Evidence of Real Mermaids
Rumors of real mermaids sightings keep hitting the news. Does this evidence confirm REAL mermaid sightings?
1. A Sailor Never Lies
Sightings were recorded and passed through word of mouth. Famed Christopher Columbus, Captain John Smith, and an English sailor by the name of Blackbeard give reason to believe these encounters began from an early age of discovery.
Between 1879 and 1890, several sightings off the coast of Vancouver and Victoria warned of trouble at sea through unexplained visions of women lost at sea, luring in sailors through song and instrument. In June of 1881, five sightings were reported by a Pennsylvania fisherman in the Susquehanna river.
2. Christopher Columbus
Based on the popularity of this likable figurehead and his grand reputation for self discovery, the explorer requires a category of his own.
Historical accounts depict Columbus’ voyage toward the Caribbean, upon which he reportedly saw a mermaid through the eyes of his very own telescope. On January 9th 1493, Columbus reported not one – but three mermaids that rose from the sea’s surface.
3. Greek Mythology
Hippocrates founded medicine; Archimedes, considered one of the greatest mathematicians in history, became well known for running down the street shouting the famous words, “Eureka!”; and further, let’s not rule out Aristotle who is still considered one of the most influential thinkers in ethic and politics. Around 546 BC.,
the philosopher An-Ax-Amander Anaximander claimed that all people were stemmed from an underwater human race. Legend depicts Thesalon-eekie Thessalonike, sister of Alexander the Great, who was transformed into a mermaid upon her unto which the speech was given:
4. Folklore
For those in the United Kingdom, mermaids are not a pleasant bunch. China features a beautiful composition of Chinese myth and geographical illustration within a text known as the Shanhaijing. 15th century literature tells of sweet sea creatures who fall in love with fisherman. As early as the 4th century BC., a legend of a mermaid involves her being captured at sea, and stolen home by a sailor who makes her his wife.
As for Hinduism, the popular Cambodian and Thai tales pay witness to a princess by the name of Suvannamaccha, translating to ‘golden mermaid.’
5. Historical Encounters
As far back as the 1600’s tell a “true story” of a mermaid who was injured while entering Holland through a levee. Another account from 1604 has the famed sea captain Captain John Smith, journaling of a mysterious mer-creature off the coast of Jamestown.
Supposedly there were several voyages in which Blackbeard and his team witnessed such underwater phenomenon, yet they were in no way pleasant and instilled fear in the members of the ship.
6. For Art’s Sake
The tale of The Little Mermaid, artwork, text and illustration reach back for centuries. Perhaps the oldest representation of a mermaid girl is portrayed on the stone pillar of Durham Castle in the British Isles, built in 1078 a group of Saxon stonemasons; By way of artwork and illustration, a mural of an unknown date features the mermaid princess Suvannamaccha, and adorns a wall of a famous temple, Wat Phra Kaew, in Thailand.
Grand statues of mermaids can be found all over the world with a particularly famous bronze sculpture, also by the name of The Little Mermaid, was inspired by the Hans Christian Andersen tale and portrays a young mermaid girl perched atop a rock formation in the harbour of Copenhagen. This influenced further works such as Oscar Wilde’s The Fisherman and His Soul, and Sue Monk Kidd’s famous novel, The Mermaid Chair, based off of the legends of the mermaid of Zennor.
7. Sirenomelia
For those unfamiliar with a term known as ‘mermaid syndrome’, there is an extremely rare congenital disorder in which an infant is born with his or her legs fused together, in what would closely resemble the lower body of a merman or mermaid. In a condition that shares a resemblance of the effect on conjoined twins, one out of every 100,000 live births result in this anomaly known as Sirenomelia. As of 2003, there are only four known survivors of ‘Mermaid Syndrome’ or, Sirenomelia.
8. Recent Sightings
In August of 2009, off the Israeli coastal town of Kiryat Yam, a reward of 1 million dollars was offered to prove the existence of a mermaid leaping out of Haifa Bay waters. Aerial tricks by the mermaid were seen by dozens of people over the course of a few months. In Zimbabwe in February of 2012, two mermaids reportedly harassed reservoir workers from the site of two separate reservoirs Gokwe and Mutare, and according to the water resources minister the work was left unfinished.
