pure than English.
And then in 1913, a lot of people believe this is the same thing because it's the one
in Scotland, it's the Hoysee Woman sighting.
So close to Deerness.
This woman shows up in 1913, Merson, and of writing from the time Ralph Taylor and crew
when visiting their lobster reels the other day saw a strange creature which looked like
a mermaid, close by the foot of the old man.
It rose out of the water to the height of three feet and looked like a lady with a shawl around
her shoulders and streaming down her face.
This is the third occasion it has been seen at close range by them.
The oldest people have never seen anything like it before and wonder what it can be.
Some think it must be the Deerness mermaid on tour.
On tour?
Yeah, that's from the Orcadian.
The article was on Saturday, September 13th, 1913.
And then again in 1947, another Scottish fisherman sees one.
An old fisherman from Scotland reported that he had seen a mermaid in the water from 20
yards from the shore sitting combing her hair on a floating herring box used to preserve
live lobsters according to Sir Arthur Woe in the folklore of the Murpho.
He says, quote, unfortunately, as soon as she looked around, she realized that she had
been seen and plunged into the sea.
A reporter named Mr. McClain says, but no one questioning could shake the old fisherman's
conviction.
He was adamant that he had seen a mermaid, so one never knows.
I kept this one together just because I wanted to keep the Scottish ones all together, but
we're going to jump just a few years back in time to World War II where there's an
island in Malaysia called the Kei or Kai Islands, which had Japanese occupation.
And the Japanese soldiers there saw apparently many mermaids or manfish sightings, as they
called them.
They claimed to be 150 centimeters tall, having spikes on the spine, shoulders, and neck.
The local villagers in the Kai Islands of Indonesia had a creature that they were familiar
with and they called it the Rang Ikan.
I believe names like that in Malaysia have come up before.
I think there's the orang-miniak.
Has that come up before?
Is that the...
They're a bigfoot guy, right?
Yeah, they have come up before.
So orang means person.
In that kind of kan...
Not in detail, but they've come up.
And then the other one would be orang-itan, which, you know, human monkey or something
like that because it's the exact same start to the word.
So they call it the orang-ikan.
It translates directly to manfish.
During the war, Japanese soldiers stationed in the 555 square mile area in the islands
had multiple claims of encounters with these manfish or with the modern world calls mermaids.
The Japanese soldiers recorded not one, but many different sightings claiming they all
saw the same thing, an amphibious creature that was mostly seen in the sea and not on
land.
Instead of a single tail, they had two frog-like fins and long arms.
Thanks god.
Yeah.
And they were said to have light pink skin similar to salmon and a mouth like a carp.
Not quite what other people have been describing in the European side.
A little mermaid would have been so much better like this.
And notice how these guys aren't talking about the boobs.
No, not at all.
All the other ones are like, yeah, she's got a belly button, giant boobs, friggin' awesome,
then a tail or something.
I don't know.
I've never really looked that far.
And then these guys are like, no, I couldn't even tell you if there were boobs.
It looks delicious though.
One such sighting happened when a troop of soldiers came to a natural lagoon after leisurely
exploring the island.
The lagoon seemed normal until they saw some thrashing in the water, suddenly an orangutan
jumped out of the water and onto a rock.
It turned, faced the soldiers, and let out a weird gurgling noise.
Another same creature was seen swimming in the water towards them.
They didn't seem friendly and not knowing the creature's intentions, the soldiers started
shooting at them, but the creatures escaped and disappeared out of view.
And to be fair, we don't know how good of fighters they were because, you know, they lost the war.
So maybe the orangutan could have beaten the allies in a war we don't know for sure.
We do know that they thwarted the Japanese.
They sound like they got some freaky stuff going on there.
That's enough to deal with.
That's spooky enough.
And then a sergeant named Mr. Tarot requested the villagers inform him if any of the orangutan
were captured dead or alive.
The soldiers summoned the general soon after who saw these creatures with his own eyes.
Mr. Tarot tried his best to get the scientific community involved after the war, but unfortunately
it didn't happen.
