Lisa: Are mermaids real? Tonight we're gonna talk about the mythology, the sightings, and a hoax that fooled an entire country. And then we're gonna talk about why that felt so real. I'm Lisa. ⁓ No, wait. ⁓ Start that over.
Samantha: I'm Samantha
Lisa: Welcome back to Exhumed. This is our season finale. And at the end of this, we decided to throw in a blooper reel. We should be embarrassed, but we're not. So stick around for that.
Samantha: If you think we're dumb now, check that out It's hilarious. ⁓
Lisa: Okay, let's begin by talking about something that happened in 2012. Planet came out with a documentary called Mermaids, ⁓ Body Fount. This documentary was about a group of scientists that
Samantha: Tonight we're talking about one of the biggest mysteries.
Lisa: discovered, supposedly, the body of a mermaid that had washed up on shore. ⁓ While they were investigating beachings. having to do with certain testing that the Navy was doing in the ocean.
Samantha: But the funny part about it is that all of that was fake. A of us believed it. But that caught our interest. archaeologists... archaeologist...
Lisa: archaeologists... ⁓
Samantha: archaeologists
Lisa: Decap it, ugh.
Samantha: Get your shit together.
Lisa: where she displayed Yeah. basically what happens in this documentary is that whales were being beached because the Navy was doing sonar in the ocean and they were letting out these sonar blasts that were whales another ocean life.
Samantha: decapitated, decapitation.
Lisa: Yeah, I think I think I said decapitated. blunt force trauma and it was killing them and they were washing up on the beaches. these three scientists that for NOAA, which stands for National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration. That is a real organization. went out to investigate these beachings and was body found, I want to say inside of a shark that was called to their attention. So they took that body back they started reconstructing it to see what it was. ⁓ And along the way, they holy shit, this is a mermaid.
Samantha: And they weren't trying to say it. They were putting all these clues together, putting everything together.
Lisa: And they were all thinking the same thing, but they didn't want to say it. Because they're like, there's no way that this is what we think it is. Exactly. mind you, this is a hoax. They tested the DNA, and it came back with human DNA. was half marine life, half human.
Samantha: As scientists, they didn't want to say it.
Lisa: Now what makes this so real is that they used science and real theories and they kind of intertwined it with all of this other fiction. All of ⁓ have like CGI animation of hypothetically what mermaids would look like and how they would behave The scientists of They look like long trous- trous- ⁓
Samantha: Prowzers
Lisa: actors everything was scripted it seemed so real it everybody i was convinced i was like holy shit they found a damn mermaid ⁓ the media blew ⁓ celebrities like kim was one of them they were tweeting about it it blew up big that people were actually trying to get a hold of the navy and
Samantha: You
Lisa: other organizations like that, NOAA, demanding answers. so actually had to come out and say, look, this is fake. This was a hoax. Noah stated that there is no evidence that aquatic humanoids exist. Let's say they're lying. Let's say that yes, the documentary is a hoax, but maybe the story itself is based in truth.
Samantha: Bye.
Lisa: The language that Noah used to me is suspicious. There is no evidence that aquatic humanoids exist. Meaning there is no evidence. You have no proof. But they're not denying it.
Samantha: It's the same thing with aliens.
Lisa: Yeah, I just thought that was interesting. Now the reason why this felt so real though what the scientists were saying. Like the one scientist who was taking samples of these whales and finding out that they were having blunt trauma and then took all of the parts of this mermaid and put it back together. what me was that was reconstructing this and found out that she was reconstructing a hand. whales dolphins have hands inside their fins or their flippers. Their skeletal structure, it looks like hands. So that have been, this was real, that could have been what it was. Then ⁓ she reconstructed hips. that that this thing ⁓ stood upright and walked. what's interesting that is dolphins have hips. ⁓ actually evolved from a wolf type mammal, land animal, and they started evolving into dolphins about 50 million years ago. So that evolution is still kind of evident in their body because they still have those hips from they walked on land. They're much smaller, but they're still partially there. Ooh, say that sentence over again.
Samantha: Yeah.
Lisa: So say again that this was real. This could have been a dolphin or if was inside a shark. Who's to say that shark didn't eat pieces of different animals? And then they're taking all pieces out of the shark and saying, ⁓ this is one animal and trying to piece it all together when it wasn't even the same animal. But they made it so believable. They even like reconstructed the skull and they talked about how it had this crest on the top of its head that was for echolocating.
Samantha: Yeah, and there's only so many animals that do that.
Lisa: Yeah, whales and dolphins do that. There's a lot of sea life that does that. and they go into the theories. ⁓ Like is the aquatic ape theory. Do you remember what that is? ⁓ About some of the first species human that were on earth, stayed close to the water for food and some stayed more inland for food.
Samantha: Yeah.
Lisa: So then things happen in the environment, like volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, things like that, which made the ocean level rise. And the theory is that some of these stayed the water and just went deeper. They stayed near their food source and others went ⁓ more And the ones that stayed
Samantha: and which over over thousands of years evolution happens and all around the world.
Lisa: you adapt to your surroundings so in theory they could have evolved into mermaids to adapt to their surroundings if a small wolf can adapt into a dolphin it kind of makes sense that a humanoid could go into the ocean and throughout years and years and years of evolution turn into what we see as mermaids.
Samantha: or mountain lion becoming someone's cat that we give treats to.
Lisa: Yeah. this theory, though, the aquatic ape theory is widely rejected ⁓ most places. But this guy also talked about how why do we have webbing between our fingers? Why we have an extra layer of fat to keep us warm and to keep us buoyant? ⁓ Yeah, maybe some people don't have it. Doesn't look like you have it. I have a little bit. What else does he say? Why do we have spines that so flexible if not to swim? Things like ⁓ And then talks about indigenous people, ⁓ about how ⁓ eyes, their ⁓ widen when get into the water
Samantha: I do not have it. They were trying to get rid of the stigmatism
Lisa: This stick, no, it's not stigmatism. They also talk about how we can train ourselves to hold our breath longer than we should be able to. All of this points to the fact that
Samantha: stigma
Lisa: we were meant to at least spend some of our time in the water. And it was very, very convincing what he was saying. The thing is, my theory has always been, if God wanted me to be in the water, I would have been born with gills. ⁓ that's what...
Samantha: Yeah, you've been saying that for as long as forever.
Lisa: That's what people say against it, is that we cannot breathe underwater. In my opinion, when we go into the ocean, we drop to the very bottom of the food chain. We don't belong There are a lot of things that are against that, too. If we were meant to be in the water for a period time, we would be able at least partly breathe underwater.
Samantha: But he...you remember in that docu...mocumentary. They were talking about how all these different areas of the world, how dolphins would associate with humans. Like they would fish, the dolphins would help ⁓ the fish in towards shore and the fisherman would start throwing them back. ⁓ ⁓ equated that essentially towards the dolphins recognize the humans as else
Lisa: Yes.
Samantha: and they try to ⁓ correlate that as mermaids. Like, well, maybe they learned from the mermaids that because the humans on land similar to the people that they're hunting with underwater.
Lisa: Yes, and that's why they're curious about us, and that's why they cooperate with us in that way. That's what their theory was with that. And it makes sense. It does.
Samantha: I mean, you're talking about if we belonged in the water, then we would have been made with gills. what if us ourselves ⁓ the ones went up high away from the water and then the other went below into the sea?
Lisa: It could have happened. It all just depends on if you believe in evolution or not. I mean, I believe that anything is possible. And that theory did seem very realistic to me. And that's where they got you, though. That's where they started fooling people, is that everything they were saying made complete sense. ⁓
Samantha: And it doesn't matter if you believe in evolution or if you believe in this and that, it all ties together and makes sense. ⁓
Lisa: Now the reason why people believed in this so much is because people have always wanted to believe in mermaids. Always. At least since about 1000 BC.
Samantha: Shit gets real when it's 1000 BC.
Lisa: Yeah, and I'm saying, you know, why have we had this mythology for as long as we've had it?
Samantha: especially in all areas of the world.
Lisa: Exactly. For example, The first mermaid ever to be talked about was in 1000 BC or earlier, could have been earlier than that. It was in the Syrian area and she was a goddess named Atargatis or ⁓ Atargatees. It's pronounced both those ways. She was supposed to be the goddess of fertility, water, protection, and life cycles. Temples were built for her. and she had sacred pools in these temples full of fish and nobody ate these fish because these fish were considered holy. So she's already tied to fish and water, right? Now the story is that a targetese fell in love with the human man. He was a shepherd. something happened along the way. And depending on what story told, it changes a little bit. But it's always vague. Somewhere along the way, she accidentally kills him. Some say it was rage. Some say she too powerful for him and she accidentally killed him. it also does not specify the way that she killed him. All it said was that his death was caused by her.
Samantha: .
Lisa: So out of shame, she threw herself into a lake. And then she transformed, but she didn't transform all the way. She ended up transforming into a hybrid. The top part of her body from the waist up was human. The bottom part was a fish. And that's really all there is to the story, There is art drawn of her all over the place.
Samantha: Are we just talking about Syria? Or are we talking about Syria, Egypt, China?
Lisa: No, no, no. They all have their different ones. They all have their different ones. This is believed to be the starting point for the idea of mermaids. the idea of mermaids as we know it to be now. Now after that, we have Pliny the Elder. This was sometime in the first century AD. He was a Roman naturalist and he wrote about mermaids, which he called Nereids. He said that they had rough bodies, they had scales all over their bodies, even the human parts had scales. He said that they were unsettling to look at. Now in a lot of these sightings, they do not say that these mermaids are beautiful. They say that they are creepy to look at. are not, they're ugly. Now he claimed that these sightings of these Mer people, men and women, were so frequent that they were worth being seriously noted. And so that's what he did. He wrote about them. Now some people think that he saw these mermaids himself, but he did not. What he was doing was recording other people's stories of their sightings. He wrote sailors reports of seeing mermaids. Sailors were always seeing mermaids. the governor of Gaul and Belgium today, the governor wrote a letter about bodies washing These bodies kept washing on the And this is what he described is that They were unsettling to look at. They had scales all over their bodies, but he did notice that they were human on top and fish on the bottom. He wrote about Roman knights seeing mermen and these mermen had such a weight to them that what they would do is that at night they would climb up onto these ships and instantly sink the ships. That's how heavy these mermen were.
Samantha: You know, it's interesting how we always talk about mermaids, but never talk about mermen.
Lisa: I Now in all actuality though, These were likely other sea animals that they didn't know how to identify. I mean, think about it. First century AD, they knew nothing about the ocean.
Samantha: We still won't.
Lisa: Exactly. But the one thing that most of these sightings have in common is nobody was saying, wow, she's hot, whatever she is, because were unsettling. ⁓ ⁓
Samantha: She's not Ursula. No, not Ursula. What's her name? ⁓ yeah, well, Ursula's my favorite. Ariel.
Lisa: Ursula was like a squid or something. ⁓
Samantha: Ursula was a badass. I like the villains. She had the best songs.
Lisa: She kind of was. Me too. Okay, so now 1493, Christopher Columbus. He recorded a sighting in the Dominican Republic, ⁓ January 9th, 1493. ⁓ He said that these beings were not half as beautiful as they are painted, not as beautiful as they are said to be. He said they had masculine features. but not particularly human looking. And he said that they were rising partially up out of the water and staring at him. He actually saw three of them at one time. Now there are other sources that say that this is not the only sighting that he had, but that is not confirmed. There is only one documented report of him seeing mermaids and it was these three at the same time. Now historians say that they were probably manatees. I guess ⁓ some, I don't think manatees look human in any way, even their faces, ⁓ maybe in some lighting and some angles they could. But they argue that manatees apparently, they don't out of the water and stare at you like that. You know what does though? ⁓ Seals, seals do that. They can pop their heads up.
