VIDEO: Are Mermaids Real?

People have always been fascinated with all sorts of mythical creatures.

In mythology, mermaids — or mermaid like creatures — have existed for thousands of years.

Throughout history, various explorers have reported sightings of mermaids, the most famous one being Christopher Columbus.

Sadly, most of these sighting were nothing but well crafted hoaxes.

Here are some other famous mermaid sightings and hoaxes, provided by Wikipedia.

In 1493, sailing off the coast of Hispaniola, Columbus reported seeing three “female forms” which “rose high out of the sea, but were not as beautiful as they are represented”.

The logbook of Blackbeard, an English pirate, records that he instructed his crew on several voyages to steer away from charted waters which he called “enchanted” for fear of merfolk or mermaids, which Blackbeard himself and members of his crew reported seeing.

These sightings were often recounted and shared by sailors and pirates who believed that mermaids brought bad luck and would bewitch them into giving up their gold and dragging them to the bottom of the sea. Two sightings were reported in Canada near Vancouver and Victoria, one from sometime between 1870 and 1890, the other from 1967.

A Pennsylvania fisherman reported five sightings of a mermaid in the Susquehanna River near Marietta in June 1881.

In August 2009, after dozens of people reported seeing a mermaid leaping out of Haifa Bay waters and doing aerial tricks, the Israeli coastal town of Kiryat Yam offered a $1 million award for proof of its existence.

In February 2012, work on two reservoirs near Gokwe and Mutare in Zimbabwe stopped when workers refused to continue, stating that mermaids had hounded them away from the sites. It was reported by Samuel Sipepa Nkomo, the water resources minister.

In May 2012, a Mermaids: The Body Found, a television docufiction aired on Animal Planet which centered on the experiences of former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists, showing a CGI recreation of amateur sound and video of a beached mermaid and discussing scientific theories involving the existence of mermaids.

In July 2012 in response to public inquiries, and the possibility that some viewers may have mistaken the programme for a documentary, the National Ocean Service (a branch of NOAA) made the unusual declaration that “no evidence of aquatic humanoids has ever been found”.

A year later in May 2013, Animal Planet aired another docu-fiction titled Mermaids: The New Evidence featuring “previously unreleased video evidence”, including what a former Iceland GeoSurvey scientist witnessed while diving off the coast of Greenland in an underwater submersible.

The videos provide two different shots of what appears to be a humanoid creature approaching and touching their vehicle. NOAA once again released a statement saying “The person identified as a NOAA scientist was an actor.” The actor is separately identified as David Evans of Ontario, Canada.

In the middle of the 17th century, John Tradescant the elder created a wunderkammer (called Tradescant’s Ark) in which he displayed, among other things, a “mermaid’s hand”. P. T. Barnum’s 19th century taxidermal hoax called the Fiji mermaid has been mentioned above.