So that one's pretty cool.
And then, Chelsea, this is the market change here where we come into the modern capital
day.
Basically everything from here on out is like, oh, somebody saw a mermaid.
We got to market the shit out of this.
Okay, I'm intrigued because I don't actually know the stories behind these.
I have seen the little mermaid, so I am thinking that you're going to start reading the script
from the little mermaid.
Okay.
Over to the watchers.
See, I already covered the little mermaid.
I made it very clear that that woman that they tore from the sea to have legs and not
talk was the little mermaid.
Okay, I still think you're going to read from the script.
Well, this story actually comes from the Daily Colonist, the June 13th, 1967 version of it,
because it is a sighting in BC, Chelsea.
No, shut up.
In a newspaper.
Yeah.
In the early season, oh my God.
This creature was seen in the early evening by passengers on ferries close to the west
entrance to active pass.
The Daily Colonist reported on the sighting the next day and included a photograph that
is said to be taken by George Harrison of the city of Iowa.
Several witnesses said the mermaid had a large fish, apparently coho salmon, and one swore
she had taken the bite out of it.
Long silver blonde hair and topless condition were generally agreed upon.
And I just love the way this article goes.
Just stay with me here.
The next day, the colonists referred to her as a dimpled mermaid and said she had the
lower body of a fish or porpoise.
The newspaper said she had been at Helen Point on the northwest corner of Main Island and
had been seen eating a large salmon.
Quote, a cobble hill man who flew over the area shortly after 7pm managed to get an aerial
photograph which corresponded closely to a picture taken from the queen of sandwiched
by an Iowa visitor, the colonists said.
The aerial photograph which was not published in the newspaper apparently showed a silvery
object on the rock beside the mermaid.
One male witness said that the mermaid was quote, a cute blonde with dimples.
It was definitely a girl.
Definitely.
End quote.
He said the mermaid seemed to enjoy the wake of the fairy washing over her.
The witness did not want his name used in the newspaper, he said because his boss would
think he was crazy.
On June 15th, the colonists cranked it up a notch and they reported that a $25,000 reward
would be offered for the dimpled mermaid of active pass.
The offer was made by Charles White of the undersea gardens who added that a panel of
competent marine biologists would have to confirm that the mermaid was a real thing.
White promised to negotiate a contract with the mermaid.
I love this part.
Quote, I think we could come to terms.
We would offer a substantial salary, room and board, and a supply of those special
combs that mermaids use, he said.
In planning for accommodations for the mermaid, White said he would need to know if she preferred
to sleep with her tail above or below covers.
White was not troubled by the fact that the half-girl, half-fish creature was apparently
topless, saying that her natural state would be fine.
Quote, we are very conscious of conservation.
End quote.
He said Earl Dignother, manager of the Victoria Chamber of Commerce, suggested that the mermaid
could be convinced to pop into view from time to time and even give a leer to play.
Quote, of course they'd have to tie the captains to the mast.
Even if it's not a real mermaid, it's a great idea.
How come we overlooked this for so long?
End quote.
There was one more sighting of the mermaid at Cordova Bay more than a week later, but
the woman who saw the creature was not convinced.
I don't believe for a moment it was a real mermaid, she said.
And that was that.
The final colonists report on the mermaid.
And sorry, I said this was from that article.
The colonists did a look back at the story later on, and this is from that story from
the colonist.
Okay.
But I just love how they're like, oh, we gotta market the shit out of this.
We're gonna put up a reward.
If she's gonna be topless, like hey, that's just natural.
Can't do nothing about that.
Now it doesn't appear that there is an actual picture, am I correct in that?
There are pictures.
It's a 1967 black and white one.
You can't see shit.
I can't find a thing if I Google it and obviously the man's name who apparently took the photo
gives way too lame a more photo than someone else.
Not being George Harrison.
But I would like to point out this is a very good explanation for just feet washing up
on shore.
If we combine this story with the Dutch story from 1403 where she jumps in the water, her
legs disappear.
What if it's just mermaids going in and out of the water and their feet fall off?