Samantha: Yeah, but they could be. But to be fair, when Christopher Columbus was around, There wasn't a whole lot of travel.
Lisa: No.
Samantha: Okay, so you dig up a plot of land, you build a house you're gonna see you're gonna see all these different things because you're them out of their home.
Lisa: Yeah.
Samantha: Okay, 1493. What if there wasn't that many, we already know there wasn't that much sea travel as there is today. And they're looking up like what the fuck is this?
Lisa: Yeah, so the sea belonged to sea life. Yeah, makes sense.
Samantha: it's far-fetched but it's possible. ⁓
Lisa: You were invading their space. Yeah, you're invading their space, and they're curious about you, so they're going to poke their heads up. But you don't know what exactly is looking at you, though, especially if it's at night. All you're going to see is maybe some light reflecting off eyeballs. You don't know what it is.
Samantha: And half the time, they think it's stars reflecting down on the water.
Lisa: Yeah, I think most of the time, I can understand manatees. But if you see their whole body, you're going to know that's not a mermaid, you know? Because they're not depicted like that. Seals, ⁓ yeah, but seals also have the head shape. OK, say that you're seeing a seal pop its head up out of the water, and it's at night, right?
Samantha: and seal stay closer to the land.
Lisa: you're going to see the eyes right where they're supposed to be right where they would be on a human. You're going to see the right. You're not going to see that in the dark, but you're going to see the cute little head shape and it's going to look like a human to you, especially if it's only the shoulders up. You're to be like that kind of looks like a human, you know, and then maybe in their mind they just kind of mentally piece the rest of it together.
Samantha: and their cute little whiskers. I don't care. Yeah.
Lisa: Hmm
Samantha: You're thinking of it differently than I would. I would just be t-t-t-t-
Lisa: Absolutely, if I saw a seal, I would definitely want to play with it and it would probably bite me. I'm probably gonna die trying to pet something I'm not supposed to. And it's actually against the law to touch manatees because they're endangered. But are you not gonna pet a manatee if one swims up to you? I am.
Samantha: An alligator. Yep. Man yes Especially since manatees want to pet you.
Lisa: Yeah, they just want to love on you. Yes.
Samantha: Yeah, if they touch me, I'm gonna hug them. I will be arrested for touching humanity. And I'll be okay with that. That's fine. That's fine. It wanted to play. Hey, it wanted it wanted a hug and I was just giving it back.
Lisa: Me too. Let's do that. Let's go find manatees. Who am I to deny it? Okay, let's go on. In 1614, we have John Smith. was an explorer. He led an expedition exploring the of Maine and Massachusetts. And he's the one that named it New England.
Speaker 1: What is that dog doing? ⁓ fuck.
Lisa: he reported sightings of off the coast of the Netherlands.
Speaker 2: snoring.
Lisa: or the West Indies depending on what source you're up. He said they had long green hair. ⁓ He said that they were human from the waist up and fish from the waist down. And he actually said that they were quite beautiful and that he was struck with admiration. He kind of fell in love with her. But later on, he backpedaled and denied the whole story. He's like, no, that's not what I saw. And it's believed that he backpedaled on it to avoid ridicule. Now here's something interesting though. lot of people call mermaids sirens. That's accurate. ⁓ mermaids were never those were two things ⁓ A siren, sirens were assholes, a siren in ancient Greek stories, they show up in the Odyssey.
Samantha: Sirens are assholes.
Lisa: And early Greek mythology, they had the bodies of birds. So they were half woman, half bird. And they lived on rocky shores, rocky islands. And what they would do is sing to draw in sailors. the sailors would crash their ships on rocks ⁓ and So these were not sea creatures, these were land predators. Now fast forward to medieval Europe. artists and writers began to
Samantha: you
Lisa: redraw sirens. and they ended up drawing fish bottoms instead of bird bottoms. They got that mixed up there was already mermaid mythology. Mermaids and sirens are both tied to the same thing. They're tied to luring sailors. They're tied to death at sea. And I guess they both sang. to lure in the sailors. So translation kind of gets mixed up.
Samantha: It sounds like mermaids are introverts and sirens are extroverts.
Lisa: Kind of, like the mermaids kind of left you alone unless you were in their territory and the birds were like, hey, big boy, come here. Yeah. So the translation got mixed up. And this is because.
Samantha: a little bit. That's what it sounds like. I'll hang out with the mermaids.
Lisa: The ancient texts were being copied ⁓ And might been language barriers here and there. And since they were both tied to the same thing, there was mythology about both. They just kind of got smashed together, probably unintentionally. it comes to the churches, the medieval Christian writers used ⁓ sirens as a symbol for temptation.
Samantha: Thank
Lisa: They were a symbol of seduction and sin, luring men to their destruction. they the half half fish, probably because it sexier than a half woman, half bird. i think they did it on purpose i think it was just mashed up in throughout time So it really began as bird demons.
Samantha: Bird demons?
Lisa: Yeah, bird demons. fly through the air and scream and just be terrifying Little shipwrecking nightmares. They eventually became what we know now as mermaids.
Samantha: definitely. ⁓
Lisa: gotta sneeze. I gotta sneeze, sorry. So what sightings have you found?
Samantha: so... Like, we've talked about it, like here's the thing, that Everyone wants to create that like mermaid Disney effect
Lisa: Yeah.
Samantha: no one ever talks about how Everything the wrong proportions, they're too fast, and they're too aware.
Lisa: Yeah.
Samantha: A lot of witnesses say exact same thing. Like, it looked at me as though it knew exactly what was. ⁓
Lisa: and then it swam away too fast for me to even get a picture or anything.
Samantha: Yeah, that's creepy. Most modern-day sightings don't come from tourists They come from people who live on the water or at the water
Lisa: which makes sense.
Samantha: Yeah. It's mostly like commercial fishermen, sea cruises, and sea crews. people who go deep sea cruises are the people who go on cruises very far at sea. Deep sea crews ⁓ is like people who work deep in the sea.
Lisa: What's the difference? Okay, okay. Yeah.
Samantha: I feel like I recovered that one very well.
Lisa: Hehehehe
Samantha: I fucked up a little bit. But a lot of these stories are people that aren't trying to go viral. Like everyone. You look up mermaids, you see everyone on TikTok with like the sequent fin tail. You know what's real, you know what's AI. If you don't, just, just stop watching this. We're not talking about you.
Lisa: Yeah. Yeah, quit using AI to lie to us too, I get so mad at that. I'll see something like on TikTok or something and I'll go, ⁓ that such a cute little animal. What is that? I want one. And then I look and I'm like, ⁓ it's AI. Fuck you. ⁓ I so mad. ⁓
Samantha: ⁓ their eyes... their eyes aren't moving right. Something's not right. ⁓ screw you. Yeah. Stop getting my hopes up.
Lisa: Yeah.
Samantha: But there's also like one thing that's a repeated source, especially in the North Atlantic and the North Pacific. Figure surfacing briefly alongside the boats.
Lisa: Okay.
Samantha: something pacing the vessels underwater the absolute thing something hitting the side of the vessel.
Lisa: Manatees run into ships a lot. Whales do sometimes. Sharks do.
Samantha: Mm-hmm. You... there are accounts where crew members describe human-shaped body moving just below the surface. but it's keeping pace with the boat. They describe it faster than what humans can swim. ⁓ and what would freak me out is something moving faster than the boat.
Lisa: Yeah.
Samantha: But naturally I would want to play with it.
Lisa: I'm never going to experience that because I am never going to be on the open ocean in a boat. I don't care if there's a great deal on a cruise. I'm sorry. Nope.
Samantha: Hahaha That is a mountain that I will die on. So in 1608 there was Henry Hudson. I really don't know who the hell he is. I'm just trying to give you examples of things that I found.
Lisa: He was an English explorer and navigator. He made significant 17th century voyages searching for a northeast or northwest passage to Asia. And what did he see?
Samantha: This morning, one of our companion looking overboard saw a mermaid By the tune, was come close to the seaside. I'm sorry, this is ancient English. Looking earnest on the man, a little after the sea came overturned on her. From the navel upward, her back and breast were like a woman's. As they saw that, they saw her, her body as big as one of us, her skin very white and long hair hanging down below her collarbone. her going down they saw her tail Which was like a tail of a purpose of a speckled like a marshal So Yeah, no, I mean it's all ancient English so we're talking about Shakespeare so this happened in 1608
Lisa: What? Okay, so basically she came up out of the water and they saw that she had the body of a woman down to her belly button and then after that was like a speckled fish fin instead of legs basically. And she came up out of the water, looked at the sailor and then went back into the water.
Samantha: Yes.
Lisa: Okay, let's edit that out. coming at me like, why are you so stupid? ⁓
Samantha: Exactly. So in ancient English, was to do word for word.
Lisa: Okay.
Samantha: No. No,
Lisa: goes, ⁓ that lady get any schooling done not knowing where Paris was? ⁓
Samantha: Hahaha! So you were talking about 1614 John Smith, You did not tell what he actually wrote in his though.
Lisa: No, I didn't. I didn't find that. What did you find?
Samantha: The upper part of a body perfectly resembled that of a woman, and he was swimming about with all possible grace near the shore. It had large eyes, rather too round, a finely shaped nose, a little too short, well-formed ears, too long, and her long hair imparted to her original character by no means unattractive. By no means unattractive.
Lisa: by no means unattractive.
Samantha: But there are skeptics who say that John Smith never wrote it. It was propaganda.
Lisa: Maybe that's why he denied it after the fact. He denied seeing that, kind of recanted his statement.
Samantha: Yeah, no, it's absolutely possible that all of that was false and at the same time it's absolutely possible that he saw what he did.
Lisa: Hmm And if you think about it, his description, yeah, his description makes sense because like the nose being a little too small, to me, maybe it was more like smushed into her face, more of like a fish than a human. Her eyes were big.
Samantha: We weren't there. Mm-hmm.
Lisa: That's what happens with nocturnal animals or animals that live in darkness like mermaids would. They have those kinds of eyes. That's interesting.
Samantha: Yeah. The further you go down into sea, the bigger the eyes are, the tentacles that hang off with different lighting. It's like, it's amazing.
Lisa: Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's interesting.
Samantha: In 1718, there was guy named Samuel Fowlers. He traveled all the world as he would encounter new species of life, new creatures. He would constantly paint them. He also included mermaids.
Lisa: Hmm.
Samantha: Fowler's claimed that he caught a mermaid and brought it back to his house.
Lisa: ⁓ really?
Samantha: Yeah, this is this is where things get weird. He then drew a picture of the mermaid and tried to nurse it back to health.
Lisa: Okay.
Samantha: He claimed that the mermaid lived in a container of water. It squeaked like a mouse. A couple of weeks later, the mermaid died of starvation. Well, yeah, that's sad. I guarantee none of this is true. It's cool story, but...
Lisa: Aww! I know, but still. It squeaked like a mouse.
Samantha: Yeah Yeah, but it's fun to read about.
Lisa: Yeah.
Samantha: 1830 This one of the earliest modern style sightings ⁓ multiple witnesses It happened and god I had the pronunciation, right? ⁓ VEN-BEC-ULA?
Lisa: Okay, I've never heard of that.
Samantha: Okay. Bembecula, it's an island in Scotland. There was tons of witnesses, villagers including children. They described small human-like with upper body, long hair, dark and greenish. They had a fish-like lower half. Their behavior was swimming deeply in the ocean and then diving back up. Like almost playful, like dolphins. ⁓
Lisa: Mm-hmm. You're just kind of jumping out of the water and...