I think we gotta add that to the list of explanations.
That might actually be the best explanation we've heard so far.
They're born with feet, but they're mermaids so they fall off.
Of course.
I don't know how we missed it.
The answer was right in front of us and topless this whole time.
Wow, that's a crazy story.
I've never heard of that.
I love it when we come back to a local story.
I love that.
You think you live in such a mundane part of the world and for the most part we do,
but there are fun stories every now and then.
Yeah, I mean we got Lake and Boots Square.
I love that address.
Next one is I believe this is 1998.
We're going to Kauai.
And this one does allegedly have a photograph with it.
So if you look up 1998 Kauai mermaid photo you should find something here.
This comes from a diving webpage which I think is the actual diver who found this.
The article is titled First Ever Photos of Mermaid.
For more than 50 years people have reported seeing a mermaid off the coast of Hawaii's
Big Island, but the sightings were never taken seriously until a dive boat captain finally
captured the half-woman half-fish on film.
Dive master Jeff Leisher, 43, photographed the creature known as the Kauai Point Mermaid
on April 12, 1998 as he and six other divers were exploring the ocean bottom about 20 minutes
off Hawaii's sunny Kota coast.
Leisher points to the spot where he photographed the mermaid.
Jeff Leisher spots the Kona mermaid.
I'd heard about her before.
Most of us who are out in these waters regularly have heard stories but I'd never seen her
until that morning says Leisher who operates Jack's Diving Locker.
And this came right from Jack's Diving Locker website.
Quote, we were on our way out to the point when a school of dolphins started following
the boat, playing in our wake and suddenly one of the men in the port side starts yelling
and pointing.
I couldn't believe what I saw.
The one that was about 10 feet from the bow was what looked like a nude woman.
She had long flowing hair and one of the most beautiful faces I'd ever seen.
But there was no way a human being could be swimming so fast she kept keeping right up
with the dolphins.
Then she left into the air and my heart almost gave out on me.
The entire lower half of her was covered with scales and tapered back into a huge fishtail.
She jumped once more and then disappeared under their surface.
End quote.
All 10 people on the boat witnessed the bizarre incident but there was another incredible surprise
still ahead.
Quote, about an hour later we arrived at the point and we were diving.
I was photographing some colorful fish with my underwater camera.
Suddenly I felt something brush against my right leg.
She shot by me like a streak of lightning and then turned and came back past me, swimming
the other way.
I just aimed the camera and started snapping pictures.
I kept shooting as she broke for the surface and swam away.
End quote.
Weekly World News, you know the most reputable source on earth.
Had Leishers picture analyzed by three noted photography labs?
All three say the photos are genuine and have not been tampered with.
And the photos of the Kauai Point mermaid have been studied and authenticated by experts.
Quote, I feel very lucky that I'm the one to finally prove to the world what people
here have known for half a century said Leishers.
The Kauai Point's mermaid is real.
End quote.
Did you find that photo Chelsea?
I did.
It legitimately looks like the stereotypical mermaid.
Right?
Yeah.
By looking at the right one?
I think so.
You can see the tail, hair.
You can see.
And it's looking up, so you only see the outline really.
Yeah, it looks like you can see it had arms or to its side, right?
And then you can see like a tail.
It looks like a female.
So if it's real, that's a pretty dead, like whenever we're talking about photos, they're
always blurry really far away.
This one is 10 feet at most away.
Like it's a good photo.
We'll probably post it on the socials.
If you're this close to it, you should see a few more details other than just an outline.
But yeah, it is a human top, tail, bottom, mermaid hat.
We're going to skip ahead to 2009, the Jerusalem Post.
Israel is in the grips of a mermaid fever after continuous sightings of the mythical
sea creature off its coast.
One town council is taking the report so seriously it is offering a $1 million reward to anyone
who could prove the existence of a mermaid in its waters.
Kiryat Yam municipality near Haifa says it has been told of dozens of sightings in the
past few months.
Quote.
They are telling us they are sure they've seen a mermaid and they are all independent
of each other.
End quote.
Council spokesman Natty Zilberman told Sky News.
The nautical nymph is only seen in the evening at sunset according to media reports, drawing
crowds of people with cameras hoping for a glimpse.
Quote.
People say it is a half girl, half fish jumping like a dolphin.
It does all kinds of tricks and then disappears.
End quote.
Mr. Zilberman said again.
Asked whether a dolphin or large fish could be a more traditional explanation, he insisted.
Quote.
They say it's a female figure.
It's like a young girl.
So probably a manatee as we've learned.
End quote.
How disturbing.
The council denied its offer of a reward was a publicity stunt, but said it hoped to
nurture the mermaid as something which could bring in more tourists.
Capturing a mermaid is not necessary.
A verifiable photograph will do.
Zilberman said.
Asked if the council can afford the payout.
He told Sky News.
Quote.
I believe if there really is a mermaid then so many people and tourists will come to Kiryat.
Yeah, a lot more money will be made than $1 million.
End quote.
End article.
And then Chelsea, this next one, I just have to preface this.
I'm probably gonna have to say the most racist thing I've ever said on this show in this
next one.
Wow, we've said a lot of racist things actually.
In a very weird way.
Not ourselves.
Quoted.
Just brace yourself for it because it gets weird in this article, but we're going to Zimbabwe
on this one.
Oh, okay.
Interesting.
Yeah, and the racism isn't going to be what you think, but it is very apparent once I
get to it.
Okay.
It's 2012 Zimbabwe, they're building a dam.
That's as much as I need to tell you to preface this.
A mermaid plagued dam in Zimbabwe is up and working after traditional healers brewed beer
to appease the mischievous water spirits.
The mermaids were harassing workers installing water pumps at the dam near the small town
of Gokwe in northern Zimbabwe.
According to local media reports, water resource minister Samuel Speppa Nkomo told a Senate
committee last week that work on the pumps at Gokwe Dam had stopped after terrified workers
complained of machines breaking down under mysterious circumstances and blamed mermaids.
The state run Harold newspaper reported Nkomo said the same problem had been reported at
Osborne Dam near Mutare in the country's east.
He called for traditional rituals to be performed at the dams, including traditionally brewed
beer to rid them of these mermaid menaces.
At Osborne Dam, divers had been sent down to investigate the cause of blockages in the
pumps but returned to the water surface, vowing to never go back down again.
Quote, we even hired whites, thinking that our boys did not want to work.
But they also returned saying they would not return to work there again.
End quote.
Nkomo said to the Senate committee, the problem at Gokwe was reportedly solved late last week
when the water ministry hired traditional healers to conduct rituals.
The traditional leaders held a ceremony in which they slaughtered cattle and brewed beer
to appease the water spirit.
Quote, I do not believe in mermaids, but communities around here do.
End quote.
Nkomo said according to Sapa.
According to the Voice of America, belief in mermaids persists among some Zimbabweans,
though many are skeptical of such claims.
Quote, mermaids are supposedly mythological creatures.
With a female body and a tail of fish, those tales were mostly in circulation hundreds
of years ago, but stories continue to make their rounds in Zimbabwe, VOA said.
Which I believe is the newspaper I use for that one.
Very different that one, hey?
Yeah, it's strangely similar.
But nobody talking about the boobs.
And if I were a mermaid, I would want to be made in Zimbabwe, because they brewed beer
for me.
To finish this off, just to say that these are still ongoing in 2012 isn't the most
recent story I have, I took to Reddit to see what stories people were telling on there.
With my goodness, did I find quite a few of them.
So we're going to read a couple from there.
Oh please, can I just interject before this, because I don't want to leave it as an afterthought.
I want to get it while you're talking about normal.
Like what do we call the day that we are today?
Modern times?
Present day?
Modern times, present day sightings.
There was a time that I was up very late.
Growing through TikTok, it was around the same time as Ocean Gate, let's just say.
TikTok was a flame with Ocean Gate at that time.
However, I was, and this is what got it onto our list, I came across one video that was
of a guy on TikTok who was on a boat late at night, and he went out and he had the big
lights going on to the dark ocean, which just creeps me out.