Samantha: Yeah, they're having fun doing their thing. But at some point the villagers got pissed off. And what do you do?
Lisa: Okay.
Samantha: when you're a kid, you get pissed off. You don't know what's out there. you throw stones.
Lisa: ⁓ I feel like I've heard this story.
Samantha: They threw stones, nothing happened. The mermen's got pissed off, nothing happened. eventually they did find a mermaid washed up on shore.
Lisa: Was it the body of a little boy? ⁓
Samantha: No, it never said anything like that.
Lisa: Okay, because I thought I read the same story. I never wrote it down. But somebody threw a rock and it hit the little boy in the head. And when the little boy washed up dead on the shore, they realized that he was half human, half fish.
Samantha: But I mean... but they did give it a burial.
Lisa: That part too. Yeah, this might be the same story.
Samantha: It could be. mean, you look on so many different websites, so many different sources, not every single source is going to say the same thing. That's why there are so many skeptics and everything is according to.
Lisa: Peace. Yeah, especially if the story isn't even true to begin with. People will just take it and add stuff to it, subtract stuff from it.
Samantha: Yeah.
Lisa: Ahem.
Samantha: Okay, so that was 1830. Let's jump so far ahead. 2009.
Lisa: Wow, okay. I think I know what you're gonna talk about.
Samantha: This is the... There's so many notable things, but I'm not going to talk about every single thing because it's all the exact same thing.
Lisa: Okay.
Samantha: The care-
Lisa: Kiryat Yam
Samantha: encounters in Israel in 2009. As much as I've tried to pronounce that, I still can't do it. Say it again.
Lisa: Kiryat Yam
Samantha: This is one of the most famous 21st century mermaids. Like there is multiple witnesses, different days, but the same story. One man said that he was walking along the beach at the sunset when he saw something sitting on a rock just offshore. At first he thought it was a woman, long hair, pale skin, just sitting there. When she moved, he realized the lower half wasn't legs.
Lisa: Mm-hmm He looked, yeah, and the mermaid turned around and noticed him looking at her. then she crawled off the rock and went back into the ocean. Apparently, ⁓
Samantha: It was a tail. Are you talking about the video or are you talking about the encounter before?
Lisa: I think I'm talking about the video but I don't know if the video is real or not because I saw it in that mermaid mockumentary.
Samantha: Yeah? Yeah, so I am talking about the encounter before.
Lisa: ⁓ okay. So there's
Samantha: It's essentially the same encounter. ⁓ It disappears straight into the water. No splash like a person. Like a person so when you dive off a diving board, if you do it right, there shouldn't be a splash.
Lisa: Okay. There's a splash. Yeah, and this thing was streamlined enough to jump in and did not make a splash.
Samantha: Other witnesses reported the exact same thing. It was something humanoid, surfacing below, watching, then gone. It ⁓ happened at dusk, but always just far enough to not be able to see it. ⁓ in 2009, the government is, if I didn't mention before, in Israel. ⁓
Lisa: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Samantha: Anyone who has proof of a mermaid like actual proof one million dollars so then Like this this is where This story and the video that you see online gets mucky Because of the dates that it was posted So this encounter happened in 2009
Lisa: Yes. Yes. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Samantha: You see that this video has been posted in 2009, 2011, 2013. Like it's just reposted. Like there is no actual origination of it. So the government said,
Lisa: Because I'm pretty sure that wasn't real. I'm pretty sure that was AI generated. And the government did put out a reward. If anyone can come to us with irrefutable proof of a sighting of a mermaid, you will get a reward of $1 million.
Samantha: Yes. of $1 million.
Lisa: But that was a publicity stunt. That was to attract more tourism to Kyriat Yom.
Samantha: Exactly. So then this video comes out and there are so many different years that it's posted but it is so it's even in the mockumentary it is absolutely convincing like you see you see this guy on a cliff and he's got a handheld camera and he's looking at his friend he's looking back down in the water there's multiple zooms and you see what is half human
Lisa: It really is.
Samantha: half fish just sunbathing on a rock and it's kind of it's doing its own thing and then it looks up at the camera ⁓ shit i'm spotted and then it goes right off That's horrible to say. ⁓
Lisa: Mm-hmm. What? huh. Yeah, it kind of slithers off the rock, too. You can tell that it's kind of dragging itself. Yeah. I don't know if that video is real. I'm thinking a lot of the found footage videos that they show in that mockumentary were made for the mockumentary. So I don't know if that one's real.
Samantha: But... Yeah. Nothing, we're cutting that out.
Lisa: that a dark joke that I didn't get?
Samantha: What We're done with this.
Lisa: Mm.
Samantha: But. That's the thing about this exact encounter. That looked so real. And this was before AI. Well, I mean, it could have been the beginning of AI, but You're one ⁓ that told about this entire ⁓ documentary or And I got hooked because of it.
Lisa: Yeah. Yeah, and when I told you at the time, yeah, at the time everyone thought it was real because there was no disclaimer that it was a mockumentary. they did this for ratings. Yeah.
Samantha: It was publicity. Yeah.
Lisa: And they had to come out and admit that it was not true. It was a made up story. They were made to do that because they were supposed to have given a disclaimer that it wasn't real and they never did. They fooled the entire country.
Samantha: god, and they did so well. ⁓ was like Grammy night.
Lisa: They did so well they made it so ⁓ They made it so believable. ⁓ many people believed it. also there was a mockumentary a year later called mermaids the new evidence and of the the main scientist came back and did that one too that even furthered the thing and i don't
Samantha: Yeah.
Lisa: I don't know if they came out after the first one or after the second one and said, hey, this is a hoax.
Samantha: It was after the second one.
Lisa: I would think so, yeah, because I don't even think they would have made the second one if it came out then.
Samantha: Because you're... I'm more of a skeptic than you are.
Lisa: Uh-huh.
Samantha: And we both believed it.
Lisa: because it was so believable.
Samantha: And then I and I had to convince you and show you all the things because you were so convinced.
Lisa: Yeah, I was like, even when they did come out and say it was a hoax, I'm like, no, it wasn't. And they're covering it up. They're trying to cover it up. If it's not true, you're just going to be like whatever, think whatever you want to think. You know what I mean? So when came out ⁓ fast and said, no, no, no, no, that was fake, I was like, that's suspicious.
Samantha: Mm-hmm. And no, it absolutely is suspicious.
Lisa: And on top of that, have both those documentaries or mockumentaries downloaded on thumb drive because ⁓ my computer husband found it somehow. ⁓ You can't get online and find it.
Samantha: Yes, so do I. it on Amazon Prime now. That's the only way you can find it.
Lisa: OK, yeah, because will leak it onto the internet, and it'll be scrubbed off again. And then it'll come back, and then it'll be immediately scrubbed off again. ⁓ to me, is suspicious too. Like, if it's not real, why do you care? You know?
Samantha: Yeah. Yeah, no, as much as I know that that documentary is a fake. It's still my favorite documentary and I've had to buy it off of Amazon Prime twice. And the last time that I did it, ⁓ I just up doing my thing ⁓ and putting on a flash drive, not telling anyone how did it. ⁓
Lisa: It is, Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Samantha: because it does go away very quickly. Which raises, it raises a lot of questions.
Lisa: It does and It really does. It makes you think. Even when you know that, okay, this is not real, it was a hoax, this never happened. The theories that they give you and that real information that they do give you is so... It makes you think. So it made the story seem so believable and I was mad because when I first saw that I was like, you gotta be kidding me. This changes everything.
Samantha: It's it's connecting different theories together. ⁓ that makes sense. It opens it opened your mind up to something new.
Lisa: Hmm. And that's the point that they were to get across. ⁓ It made complete sense. And I was really excited. Like, ⁓ my god, they actually found a fucking mermaid. And they're coming out and telling us. And that right there, I should have been like, no, that's not real. everybody, and it's not.
Samantha: It's the same thing as Area 51 and the UFOs. Exact same thing. When some political huge ass thing happens is when they're gonna say it. And at that point we're just like, ⁓ yeah, we know we're beyond your shit. ⁓
Lisa: No, no, it's not going to happen. And if they ever come out and do say, yeah, then Navy did have a mermaid, it's ⁓ because it's the lesser of the two evils that they want to admit. the attention to this so that they're not about this.
Samantha: Mm-hmm. ⁓ yeah, but now you're also getting the way of my shit. ⁓ You wanna about more encounters? ⁓
Lisa: Keep... Yes.
Samantha: We can talk more about this after. 2012 Zimbabwe Reservoir incident. I'm not even gonna pronounce this word. happened Lake... I'm gonna have to. Lake... Carriba? K-A-R-I-B-A. Carriba. Yeah.
Lisa: Sounds right to me. Caribbean. where is Zimbabwe?
Samantha: ⁓ Somewhere in southern Africa
Lisa: Okay.
Samantha: So there are government contractors that were set out to install water pumps, but they refused to finish the job.
Lisa: Why? They saw a mermaid?
Samantha: Well, yeah, essentially. I thought your response was like, just another job.
Lisa: in a reservoir.
Samantha: Yeah.
Lisa: Okay.
Samantha: said something was in the water watching them watching them ⁓
Lisa: that's creepy.
Samantha: Multiple workers claimed that they saw figures just below the surface. Humanoid shapes, not fish, not animals. Close enough that they could see the movement. Arms, shoulders, a head. No tails. No flipping. Bodies gliding. They did not describe them as curious. They described them as territorial. One worker said it felt like they were being watched. Like they weren't supposed to be there. The project stalled. No one would go back in. New workers were hired. They claimed the exact same, but this is the fucked up thing. So in everything that I research on this, they say that it was stalled and never finished.
Lisa: Uh-huh.
Samantha: But, happened in 10-some years later, apparently it's never finished, which bullshit because you can look it up ⁓ and this damn is finished.
Lisa: ⁓ huh. Okay, so, somebody finished it.
Samantha: Yeah, it was finished at one point in time. So this one comes from fishermen off the coast of British Columbia. In the early mornings there was heavy fog. He said the water was completely still. and then something surfaced next to the boat. He said at first it looked like it was a seal. But then it. kind of became upright and it looked straight at him. Not like an animal but like a person. He described large eyes, smooth skin.
Lisa: huh.
Samantha: shoulders above the water, which you think about it, you're, yeah. And then it dipped under silently, no thrashing, no panic, and it was just gone.
Lisa: like human shoulders. Seals kinda have shoulders.
Samantha: Yeah.
Lisa: And it was if it was at night. When you see something that you can't explain, your mind kind of does this trick where it kind of fills in the blanks.
Samantha: I mean...
Lisa: So I wonder if that's what some of these sightings were.
Samantha: and the ocean is a very dark space and you have the moon to rely on you have the skies to rely on the stars it's trippy as shit
Lisa: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Samantha: then there's the Caribbean, Hawaii. ⁓ Modern fishermen report that there are beautiful humanoid figures in the water, sometimes glowing or reflecting light unnaturally, associated with sudden storms, equipment failure, missing people. there's all sorts of different things that happen in Hawaii and all of them come down to this exact same thing.
Lisa: Mermaids?
Samantha: People blur it with like, or like something else we fully don't understand.
Lisa: Mm-hmm.
Samantha: But I mean, at the same time, like I'm not going to talk about every single sighting in the exact same concept. Every single sighting says the exact same thing.
Lisa: Yeah.
Samantha: There's been a lot of divers around the world who talk about the figure floating upright. It had a body of a person, but then the tail was like fish like. The encounters happened in the Red Sea. In 1998 in Hawaii, a naked woman was swimming with dolphins, keeping up. She jumped out of the water with Tales of a fish. Over 10 people witnessed this. Apparently there's no pictures. I mean in 1998 we've all got our... We don't... We're not holding onto... ⁓ Yeah. We don't our phones to take pictures. ⁓ We have the set aside.