And the subtitles on the video say that Siren was calling him out of the boat.
I found that one, yeah.
So that started me.
You can hear something.
Yeah, you can hear something calling him out of the boat, and he has the big spotlights
off this big, it's not an ocean liner, it must be a fishing boat or something like that.
To which it just gives me the creeps, because I hate the ocean.
I just don't know what's in the ocean.
Mermaids, Loch Ness monsters, Kraken's, I don't know, I don't want to find out.
I'm not going to go down in the Ocean Gate to go look at the Titanic.
I don't care what's down there.
It's very unexplored.
We know more about the moon, and that being said, aliens versus mermaids.
We know nothing about them, especially their boobs.
Yeah, we actually know too much about aliens.
We do know a lot about their boobs.
We know more about their boobs than about anything else about them.
And let us just say that this is the most genitalia that has actually come up in cryptids, and
let me just say, everybody's incredibly casual about bringing that information about us.
It's true.
I didn't even think about that.
But you're right.
This is the most genitalia information we've had.
But yeah, that's where it made it to our list from, was that video that I saw on TikTok.
And then I got into another TikTok hole that was an Ocean Gate that was siren sightings
that are just on TikTok.
And I do also think that sirens could in themselves be a different episode, because that one doesn't
necessarily have a sighting up in mermaid.
And sirens specifically are lowering in, I believe.
Yes, they are.
They're allowing you to your doom.
Okay.
So I just thought I would bring that up before you go into modern day sightings.
Okay, fair enough.
Because that is originally what put me into wanting to do an episode on that.
And yeah, if you TikTok siren mermaid, you will find this video.
Oh, it'll come up.
It's probably the most.
It's very popular.
Yeah.
I just want to make the distinction at this point.
Sirens and mermaids are not the same thing.
They can be.
They often are interchangeably used through mythology and whatnot.
I'm just saying you could make an argument that that would be its own episode, because
sirens definitively are lowering you to doom.
Fair enough.
I just wanted to make the decision.
There doesn't necessarily need to be a sighting of a mermaid for a siren to happen.
Ah, okay.
That makes sense, right?
No, it doesn't make sense.
And we're here.
I'm just doing stories where people are saying they saw mermaids.
I haven't heard any doom speak yet.
Well, get ready for some of that.
Oh, good.
A lot of these just come from the mermaid subreddit, and it was posted two years ago.
Hold on, I'm not on the subreddit.
I need on it.
I need you to know that a lot of it is just like, you know, those people who dress up
like mermaids to swim around on the mermaid tails.
No, I don't need it.
Yeah, that's most of it.
But two years ago, somebody's like, hey, are there actual mermaid sightings?
And my God, did people respond to this?
Wow, everyone's on the wrong reddit.
Two years ago, Corn Holio69-666 has this story to share with us.
Yeah, for real.
I was living in the Caribbean as well in Utila Honduras.
Once I was in Neptune's one of the most virgin beaches here, and I was just swimming, not
even diving, or doing snorkel.
And I felt a hand pulling me, and I have long hair to my shoulders.
I'm 6'5", so it started pulling my hair.
Obviously, I panicked and started screaming.
And two of my friends who were looking at me like, what the fuck is going on, lol.
So I got to the dock, and then I see a remora, and they have a soft tissue that makes suction.
And that's how they cling to sharks and whales, but I've never encountered a fish that
pulls down, and it's swimming near the deck when I got off of it.
My friend is a dive instructor, and she got into the water, and the remora never got close
to her.
And it touched my legs, arms, it pulled my hair, and that was like a month ago.
And still living in an island, I'm a little frightened to go to the sea.
So my friend who is an instructor for diving vouches for my mermaid story, because she told
me she felt threatened by something she didn't know, I believe in them honestly.
I didn't see it, but he felt something pull on his hair in the water.
That's specifically why I hate going into water.
Old supermarket 5657 says, I'd like to add mine.