Lisa: Mm-hmm. really crappy cameras. Yeah. Well.
Samantha: It happened in 2013 Key West, 2015 South Africa, 2017 Japan, 2018 Chile, 2020 Mediterranean in the Greece and one of the Greece Islands. But in in 1943 in Japan, there are soldiers who sold them in and out of the waters. They described them as half human, half fish with spikes on their spine. They were salmon colored, but with mouths like carp. So they have this, like in the documentary, they kind of had their spikes going along the sca... Yeah.
Lisa: like the crust. Yeah.
Samantha: but their mouths were like carp, so very sharp teeth.
Lisa: Ooh. That sounds like a show.
Samantha: But there has been patterns of modern sightings across all these different continents where it's ⁓ human like body, fish like lower body. Every single one of the sightings have kind of the crest along your scalp.
Lisa: Yeah.
Samantha: Everything is either in the night or in the morning, which makes sense because that's when the lighting is darker.
Lisa: Yep, at dawn and dusk.
Samantha: They have quick disappearances. But what doesn't make sense about any of this is as much as you are as a skeptic, you cannot deny the fact that this happens. That these sightings happen across every region of the world. Well before TikTok, well before Instagram, well before like every social media, biblical, everything involved.
Lisa: Yeah. Yeah.
Samantha: there are writings on, literally writings on the walls of the same
Lisa: Mm-hmm.
Samantha: But everyone talks about how it could be misidentified as a manatee, a seal, a dolphin. How... It could be an optical illusion with light reflection, wave distortion, distance of misjudgment, which... We can all understand that because when you're running down a hot road and you see that water in the road and then it disappears and reappears,
Lisa: Mm-hmm. There's a difference between I'm pretty sure this is what I saw, and then other people saying, no, didn't get a picture, but I know what I
Samantha: Yeah.
Lisa: And it would happen so fast that by the time you get your phone or your camera out to take a picture of it, it's gone. Unless you're sitting there waiting for a mermaid. And if you're waiting for one, it's not going to come.
Samantha: I've been at the ocean, I've seen multiple dolphins, I've seen jellyfish, and I goad and grab my phone and suddenly I can't see it. Yeah.
Lisa: And then it's gone. Yeah. And that's how they like it.
Samantha: But...
Lisa: Now, should we get into the cave paintings and stuff like that now?
Samantha: Go for it.
Lisa: Okay. Now we talk about these sightings all over the world that nobody can get pictures of ⁓ But is art all over the world depicting the same thing. And this art is so old that these civilizations did not know of each other's existence. But they were drawing pretty much the same thing. And they all had the same mythology ⁓ about human fish people. Now there are no confirmed prehistoric paintings of mermaids. not in the way that people imagine it. But there have been found paintings on rocks something that some people interpret as like a spirit of some kind. It's got. Basically what I have on my tattoo, it's like a stick figure. You can tell it's swimming. And instead of legs, it's got a fin.
Samantha: Get it closer and rotator. up a little bit.
Lisa: They're upside down now. But you can see. There are and hieroglyphics and things like that of combinations of human-animal hybrids all over the place. ⁓ In Europe they have them in Paleolithic caves. They're in Africa. They're in Australia. And they're half human, half beast, which the beast part could be anything. And these are believed to be like symbolic They're supposed to symbolize something and they're not really supposed to be what they're actually seeing.
Samantha: you
Lisa: That's what they're believed to be. But there are no confirmed mermaids. But people interpret these cave paintings and hieroglyphics And ⁓ that's what people interpret it as is ⁓ mermaids. ⁓ And it's the same thing. A mermaid is.
Samantha: Yeah.
Lisa: Half human, half fish, that's what you're seeing all over the place. Syria, have Atargitis ⁓ Egypt, they fish symbolism. Not mermaids. They have hybrid beings in prehistoric caves over the place. Indigenous cultures have water beings that they will draw. It's the same idea that keeps showing up all over the world. Something human, but tied to water. So in Mesopotamia, they have targetese that they were drawing all over the place. We talked about that. Also Mesopotamia they have fish gods. ⁓ They not pretty. They're known recognized as gods, teachers of humans, is interesting. And they are linked to the knowledge of the sea or the knowledge ⁓ from the sea. In like I said, not exactly mermaids, but it's fish symbolism. This fish symbolism is tied to Osiris who was Egyptian god of the afterlife, death, resurrection and agriculture. ⁓ So no mermaids, but the symbolism is still there. but reality check to all of this, even though we don't want to hear it, what's real ⁓ is legend of a targetis or a targetis, fish human mythology, water deities that are believed in But what is not confirmed real is there is no verified cave paintings of actual mermaids, no Egyptian mermaids, no physical evidence ever that mermaids ever existed. but One of the coolest theories though that I have ever heard comes from Nephilim. We're not going to get into biblical stuff. I'm just going to glaze this.
Samantha: No.
Lisa: But the fact that they hybrids, which everyone believes, not in the Bible, ⁓ not in the book of Enoch, not anywhere. There's no mention. All it said was that they corrupted humans and animals. And that got translated into, ⁓ well, they mixed them together, which nothing ⁓ saying that But people do it. And ⁓ do believe that one of these was mermaids. Now, God the earth to get rid all corruption.
Samantha: Okay.
Lisa: mermaids were already in the water so they would not have died. that is a really cool theory. i thought it was really really cool when i heard it but now knowing everything that i know that's a cool theory but it's not believable.
Samantha: Yeah. I mean, it's not believable, but at the same time. What if it happened?
Lisa: Maybe.
Samantha: I- You remember, ⁓ Remember the sideshow of P.T. Barnum?
Lisa: Yeah, he was supposed to have had a mermaid. You know what mermaid that was? It was the Fiji mermaid.
Samantha: Fiji. Yeah, Fiji.
Lisa: which was a fish.
Samantha: Do you remember the story behind it?
Lisa: I don't think I know the whole story behind it, but what it is is that it's a monkey's head sewed to a fish's body. What's the story?
Samantha: I do. No, the controversy behind that was like it's in the National Archives. I'm not going to actual locations because I get it wrong. But before one the shows, was a archives in and there was a fire and destroyed absolutely everything. including the Fiji mermaid.
Lisa: Yeah. Yeah, I have heard that.
Samantha: And that's one of the government conspiracy things. ⁓
Lisa: that they burned it on purpose to get rid of the mermaid.
Samantha: Yeah, but how other things can happen to? Like we talk about all these different conspiracy theories. we reference aliens almost everything because there's no real explanation. That's hilarious to say. But a couple of years ago everyone was talking about like rushing Area 51 and coming out with like an alien on their shoulders.
Lisa: A pet.
Samantha: I'll bet. ⁓ will take mine. ⁓ But the government is, mean, hell, the Vatican came out. I don't remember the actual year. the Vatican came out and said that, hey, here's everything on our aliens. Canada, all these other countries did the exact same thing. And the United States is just hanging out like, oh. yeah we're not saying shit and then in like 2023 2024 congressional hearing came out and said yeah aliens exist okay old news old news you are 10 years behind the time
Lisa: They're in the ocean.
Samantha: I am not someone that believes every single thing For me, it's ⁓ all, ⁓ that's That's interesting. I want to learn more. But when the highest religion in the world comes out and says ⁓ the most skeptical thing blows everyone's minds, like, yeah.
Lisa: Mm-hmm.
Samantha: aliens exist, here's everything that we have on them.
Lisa: Yeah.
Samantha: But then go like 10, 15, 20 years later, oh, aliens exist in our oceans. Like we're the kids that eat paste. How?
Lisa: Yeah. Hahaha!
Samantha: Like, not that dumb. You ate paste, didn't you? ⁓ I mean, honestly, we probably both ⁓ But-
Lisa: No, I didn't. I knew a kid that did though. You
Samantha: This has been going on so long you have been denying for so long and then you come out and say this shit
Lisa: Yeah.
Samantha: So why can't this... You're 10 years behind the Vatican but yet at the same time let's worship everything about the Vatican but you don't want to admit to what they're saying what are you covering up?
Lisa: Yeah, at this point we think everything's a government cover-up because they'll lie and then later on they'll come out and admit it. The thing is, though, OK, now we know that aliens exist in the ocean. We don't know what they look like. And according to them, according to ⁓ a lot of people, I don't even who these people are, these aliens do not take just one form. They're fucking octopuses. ⁓ Exactly. ⁓
Samantha: ⁓ perfect timing! Whee!
Lisa: Octopuses are absolutely one of them. And they're hilarious. They will get in a bad mood and just punch a fish because it's swimming by them. And they're so funny. yeah. I have looked into it. is this true? And it really is true.
Samantha: You know, I hope that's true. I really hope that's true.
Lisa: can't remember what source I this from. But one of the alien beings that supposed to be in the ocean ⁓ walk upright like a human. So what that's we've been seeing? and thinking it's mermaids. What if it's really aliens?
Samantha: We have only explored between 5 and 8 % of our ocean. We have explored more in outer space, hell, we've been to ⁓ We have no ⁓ We're not getting into that. ⁓
Lisa: No, we haven't. Okay.
Samantha: But let's agree, we have explored more of the outer space than we have of our own oceans, We know more about Bigfoot and we can't... We have more knowledge. Exactly! Exactly! There's more Bigfoot sightings in Ohio than there is anywhere else in the country. What if they are living so deep into the where they're just like, fuck all you guys. ⁓ We're introverts. Leave me alone.
Lisa: We can't even prove that Bigfoot is real.
Samantha: I want nothing to do with any of you. I'm gonna hang out with my octopus aliens. Play with the Brumina Triangle. Fuck with Atlantis. ⁓
Lisa: Yeah.
Samantha: like we don't know anything, but it's fun to think about that. This is our last episode of the season. I'm having fun.
Lisa: That's our last episode But I think that's about all we know for now. Right? Do you have anything else?
Samantha: I am nothing else.
Lisa: Well... Our next season will premiere sometime in August. And we'll keep you updated with that for sure. Please come back. We have a lot of stuff already planned out.
Samantha: What do you have planned out?
Lisa: We're going to talk about vampires. I have a story about a cannibal family. ⁓ a few other things.
Samantha: I have crop circles. the Easter Island heads. El Dorado.
Lisa: El Dorado, that'll be a fun one to do.
Samantha: yeah. ⁓ you think the El Dorado is a place? ⁓ are fully mistaken.
Lisa: Okay, don't say anymore. We have all of those that we just mentioned and a bunch more. So come on back in August and we will have some upgrades hopefully in our performance. ⁓ Yes.
Samantha: ⁓ my god, if you've stayed with us this long.
Lisa: Definitely getting better with the research.
Samantha: We will get our shit together.
Lisa: So come on back in August, because we have a lot of cool stuff to talk about. we you for listening this whole time, our loyal that come back every week and watch our videos all the way through. ⁓
Samantha: Thank you.
Lisa: Thank you.
Samantha: Okay, it's about that time, righto?
Lisa: Right out. I hope everyone has a good summer. Stay out of the damn ocean. And if you're planning on taking a cruise, I hope we didn't ruin it for you.
Samantha: And if you've learned anything from our episodes, away from cemeteries If you have a lost treasure in your basement, please let us know.
Lisa: If you go to the ocean and you get a picture of a mermaid send it to us. We don't have a million dollars to give you but we want to see it.
Samantha: ⁓ We'll talk to you. Let's have a conversation, we'll help.
Lisa: you for listening. Enjoy our blooper reel ⁓ and we'll see you in a couple ⁓
Samantha: Righto.
Lisa: Righto, have a good night.
Samantha: I'm Samantha
Lisa: Welcome back to Exhumed. This is our season finale. And at the end of this, we decided to throw in a blooper reel. We should be embarrassed, but we're not. So stick around for that.
Samantha: If you think we're dumb now, check that out It's hilarious. ⁓
Lisa: Okay, let's begin by talking about something that happened in 2012. Planet came out with a documentary called Mermaids, ⁓ Body Fount. This documentary was about a group of scientists that
Samantha: Tonight we're talking about one of the biggest mysteries.
Lisa: discovered, supposedly, the body of a mermaid that had washed up on shore. ⁓ While they were investigating beachings. having to do with certain testing that the Navy was doing in the ocean.
Samantha: But the funny part about it is that all of that was fake. A of us believed it. But that caught our interest. archaeologists... archaeologist...
Lisa: archaeologists... ⁓
Samantha: archaeologists
Lisa: Decap it, ugh.
Samantha: Get your shit together.
Lisa: where she displayed Yeah. basically what happens in this documentary is that whales were being beached because the Navy was doing sonar in the ocean and they were letting out these sonar blasts that were whales another ocean life.
Samantha: decapitated, decapitation.
Lisa: Yeah, I think I think I said decapitated. blunt force trauma and it was killing them and they were washing up on the beaches. these three scientists that for NOAA, which stands for National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration. That is a real organization. went out to investigate these beachings and was body found, I want to say inside of a shark that was called to their attention. So they took that body back they started reconstructing it to see what it was. ⁓ And along the way, they holy shit, this is a mermaid.
Samantha: And they weren't trying to say it. They were putting all these clues together, putting everything together.
Lisa: And they were all thinking the same thing, but they didn't want to say it. Because they're like, there's no way that this is what we think it is. Exactly. mind you, this is a hoax. They tested the DNA, and it came back with human DNA. was half marine life, half human.
Samantha: As scientists, they didn't want to say it.
Lisa: Now what makes this so real is that they used science and real theories and they kind of intertwined it with all of this other fiction. All of ⁓ have like CGI animation of hypothetically what mermaids would look like and how they would behave The scientists of They look like long trous- trous- ⁓
Samantha: Prowzers
Lisa: actors everything was scripted it seemed so real it everybody i was convinced i was like holy shit they found a damn mermaid ⁓ the media blew ⁓ celebrities like kim was one of them they were tweeting about it it blew up big that people were actually trying to get a hold of the navy and
Samantha: You
Lisa: other organizations like that, NOAA, demanding answers. so actually had to come out and say, look, this is fake. This was a hoax. Noah stated that there is no evidence that aquatic humanoids exist. Let's say they're lying. Let's say that yes, the documentary is a hoax, but maybe the story itself is based in truth.
Samantha: Bye.
Lisa: The language that Noah used to me is suspicious. There is no evidence that aquatic humanoids exist. Meaning there is no evidence. You have no proof. But they're not denying it.
Samantha: It's the same thing with aliens.
Lisa: Yeah, I just thought that was interesting. Now the reason why this felt so real though what the scientists were saying. Like the one scientist who was taking samples of these whales and finding out that they were having blunt trauma and then took all of the parts of this mermaid and put it back together. what me was that was reconstructing this and found out that she was reconstructing a hand. whales dolphins have hands inside their fins or their flippers. Their skeletal structure, it looks like hands. So that have been, this was real, that could have been what it was. Then ⁓ she reconstructed hips. that that this thing ⁓ stood upright and walked. what's interesting that is dolphins have hips. ⁓ actually evolved from a wolf type mammal, land animal, and they started evolving into dolphins about 50 million years ago. So that evolution is still kind of evident in their body because they still have those hips from they walked on land. They're much smaller, but they're still partially there. Ooh, say that sentence over again.
Samantha: Yeah.
Lisa: So say again that this was real. This could have been a dolphin or if was inside a shark. Who's to say that shark didn't eat pieces of different animals? And then they're taking all pieces out of the shark and saying, ⁓ this is one animal and trying to piece it all together when it wasn't even the same animal. But they made it so believable. They even like reconstructed the skull and they talked about how it had this crest on the top of its head that was for echolocating.
Samantha: Yeah, and there's only so many animals that do that.
Lisa: Yeah, whales and dolphins do that. There's a lot of sea life that does that. and they go into the theories. ⁓ Like is the aquatic ape theory. Do you remember what that is? ⁓ About some of the first species human that were on earth, stayed close to the water for food and some stayed more inland for food.
Samantha: Yeah.
Lisa: So then things happen in the environment, like volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, things like that, which made the ocean level rise. And the theory is that some of these stayed the water and just went deeper. They stayed near their food source and others went ⁓ more And the ones that stayed
Samantha: and which over over thousands of years evolution happens and all around the world.
Lisa: you adapt to your surroundings so in theory they could have evolved into mermaids to adapt to their surroundings if a small wolf can adapt into a dolphin it kind of makes sense that a humanoid could go into the ocean and throughout years and years and years of evolution turn into what we see as mermaids.
Samantha: or mountain lion becoming someone's cat that we give treats to.
Lisa: Yeah. this theory, though, the aquatic ape theory is widely rejected ⁓ most places. But this guy also talked about how why do we have webbing between our fingers? Why we have an extra layer of fat to keep us warm and to keep us buoyant? ⁓ Yeah, maybe some people don't have it. Doesn't look like you have it. I have a little bit. What else does he say? Why do we have spines that so flexible if not to swim? Things like ⁓ And then talks about indigenous people, ⁓ about how ⁓ eyes, their ⁓ widen when get into the water
Samantha: I do not have it. They were trying to get rid of the stigmatism
Lisa: This stick, no, it's not stigmatism. They also talk about how we can train ourselves to hold our breath longer than we should be able to. All of this points to the fact that
Samantha: stigma
Lisa: we were meant to at least spend some of our time in the water. And it was very, very convincing what he was saying. The thing is, my theory has always been, if God wanted me to be in the water, I would have been born with gills. ⁓ that's what...
Samantha: Yeah, you've been saying that for as long as forever.
Lisa: That's what people say against it, is that we cannot breathe underwater. In my opinion, when we go into the ocean, we drop to the very bottom of the food chain. We don't belong There are a lot of things that are against that, too. If we were meant to be in the water for a period time, we would be able at least partly breathe underwater.
Samantha: But he...you remember in that docu...mocumentary. They were talking about how all these different areas of the world, how dolphins would associate with humans. Like they would fish, the dolphins would help ⁓ the fish in towards shore and the fisherman would start throwing them back. ⁓ ⁓ equated that essentially towards the dolphins recognize the humans as else
Lisa: Yes.
Samantha: and they try to ⁓ correlate that as mermaids. Like, well, maybe they learned from the mermaids that because the humans on land similar to the people that they're hunting with underwater.
Lisa: Yes, and that's why they're curious about us, and that's why they cooperate with us in that way. That's what their theory was with that. And it makes sense. It does.
Samantha: I mean, you're talking about if we belonged in the water, then we would have been made with gills. what if us ourselves ⁓ the ones went up high away from the water and then the other went below into the sea?
Lisa: It could have happened. It all just depends on if you believe in evolution or not. I mean, I believe that anything is possible. And that theory did seem very realistic to me. And that's where they got you, though. That's where they started fooling people, is that everything they were saying made complete sense. ⁓
Samantha: And it doesn't matter if you believe in evolution or if you believe in this and that, it all ties together and makes sense. ⁓
Lisa: Now the reason why people believed in this so much is because people have always wanted to believe in mermaids. Always. At least since about 1000 BC.
Samantha: Shit gets real when it's 1000 BC.
Lisa: Yeah, and I'm saying, you know, why have we had this mythology for as long as we've had it?
Samantha: especially in all areas of the world.
Lisa: Exactly. For example, The first mermaid ever to be talked about was in 1000 BC or earlier, could have been earlier than that. It was in the Syrian area and she was a goddess named Atargatis or ⁓ Atargatees. It's pronounced both those ways. She was supposed to be the goddess of fertility, water, protection, and life cycles. Temples were built for her. and she had sacred pools in these temples full of fish and nobody ate these fish because these fish were considered holy. So she's already tied to fish and water, right? Now the story is that a targetese fell in love with the human man. He was a shepherd. something happened along the way. And depending on what story told, it changes a little bit. But it's always vague. Somewhere along the way, she accidentally kills him. Some say it was rage. Some say she too powerful for him and she accidentally killed him. it also does not specify the way that she killed him. All it said was that his death was caused by her.
Samantha: .
Lisa: So out of shame, she threw herself into a lake. And then she transformed, but she didn't transform all the way. She ended up transforming into a hybrid. The top part of her body from the waist up was human. The bottom part was a fish. And that's really all there is to the story, There is art drawn of her all over the place.
Samantha: Are we just talking about Syria? Or are we talking about Syria, Egypt, China?
Lisa: No, no, no. They all have their different ones. They all have their different ones. This is believed to be the starting point for the idea of mermaids. the idea of mermaids as we know it to be now. Now after that, we have Pliny the Elder. This was sometime in the first century AD. He was a Roman naturalist and he wrote about mermaids, which he called Nereids. He said that they had rough bodies, they had scales all over their bodies, even the human parts had scales. He said that they were unsettling to look at. Now in a lot of these sightings, they do not say that these mermaids are beautiful. They say that they are creepy to look at. are not, they're ugly. Now he claimed that these sightings of these Mer people, men and women, were so frequent that they were worth being seriously noted. And so that's what he did. He wrote about them. Now some people think that he saw these mermaids himself, but he did not. What he was doing was recording other people's stories of their sightings. He wrote sailors reports of seeing mermaids. Sailors were always seeing mermaids. the governor of Gaul and Belgium today, the governor wrote a letter about bodies washing These bodies kept washing on the And this is what he described is that They were unsettling to look at. They had scales all over their bodies, but he did notice that they were human on top and fish on the bottom. He wrote about Roman knights seeing mermen and these mermen had such a weight to them that what they would do is that at night they would climb up onto these ships and instantly sink the ships. That's how heavy these mermen were.
Samantha: You know, it's interesting how we always talk about mermaids, but never talk about mermen.
Lisa: I Now in all actuality though, These were likely other sea animals that they didn't know how to identify. I mean, think about it. First century AD, they knew nothing about the ocean.
Samantha: We still won't.
Lisa: Exactly. But the one thing that most of these sightings have in common is nobody was saying, wow, she's hot, whatever she is, because were unsettling. ⁓ ⁓
Samantha: She's not Ursula. No, not Ursula. What's her name? ⁓ yeah, well, Ursula's my favorite. Ariel.
Lisa: Ursula was like a squid or something. ⁓
Samantha: Ursula was a badass. I like the villains. She had the best songs.
Lisa: She kind of was. Me too. Okay, so now 1493, Christopher Columbus. He recorded a sighting in the Dominican Republic, ⁓ January 9th, 1493. ⁓ He said that these beings were not half as beautiful as they are painted, not as beautiful as they are said to be. He said they had masculine features. but not particularly human looking. And he said that they were rising partially up out of the water and staring at him. He actually saw three of them at one time. Now there are other sources that say that this is not the only sighting that he had, but that is not confirmed. There is only one documented report of him seeing mermaids and it was these three at the same time. Now historians say that they were probably manatees. I guess ⁓ some, I don't think manatees look human in any way, even their faces, ⁓ maybe in some lighting and some angles they could. But they argue that manatees apparently, they don't out of the water and stare at you like that. You know what does though? ⁓ Seals, seals do that. They can pop their heads up.