In 2021, in Montego Bay, Jamaica, I was sitting on the beach alone during a silent lightning
storm at night, and all of a sudden I felt the intense urge to run into the water.
Mind you, I don't swim.
After a while, the urge intensified, and I stupidly went, put my feet in the water,
and I remembered the water was bubbling and it was pitch black, and I immediately felt
this sense of dread and danger.
Ran out of the water.
After getting out, I went back to sit down on my folding chair, and out of nowhere, a
bolt of lightning lit up the night sky and the sea, and I saw a black figure with long
hair not too far away from me, staring at me from the water.
After the lightning was gone, the figure was nowhere to be found, and I sat there for half
an hour trying to figure out what the figure I saw was, but it never appeared again, and
I really believed it was a mermaid trying to take me into the sea.
They hate that.
I would have gone so fast.
Eight months ago, Zebediah said, yes, mermaids are real, but because many people are skeptical
about it, I chose not to discuss my encounter.
I was 13 years old, and it was not a pleasant encounter.
I ended up in the hospital emergency room and have the scars to prove it.
Mermaids do not exist only in the sea.
I believe they exist in any body of water.
It can be a dam or a pond.
I don't know why I had the encounter.
I was with my sister, and I was the only person that saw them and tried to draw her attention
to them.
They were three of them.
I was on top of a tree by a pond in the secluded area when I saw them.
I fell down from the tree, and then I had my encounter and ended up in the hospital emergency
room.
They didn't get into detail, but kind of terrifying.
Wish he probably would have on that one.
I believe no, this one didn't do a follow up.
I think this person here gave a vague story like this one.
This is Ladder Towel 9403 five months ago.
They gave an answer like Zepadaya did, and then they responded with a more in depth story.
So it says it's hard to explain.
I was fishing in a river about a mile and a half from my grandfather's house.
I had always walked there and fished from the bank, where I had gone since I was a kid.
I was down fishing with my dog, Josie, and was sitting and leaning against the tree.
Then my bobber went down hard and my rod almost went out of my hands.
I figured it was a bass or a catfish.
For some reason though, I started following my line as if something was drawing me in.
Josie was freaking out, yelling and even biting my leg trying to get me back, but I kept following it as if I were in a trance.
Then something broke.
The surface of the water in front of me, now all I could see was the torso and head of like a greenish brown head.
And I saw its hand, yes a hand, was pulling my line towards it.
I was so scared, but couldn't stop as it brought me closer.
Then Josie was between us barking and snapping at it, and I was able to suddenly go back towards the banks, leaving everything.
I saw it grab Josie, and grabbing at my knife, I cut the line, which I guess broke the trance, and as I struggled out of the water,
I saw Josie and grabbed her and ran out of the water.
I heard a weird slapping sound in a grunt, and I kept running until I was almost home.
I saw Josie was hurt, one of her ears was gone and bleeding, and I finally got to the house.
I was crying and threw her in the car, and straight to the vet, still wet and shaking.
I told him something got her and waited anxiously until he came back, and said she was lucky.
They had extracted a tooth from her skull, and he said it looked like an alligator tooth, but I knew better.
I never told my family what happened, but I knew damn well it wasn't an alligator.
I hate that story too, I believe him.
That is a creepy story.
And the last one I have was posted two months ago by one amphibian, 5831.
Oh my god, I'm so happy I found this post.
I really suck at explaining things, and English isn't my native language, so please keep that in mind.
I hope it's not German.
That was told to me by Pataw.
This is something that's been bothering me for years.
I'm a 20 year old female, and when I was 13, me and my dad and my younger brother went to Thailand.
We traveled to PP Island by boat, and one of those travel companies for tourists
and stopped by different islands to snorkel.
On one of these stops, me and my brother were right next to each other, looking at a fish that I found really cute.
To paint the picture a bit better, at this moment me and my brother were snorkeling in the water,
right by a floating island.
While the others in our group were a bit further away from this island,
this island was like a chunk of land that extended downward into the water, rather than having a gradual slope.
Suddenly, our dad called out for us.
Someone in our group saw a small shark, and everyone was gathering around to see it.