Samantha: Yeah, but they could be. But to be fair, when Christopher Columbus was around, There wasn't a whole lot of travel.
Lisa: No.
Samantha: Okay, so you dig up a plot of land, you build a house you're gonna see you're gonna see all these different things because you're them out of their home.
Lisa: Yeah.
Samantha: Okay, 1493. What if there wasn't that many, we already know there wasn't that much sea travel as there is today. And they're looking up like what the fuck is this?
Lisa: Yeah, so the sea belonged to sea life. Yeah, makes sense.
Samantha: it's far-fetched but it's possible. ⁓
Lisa: You were invading their space. Yeah, you're invading their space, and they're curious about you, so they're going to poke their heads up. But you don't know what exactly is looking at you, though, especially if it's at night. All you're going to see is maybe some light reflecting off eyeballs. You don't know what it is.
Samantha: And half the time, they think it's stars reflecting down on the water.
Lisa: Yeah, I think most of the time, I can understand manatees. But if you see their whole body, you're going to know that's not a mermaid, you know? Because they're not depicted like that. Seals, ⁓ yeah, but seals also have the head shape. OK, say that you're seeing a seal pop its head up out of the water, and it's at night, right?
Samantha: and seal stay closer to the land.
Lisa: you're going to see the eyes right where they're supposed to be right where they would be on a human. You're going to see the right. You're not going to see that in the dark, but you're going to see the cute little head shape and it's going to look like a human to you, especially if it's only the shoulders up. You're to be like that kind of looks like a human, you know, and then maybe in their mind they just kind of mentally piece the rest of it together.
Samantha: and their cute little whiskers. I don't care. Yeah.
Lisa: Hmm
Samantha: You're thinking of it differently than I would. I would just be t-t-t-t-
Lisa: Absolutely, if I saw a seal, I would definitely want to play with it and it would probably bite me. I'm probably gonna die trying to pet something I'm not supposed to. And it's actually against the law to touch manatees because they're endangered. But are you not gonna pet a manatee if one swims up to you? I am.
Samantha: An alligator. Yep. Man yes Especially since manatees want to pet you.
Lisa: Yeah, they just want to love on you. Yes.
Samantha: Yeah, if they touch me, I'm gonna hug them. I will be arrested for touching humanity. And I'll be okay with that. That's fine. That's fine. It wanted to play. Hey, it wanted it wanted a hug and I was just giving it back.
Lisa: Me too. Let's do that. Let's go find manatees. Who am I to deny it? Okay, let's go on. In 1614, we have John Smith. was an explorer. He led an expedition exploring the of Maine and Massachusetts. And he's the one that named it New England.
Speaker 1: What is that dog doing? ⁓ fuck.
Lisa: he reported sightings of off the coast of the Netherlands.
Speaker 2: snoring.
Lisa: or the West Indies depending on what source you're up. He said they had long green hair. ⁓ He said that they were human from the waist up and fish from the waist down. And he actually said that they were quite beautiful and that he was struck with admiration. He kind of fell in love with her. But later on, he backpedaled and denied the whole story. He's like, no, that's not what I saw. And it's believed that he backpedaled on it to avoid ridicule. Now here's something interesting though. lot of people call mermaids sirens. That's accurate. ⁓ mermaids were never those were two things ⁓ A siren, sirens were assholes, a siren in ancient Greek stories, they show up in the Odyssey.
Samantha: Sirens are assholes.
Lisa: And early Greek mythology, they had the bodies of birds. So they were half woman, half bird. And they lived on rocky shores, rocky islands. And what they would do is sing to draw in sailors. the sailors would crash their ships on rocks ⁓ and So these were not sea creatures, these were land predators. Now fast forward to medieval Europe. artists and writers began to
Samantha: you
Lisa: redraw sirens. and they ended up drawing fish bottoms instead of bird bottoms. They got that mixed up there was already mermaid mythology. Mermaids and sirens are both tied to the same thing. They're tied to luring sailors. They're tied to death at sea. And I guess they both sang. to lure in the sailors. So translation kind of gets mixed up.
Samantha: It sounds like mermaids are introverts and sirens are extroverts.
Lisa: Kind of, like the mermaids kind of left you alone unless you were in their territory and the birds were like, hey, big boy, come here. Yeah. So the translation got mixed up. And this is because.
Samantha: a little bit. That's what it sounds like. I'll hang out with the mermaids.
Lisa: The ancient texts were being copied ⁓ And might been language barriers here and there. And since they were both tied to the same thing, there was mythology about both. They just kind of got smashed together, probably unintentionally. it comes to the churches, the medieval Christian writers used ⁓ sirens as a symbol for temptation.
Samantha: Thank
Lisa: They were a symbol of seduction and sin, luring men to their destruction. they the half half fish, probably because it sexier than a half woman, half bird. i think they did it on purpose i think it was just mashed up in throughout time So it really began as bird demons.
Samantha: Bird demons?
Lisa: Yeah, bird demons. fly through the air and scream and just be terrifying Little shipwrecking nightmares. They eventually became what we know now as mermaids.
Samantha: definitely. ⁓
Lisa: gotta sneeze. I gotta sneeze, sorry. So what sightings have you found?
Samantha: so... Like, we've talked about it, like here's the thing, that Everyone wants to create that like mermaid Disney effect
Lisa: Yeah.
Samantha: no one ever talks about how Everything the wrong proportions, they're too fast, and they're too aware.
Lisa: Yeah.
Samantha: A lot of witnesses say exact same thing. Like, it looked at me as though it knew exactly what was. ⁓
Lisa: and then it swam away too fast for me to even get a picture or anything.
Samantha: Yeah, that's creepy. Most modern-day sightings don't come from tourists They come from people who live on the water or at the water
Lisa: which makes sense.
Samantha: Yeah. It's mostly like commercial fishermen, sea cruises, and sea crews. people who go deep sea cruises are the people who go on cruises very far at sea. Deep sea crews ⁓ is like people who work deep in the sea.
Lisa: What's the difference? Okay, okay. Yeah.
Samantha: I feel like I recovered that one very well.
Lisa: Hehehehe
Samantha: I fucked up a little bit. But a lot of these stories are people that aren't trying to go viral. Like everyone. You look up mermaids, you see everyone on TikTok with like the sequent fin tail. You know what's real, you know what's AI. If you don't, just, just stop watching this. We're not talking about you.
Lisa: Yeah. Yeah, quit using AI to lie to us too, I get so mad at that. I'll see something like on TikTok or something and I'll go, ⁓ that such a cute little animal. What is that? I want one. And then I look and I'm like, ⁓ it's AI. Fuck you. ⁓ I so mad. ⁓
Samantha: ⁓ their eyes... their eyes aren't moving right. Something's not right. ⁓ screw you. Yeah. Stop getting my hopes up.
Lisa: Yeah.
Samantha: But there's also like one thing that's a repeated source, especially in the North Atlantic and the North Pacific. Figure surfacing briefly alongside the boats.
Lisa: Okay.
Samantha: something pacing the vessels underwater the absolute thing something hitting the side of the vessel.
Lisa: Manatees run into ships a lot. Whales do sometimes. Sharks do.
Samantha: Mm-hmm. You... there are accounts where crew members describe human-shaped body moving just below the surface. but it's keeping pace with the boat. They describe it faster than what humans can swim. ⁓ and what would freak me out is something moving faster than the boat.
Lisa: Yeah.
Samantha: But naturally I would want to play with it.
Lisa: I'm never going to experience that because I am never going to be on the open ocean in a boat. I don't care if there's a great deal on a cruise. I'm sorry. Nope.
Samantha: Hahaha That is a mountain that I will die on. So in 1608 there was Henry Hudson. I really don't know who the hell he is. I'm just trying to give you examples of things that I found.
Lisa: He was an English explorer and navigator. He made significant 17th century voyages searching for a northeast or northwest passage to Asia. And what did he see?
Samantha: This morning, one of our companion looking overboard saw a mermaid By the tune, was come close to the seaside. I'm sorry, this is ancient English. Looking earnest on the man, a little after the sea came overturned on her. From the navel upward, her back and breast were like a woman's. As they saw that, they saw her, her body as big as one of us, her skin very white and long hair hanging down below her collarbone. her going down they saw her tail Which was like a tail of a purpose of a speckled like a marshal So Yeah, no, I mean it's all ancient English so we're talking about Shakespeare so this happened in 1608
Lisa: What? Okay, so basically she came up out of the water and they saw that she had the body of a woman down to her belly button and then after that was like a speckled fish fin instead of legs basically. And she came up out of the water, looked at the sailor and then went back into the water.
Samantha: Yes.
Lisa: Okay, let's edit that out. coming at me like, why are you so stupid? ⁓
Samantha: Exactly. So in ancient English, was to do word for word.
Lisa: Okay.
Samantha: No. No,
Lisa: goes, ⁓ that lady get any schooling done not knowing where Paris was? ⁓
Samantha: Hahaha! So you were talking about 1614 John Smith, You did not tell what he actually wrote in his though.
Lisa: No, I didn't. I didn't find that. What did you find?
Samantha: The upper part of a body perfectly resembled that of a woman, and he was swimming about with all possible grace near the shore. It had large eyes, rather too round, a finely shaped nose, a little too short, well-formed ears, too long, and her long hair imparted to her original character by no means unattractive. By no means unattractive.
Lisa: by no means unattractive.
Samantha: But there are skeptics who say that John Smith never wrote it. It was propaganda.
Lisa: Maybe that's why he denied it after the fact. He denied seeing that, kind of recanted his statement.
Samantha: Yeah, no, it's absolutely possible that all of that was false and at the same time it's absolutely possible that he saw what he did.
Lisa: Hmm And if you think about it, his description, yeah, his description makes sense because like the nose being a little too small, to me, maybe it was more like smushed into her face, more of like a fish than a human. Her eyes were big.
Samantha: We weren't there. Mm-hmm.
Lisa: That's what happens with nocturnal animals or animals that live in darkness like mermaids would. They have those kinds of eyes. That's interesting.
Samantha: Yeah. The further you go down into sea, the bigger the eyes are, the tentacles that hang off with different lighting. It's like, it's amazing.
Lisa: Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's interesting.
Samantha: In 1718, there was guy named Samuel Fowlers. He traveled all the world as he would encounter new species of life, new creatures. He would constantly paint them. He also included mermaids.
Lisa: Hmm.
Samantha: Fowler's claimed that he caught a mermaid and brought it back to his house.
Lisa: ⁓ really?
Samantha: Yeah, this is this is where things get weird. He then drew a picture of the mermaid and tried to nurse it back to health.
Lisa: Okay.
Samantha: He claimed that the mermaid lived in a container of water. It squeaked like a mouse. A couple of weeks later, the mermaid died of starvation. Well, yeah, that's sad. I guarantee none of this is true. It's cool story, but...
Lisa: Aww! I know, but still. It squeaked like a mouse.
Samantha: Yeah Yeah, but it's fun to read about.
Lisa: Yeah.
Samantha: 1830 This one of the earliest modern style sightings ⁓ multiple witnesses It happened and god I had the pronunciation, right? ⁓ VEN-BEC-ULA?
Lisa: Okay, I've never heard of that.
Samantha: Okay. Bembecula, it's an island in Scotland. There was tons of witnesses, villagers including children. They described small human-like with upper body, long hair, dark and greenish. They had a fish-like lower half. Their behavior was swimming deeply in the ocean and then diving back up. Like almost playful, like dolphins. ⁓
Lisa: Mm-hmm. You're just kind of jumping out of the water and...
Samantha: Yeah, they're having fun doing their thing. But at some point the villagers got pissed off. And what do you do?
Lisa: Okay.
Samantha: when you're a kid, you get pissed off. You don't know what's out there. you throw stones.
Lisa: ⁓ I feel like I've heard this story.
Samantha: They threw stones, nothing happened. The mermen's got pissed off, nothing happened. eventually they did find a mermaid washed up on shore.
Lisa: Was it the body of a little boy? ⁓
Samantha: No, it never said anything like that.
Lisa: Okay, because I thought I read the same story. I never wrote it down. But somebody threw a rock and it hit the little boy in the head. And when the little boy washed up dead on the shore, they realized that he was half human, half fish.
Samantha: But I mean... but they did give it a burial.
Lisa: That part too. Yeah, this might be the same story.
Samantha: It could be. mean, you look on so many different websites, so many different sources, not every single source is going to say the same thing. That's why there are so many skeptics and everything is according to.
Lisa: Peace. Yeah, especially if the story isn't even true to begin with. People will just take it and add stuff to it, subtract stuff from it.
Samantha: Yeah.
Lisa: Ahem.
Samantha: Okay, so that was 1830. Let's jump so far ahead. 2009.
Lisa: Wow, okay. I think I know what you're gonna talk about.
Samantha: This is the... There's so many notable things, but I'm not going to talk about every single thing because it's all the exact same thing.
Lisa: Okay.
Samantha: The care-
Lisa: Kiryat Yam
Samantha: encounters in Israel in 2009. As much as I've tried to pronounce that, I still can't do it. Say it again.
Lisa: Kiryat Yam
Samantha: This is one of the most famous 21st century mermaids. Like there is multiple witnesses, different days, but the same story. One man said that he was walking along the beach at the sunset when he saw something sitting on a rock just offshore. At first he thought it was a woman, long hair, pale skin, just sitting there. When she moved, he realized the lower half wasn't legs.
Lisa: Mm-hmm He looked, yeah, and the mermaid turned around and noticed him looking at her. then she crawled off the rock and went back into the ocean. Apparently, ⁓
Samantha: It was a tail. Are you talking about the video or are you talking about the encounter before?
Lisa: I think I'm talking about the video but I don't know if the video is real or not because I saw it in that mermaid mockumentary.
Samantha: Yeah? Yeah, so I am talking about the encounter before.
Lisa: ⁓ okay. So there's
Samantha: It's essentially the same encounter. ⁓ It disappears straight into the water. No splash like a person. Like a person so when you dive off a diving board, if you do it right, there shouldn't be a splash.
Lisa: Okay. There's a splash. Yeah, and this thing was streamlined enough to jump in and did not make a splash.
Samantha: Other witnesses reported the exact same thing. It was something humanoid, surfacing below, watching, then gone. It ⁓ happened at dusk, but always just far enough to not be able to see it. ⁓ in 2009, the government is, if I didn't mention before, in Israel. ⁓
Lisa: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Samantha: Anyone who has proof of a mermaid like actual proof one million dollars so then Like this this is where This story and the video that you see online gets mucky Because of the dates that it was posted So this encounter happened in 2009
Lisa: Yes. Yes. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Samantha: You see that this video has been posted in 2009, 2011, 2013. Like it's just reposted. Like there is no actual origination of it. So the government said,
Lisa: Because I'm pretty sure that wasn't real. I'm pretty sure that was AI generated. And the government did put out a reward. If anyone can come to us with irrefutable proof of a sighting of a mermaid, you will get a reward of $1 million.
Samantha: Yes. of $1 million.
Lisa: But that was a publicity stunt. That was to attract more tourism to Kyriat Yom.
Samantha: Exactly. So then this video comes out and there are so many different years that it's posted but it is so it's even in the mockumentary it is absolutely convincing like you see you see this guy on a cliff and he's got a handheld camera and he's looking at his friend he's looking back down in the water there's multiple zooms and you see what is half human
Lisa: It really is.
Samantha: half fish just sunbathing on a rock and it's kind of it's doing its own thing and then it looks up at the camera ⁓ shit i'm spotted and then it goes right off That's horrible to say. ⁓
Lisa: Mm-hmm. What? huh. Yeah, it kind of slithers off the rock, too. You can tell that it's kind of dragging itself. Yeah. I don't know if that video is real. I'm thinking a lot of the found footage videos that they show in that mockumentary were made for the mockumentary. So I don't know if that one's real.
Samantha: But... Yeah. Nothing, we're cutting that out.
Lisa: that a dark joke that I didn't get?
Samantha: What We're done with this.
Lisa: Mm.
Samantha: But. That's the thing about this exact encounter. That looked so real. And this was before AI. Well, I mean, it could have been the beginning of AI, but You're one ⁓ that told about this entire ⁓ documentary or And I got hooked because of it.
Lisa: Yeah. Yeah, and when I told you at the time, yeah, at the time everyone thought it was real because there was no disclaimer that it was a mockumentary. they did this for ratings. Yeah.
Samantha: It was publicity. Yeah.
Lisa: And they had to come out and admit that it was not true. It was a made up story. They were made to do that because they were supposed to have given a disclaimer that it wasn't real and they never did. They fooled the entire country.
Samantha: god, and they did so well. ⁓ was like Grammy night.
Lisa: They did so well they made it so ⁓ They made it so believable. ⁓ many people believed it. also there was a mockumentary a year later called mermaids the new evidence and of the the main scientist came back and did that one too that even furthered the thing and i don't
Samantha: Yeah.
Lisa: I don't know if they came out after the first one or after the second one and said, hey, this is a hoax.
Samantha: It was after the second one.
Lisa: I would think so, yeah, because I don't even think they would have made the second one if it came out then.
Samantha: Because you're... I'm more of a skeptic than you are.
Lisa: Uh-huh.
Samantha: And we both believed it.
Lisa: because it was so believable.
Samantha: And then I and I had to convince you and show you all the things because you were so convinced.
Lisa: Yeah, I was like, even when they did come out and say it was a hoax, I'm like, no, it wasn't. And they're covering it up. They're trying to cover it up. If it's not true, you're just going to be like whatever, think whatever you want to think. You know what I mean? So when came out ⁓ fast and said, no, no, no, no, that was fake, I was like, that's suspicious.
Samantha: Mm-hmm. And no, it absolutely is suspicious.
Lisa: And on top of that, have both those documentaries or mockumentaries downloaded on thumb drive because ⁓ my computer husband found it somehow. ⁓ You can't get online and find it.
Samantha: Yes, so do I. it on Amazon Prime now. That's the only way you can find it.
Lisa: OK, yeah, because will leak it onto the internet, and it'll be scrubbed off again. And then it'll come back, and then it'll be immediately scrubbed off again. ⁓ to me, is suspicious too. Like, if it's not real, why do you care? You know?
Samantha: Yeah. Yeah, no, as much as I know that that documentary is a fake. It's still my favorite documentary and I've had to buy it off of Amazon Prime twice. And the last time that I did it, ⁓ I just up doing my thing ⁓ and putting on a flash drive, not telling anyone how did it. ⁓
Lisa: It is, Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Samantha: because it does go away very quickly. Which raises, it raises a lot of questions.
Lisa: It does and It really does. It makes you think. Even when you know that, okay, this is not real, it was a hoax, this never happened. The theories that they give you and that real information that they do give you is so... It makes you think. So it made the story seem so believable and I was mad because when I first saw that I was like, you gotta be kidding me. This changes everything.
Samantha: It's it's connecting different theories together. ⁓ that makes sense. It opens it opened your mind up to something new.
Lisa: Hmm. And that's the point that they were to get across. ⁓ It made complete sense. And I was really excited. Like, ⁓ my god, they actually found a fucking mermaid. And they're coming out and telling us. And that right there, I should have been like, no, that's not real. everybody, and it's not.
Samantha: It's the same thing as Area 51 and the UFOs. Exact same thing. When some political huge ass thing happens is when they're gonna say it. And at that point we're just like, ⁓ yeah, we know we're beyond your shit. ⁓
Lisa: No, no, it's not going to happen. And if they ever come out and do say, yeah, then Navy did have a mermaid, it's ⁓ because it's the lesser of the two evils that they want to admit. the attention to this so that they're not about this.
Samantha: Mm-hmm. ⁓ yeah, but now you're also getting the way of my shit. ⁓ You wanna about more encounters? ⁓
Lisa: Keep... Yes.
Samantha: We can talk more about this after. 2012 Zimbabwe Reservoir incident. I'm not even gonna pronounce this word. happened Lake... I'm gonna have to. Lake... Carriba? K-A-R-I-B-A. Carriba. Yeah.
Lisa: Sounds right to me. Caribbean. where is Zimbabwe?
Samantha: ⁓ Somewhere in southern Africa
Lisa: Okay.
Samantha: So there are government contractors that were set out to install water pumps, but they refused to finish the job.
Lisa: Why? They saw a mermaid?
Samantha: Well, yeah, essentially. I thought your response was like, just another job.
Lisa: in a reservoir.
Samantha: Yeah.
Lisa: Okay.
Samantha: said something was in the water watching them watching them ⁓
Lisa: that's creepy.
Samantha: Multiple workers claimed that they saw figures just below the surface. Humanoid shapes, not fish, not animals. Close enough that they could see the movement. Arms, shoulders, a head. No tails. No flipping. Bodies gliding. They did not describe them as curious. They described them as territorial. One worker said it felt like they were being watched. Like they weren't supposed to be there. The project stalled. No one would go back in. New workers were hired. They claimed the exact same, but this is the fucked up thing. So in everything that I research on this, they say that it was stalled and never finished.
Lisa: Uh-huh.
Samantha: But, happened in 10-some years later, apparently it's never finished, which bullshit because you can look it up ⁓ and this damn is finished.
Lisa: ⁓ huh. Okay, so, somebody finished it.
Samantha: Yeah, it was finished at one point in time. So this one comes from fishermen off the coast of British Columbia. In the early mornings there was heavy fog. He said the water was completely still. and then something surfaced next to the boat. He said at first it looked like it was a seal. But then it. kind of became upright and it looked straight at him. Not like an animal but like a person. He described large eyes, smooth skin.
Lisa: huh.
Samantha: shoulders above the water, which you think about it, you're, yeah. And then it dipped under silently, no thrashing, no panic, and it was just gone.
Lisa: like human shoulders. Seals kinda have shoulders.
Samantha: Yeah.
Lisa: And it was if it was at night. When you see something that you can't explain, your mind kind of does this trick where it kind of fills in the blanks.
Samantha: I mean...
Lisa: So I wonder if that's what some of these sightings were.
Samantha: and the ocean is a very dark space and you have the moon to rely on you have the skies to rely on the stars it's trippy as shit
Lisa: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Samantha: then there's the Caribbean, Hawaii. ⁓ Modern fishermen report that there are beautiful humanoid figures in the water, sometimes glowing or reflecting light unnaturally, associated with sudden storms, equipment failure, missing people. there's all sorts of different things that happen in Hawaii and all of them come down to this exact same thing.
Lisa: Mermaids?
Samantha: People blur it with like, or like something else we fully don't understand.
Lisa: Mm-hmm.
Samantha: But I mean, at the same time, like I'm not going to talk about every single sighting in the exact same concept. Every single sighting says the exact same thing.
Lisa: Yeah.
Samantha: There's been a lot of divers around the world who talk about the figure floating upright. It had a body of a person, but then the tail was like fish like. The encounters happened in the Red Sea. In 1998 in Hawaii, a naked woman was swimming with dolphins, keeping up. She jumped out of the water with Tales of a fish. Over 10 people witnessed this. Apparently there's no pictures. I mean in 1998 we've all got our... We don't... We're not holding onto... ⁓ Yeah. We don't our phones to take pictures. ⁓ We have the set aside.