My brother swam over there, for some reason I stayed put, and kept watching the different fish that were swimming so close to me.
Then, something caught my attention.
There seemed to be smaller caves underwater by the shore, and I saw something slowly coming out of there.
It was similar to a human head, facing down towards the bottom of the ocean, and I completely froze up and kept staring.
The person kind of floated out of the cave, never faced up towards the surface, and did it really slowly.
Nothing of this person that I could see was moving.
By this point, I could see the back of the head and most of the back.
The person had really sparse black hair, slicked down to the scalp, and their skin looked great.
The spine was extremely pronounced, and I was so sure that it was looking at a corpse, and I completely froze up.
I couldn't breathe or move, time felt like it was standing still, and the person kept floating out of the cave, and that's when I started seeing its tail.
The tail was dark gray, and looked like a stereotypical mermaid tail.
I blinked multiple times to convince myself I was not hallucinating, but I kept seeing it.
I've never believed in the supernatural, but this thing was only a few meters below me, and I could see it so clearly.
I felt a sense of danger.
I knew that I wasn't supposed to be seeing this, and I was terrified that it would see me and attack me.
But the thing never once faced up.
Once it was out, it swayed to the side and kept a close distance to the island.
That is freaking.
And disappeared into another cave.
After a few seconds, I snapped out of it, gradually slammed back to my dad and brother, and I burst into tears and frankly told them that we had to get back to the boat right away.
My dad asked me what happened, and I told him what I saw.
Obviously, he didn't believe me, but got furious at me for lying.
When we got back to the boat, I told him again, and stood by the fact that I wasn't lying.
My father told me he really hoped I was, that it was either a lie or that I was insane,
and to be locked up in a mental hospital.
I knew how crazy all of this sounded, and honestly, I did not believe and believe myself.
I decided to tell him that I made it all up.
Since that day, I've tried to convince myself that I made it all up, but I've never experienced any hallucinations and I know what I saw.
I've told others, but of course, most of them thought I made it up, and it's so insanely frustrating feeling like you're being gaslit by the entire world,
and I truly hope that someone out there believes me.
End of story.
End of Reddit.
End of the episode.
I hate that story.
I hated multiple stories in the Reddit episode.
It was really the Reddit part that you did not like.
It took a turn there.
Yeah, it took a real turn there, being that I also really hate open bodies of water for this reason,
because you don't know what the fuck is down there.
It could be gray, like in fish humans with long,
care that look like your corpse.
You don't know why would you want that touching you or knowing where you are.
Chelsea Point, don't ever go in the water.
I love that episode.
I will still not go in the water because it freaks me out.
There was more in the Reddit than the whole episode of that kind of fear and luring.
Yeah, really outside of the Zimbabwe one.
They worked quite positive.
Yeah, probably because of the boobs.
Again, if they're talking about the boobs, it's a good interaction with it.
If they're not, it's not a good creature.
I would have been interested to hear if the boobs weren't there,
how the interaction would have went.
Manatees, I think, do have boobs though, if I know a manatee.
They're mammals.
They have mammary glands, so it makes sense.
I quite enjoyed that.
I thank you.
I will probably be having nightmares tonight due to the topic because it was one.
I am not afraid of cryptids or anything to the sort of what we talk about deep water
and what's in it.
Terrified.
I hate it.
Mermaids love it a little bit, but I will be having nightmares tonight.
We sure.
And with that, I have been Taylor.
Here with Chelsea.
We are Journey to the Fringe.
Thank you all for listening and we'll see you next week.
Goodbye.
Thank you for listening to Journey to the Fringe.
If you have liked what you have listened to, please like, share,
subscribe or follow, depending on what venue you are listening to us through.
Also, please, if possible, leave a five star review as that really helps us in the algorithms.
Should you wish to interact with us, please check us out on your social media of choice.
I bet you we are there.
And if you really want to communicate with us and give us ideas for new episodes or tell
us that we're wrong and terrible, either way, please send us an email at journeytothefringeatgmail.com.
For now, I'll see you in the next episode.