Lisa: Mm-hmm. really crappy cameras. Yeah. Well.
Samantha: It happened in 2013 Key West, 2015 South Africa, 2017 Japan, 2018 Chile, 2020 Mediterranean in the Greece and one of the Greece Islands. But in in 1943 in Japan, there are soldiers who sold them in and out of the waters. They described them as half human, half fish with spikes on their spine. They were salmon colored, but with mouths like carp. So they have this, like in the documentary, they kind of had their spikes going along the sca... Yeah.
Lisa: like the crust. Yeah.
Samantha: but their mouths were like carp, so very sharp teeth.
Lisa: Ooh. That sounds like a show.
Samantha: But there has been patterns of modern sightings across all these different continents where it's ⁓ human like body, fish like lower body. Every single one of the sightings have kind of the crest along your scalp.
Lisa: Yeah.
Samantha: Everything is either in the night or in the morning, which makes sense because that's when the lighting is darker.
Lisa: Yep, at dawn and dusk.
Samantha: They have quick disappearances. But what doesn't make sense about any of this is as much as you are as a skeptic, you cannot deny the fact that this happens. That these sightings happen across every region of the world. Well before TikTok, well before Instagram, well before like every social media, biblical, everything involved.
Lisa: Yeah. Yeah.
Samantha: there are writings on, literally writings on the walls of the same
Lisa: Mm-hmm.
Samantha: But everyone talks about how it could be misidentified as a manatee, a seal, a dolphin. How... It could be an optical illusion with light reflection, wave distortion, distance of misjudgment, which... We can all understand that because when you're running down a hot road and you see that water in the road and then it disappears and reappears,
Lisa: Mm-hmm. There's a difference between I'm pretty sure this is what I saw, and then other people saying, no, didn't get a picture, but I know what I
Samantha: Yeah.
Lisa: And it would happen so fast that by the time you get your phone or your camera out to take a picture of it, it's gone. Unless you're sitting there waiting for a mermaid. And if you're waiting for one, it's not going to come.
Samantha: I've been at the ocean, I've seen multiple dolphins, I've seen jellyfish, and I goad and grab my phone and suddenly I can't see it. Yeah.
Lisa: And then it's gone. Yeah. And that's how they like it.
Samantha: But...
Lisa: Now, should we get into the cave paintings and stuff like that now?
Samantha: Go for it.
Lisa: Okay. Now we talk about these sightings all over the world that nobody can get pictures of ⁓ But is art all over the world depicting the same thing. And this art is so old that these civilizations did not know of each other's existence. But they were drawing pretty much the same thing. And they all had the same mythology ⁓ about human fish people. Now there are no confirmed prehistoric paintings of mermaids. not in the way that people imagine it. But there have been found paintings on rocks something that some people interpret as like a spirit of some kind. It's got. Basically what I have on my tattoo, it's like a stick figure. You can tell it's swimming. And instead of legs, it's got a fin.
Samantha: Get it closer and rotator. up a little bit.
Lisa: They're upside down now. But you can see. There are and hieroglyphics and things like that of combinations of human-animal hybrids all over the place. ⁓ In Europe they have them in Paleolithic caves. They're in Africa. They're in Australia. And they're half human, half beast, which the beast part could be anything. And these are believed to be like symbolic They're supposed to symbolize something and they're not really supposed to be what they're actually seeing.
Samantha: you
Lisa: That's what they're believed to be. But there are no confirmed mermaids. But people interpret these cave paintings and hieroglyphics And ⁓ that's what people interpret it as is ⁓ mermaids. ⁓ And it's the same thing. A mermaid is.
Samantha: Yeah.
Lisa: Half human, half fish, that's what you're seeing all over the place. Syria, have Atargitis ⁓ Egypt, they fish symbolism. Not mermaids. They have hybrid beings in prehistoric caves over the place. Indigenous cultures have water beings that they will draw. It's the same idea that keeps showing up all over the world. Something human, but tied to water. So in Mesopotamia, they have targetese that they were drawing all over the place. We talked about that. Also Mesopotamia they have fish gods. ⁓ They not pretty. They're known recognized as gods, teachers of humans, is interesting. And they are linked to the knowledge of the sea or the knowledge ⁓ from the sea. In like I said, not exactly mermaids, but it's fish symbolism. This fish symbolism is tied to Osiris who was Egyptian god of the afterlife, death, resurrection and agriculture. ⁓ So no mermaids, but the symbolism is still there. but reality check to all of this, even though we don't want to hear it, what's real ⁓ is legend of a targetis or a targetis, fish human mythology, water deities that are believed in But what is not confirmed real is there is no verified cave paintings of actual mermaids, no Egyptian mermaids, no physical evidence ever that mermaids ever existed. but One of the coolest theories though that I have ever heard comes from Nephilim. We're not going to get into biblical stuff. I'm just going to glaze this.
Samantha: No.
Lisa: But the fact that they hybrids, which everyone believes, not in the Bible, ⁓ not in the book of Enoch, not anywhere. There's no mention. All it said was that they corrupted humans and animals. And that got translated into, ⁓ well, they mixed them together, which nothing ⁓ saying that But people do it. And ⁓ do believe that one of these was mermaids. Now, God the earth to get rid all corruption.
Samantha: Okay.
Lisa: mermaids were already in the water so they would not have died. that is a really cool theory. i thought it was really really cool when i heard it but now knowing everything that i know that's a cool theory but it's not believable.
Samantha: Yeah. I mean, it's not believable, but at the same time. What if it happened?
Lisa: Maybe.
Samantha: I- You remember, ⁓ Remember the sideshow of P.T. Barnum?
Lisa: Yeah, he was supposed to have had a mermaid. You know what mermaid that was? It was the Fiji mermaid.
Samantha: Fiji. Yeah, Fiji.
Lisa: which was a fish.
Samantha: Do you remember the story behind it?
Lisa: I don't think I know the whole story behind it, but what it is is that it's a monkey's head sewed to a fish's body. What's the story?
Samantha: I do. No, the controversy behind that was like it's in the National Archives. I'm not going to actual locations because I get it wrong. But before one the shows, was a archives in and there was a fire and destroyed absolutely everything. including the Fiji mermaid.
Lisa: Yeah. Yeah, I have heard that.
Samantha: And that's one of the government conspiracy things. ⁓
Lisa: that they burned it on purpose to get rid of the mermaid.
Samantha: Yeah, but how other things can happen to? Like we talk about all these different conspiracy theories. we reference aliens almost everything because there's no real explanation. That's hilarious to say. But a couple of years ago everyone was talking about like rushing Area 51 and coming out with like an alien on their shoulders.
Lisa: A pet.
Samantha: I'll bet. ⁓ will take mine. ⁓ But the government is, mean, hell, the Vatican came out. I don't remember the actual year. the Vatican came out and said that, hey, here's everything on our aliens. Canada, all these other countries did the exact same thing. And the United States is just hanging out like, oh. yeah we're not saying shit and then in like 2023 2024 congressional hearing came out and said yeah aliens exist okay old news old news you are 10 years behind the time
Lisa: They're in the ocean.
Samantha: I am not someone that believes every single thing For me, it's ⁓ all, ⁓ that's That's interesting. I want to learn more. But when the highest religion in the world comes out and says ⁓ the most skeptical thing blows everyone's minds, like, yeah.
Lisa: Mm-hmm.
Samantha: aliens exist, here's everything that we have on them.
Lisa: Yeah.
Samantha: But then go like 10, 15, 20 years later, oh, aliens exist in our oceans. Like we're the kids that eat paste. How?
Lisa: Yeah. Hahaha!
Samantha: Like, not that dumb. You ate paste, didn't you? ⁓ I mean, honestly, we probably both ⁓ But-
Lisa: No, I didn't. I knew a kid that did though. You
Samantha: This has been going on so long you have been denying for so long and then you come out and say this shit
Lisa: Yeah.
Samantha: So why can't this... You're 10 years behind the Vatican but yet at the same time let's worship everything about the Vatican but you don't want to admit to what they're saying what are you covering up?
Lisa: Yeah, at this point we think everything's a government cover-up because they'll lie and then later on they'll come out and admit it. The thing is, though, OK, now we know that aliens exist in the ocean. We don't know what they look like. And according to them, according to ⁓ a lot of people, I don't even who these people are, these aliens do not take just one form. They're fucking octopuses. ⁓ Exactly. ⁓
Samantha: ⁓ perfect timing! Whee!
Lisa: Octopuses are absolutely one of them. And they're hilarious. They will get in a bad mood and just punch a fish because it's swimming by them. And they're so funny. yeah. I have looked into it. is this true? And it really is true.
Samantha: You know, I hope that's true. I really hope that's true.
Lisa: can't remember what source I this from. But one of the alien beings that supposed to be in the ocean ⁓ walk upright like a human. So what that's we've been seeing? and thinking it's mermaids. What if it's really aliens?
Samantha: We have only explored between 5 and 8 % of our ocean. We have explored more in outer space, hell, we've been to ⁓ We have no ⁓ We're not getting into that. ⁓
Lisa: No, we haven't. Okay.
Samantha: But let's agree, we have explored more of the outer space than we have of our own oceans, We know more about Bigfoot and we can't... We have more knowledge. Exactly! Exactly! There's more Bigfoot sightings in Ohio than there is anywhere else in the country. What if they are living so deep into the where they're just like, fuck all you guys. ⁓ We're introverts. Leave me alone.
Lisa: We can't even prove that Bigfoot is real.
Samantha: I want nothing to do with any of you. I'm gonna hang out with my octopus aliens. Play with the Brumina Triangle. Fuck with Atlantis. ⁓
Lisa: Yeah.
Samantha: like we don't know anything, but it's fun to think about that. This is our last episode of the season. I'm having fun.
Lisa: That's our last episode But I think that's about all we know for now. Right? Do you have anything else?
Samantha: I am nothing else.
Lisa: Well... Our next season will premiere sometime in August. And we'll keep you updated with that for sure. Please come back. We have a lot of stuff already planned out.
Samantha: What do you have planned out?
Lisa: We're going to talk about vampires. I have a story about a cannibal family. ⁓ a few other things.
Samantha: I have crop circles. the Easter Island heads. El Dorado.
Lisa: El Dorado, that'll be a fun one to do.
Samantha: yeah. ⁓ you think the El Dorado is a place? ⁓ are fully mistaken.
Lisa: Okay, don't say anymore. We have all of those that we just mentioned and a bunch more. So come on back in August and we will have some upgrades hopefully in our performance. ⁓ Yes.
Samantha: ⁓ my god, if you've stayed with us this long.
Lisa: Definitely getting better with the research.
Samantha: We will get our shit together.
Lisa: So come on back in August, because we have a lot of cool stuff to talk about. we you for listening this whole time, our loyal that come back every week and watch our videos all the way through. ⁓
Samantha: Thank you.
Lisa: Thank you.
Samantha: Okay, it's about that time, righto?
Lisa: Right out. I hope everyone has a good summer. Stay out of the damn ocean. And if you're planning on taking a cruise, I hope we didn't ruin it for you.
Samantha: And if you've learned anything from our episodes, away from cemeteries If you have a lost treasure in your basement, please let us know.
Lisa: If you go to the ocean and you get a picture of a mermaid send it to us. We don't have a million dollars to give you but we want to see it.
Samantha: ⁓ We'll talk to you. Let's have a conversation, we'll help.
Lisa: you for listening. Enjoy our blooper reel ⁓ and we'll see you in a couple ⁓
Samantha: Righto.
Lisa: Righto, have a good night.
