Are Mermaids Real?

By Joseph Castro, Live Science Contributor | May 25, 2014 09:08am ET

In 2012, the television channel Animal
Planet aired a show claiming to show
evidence that mermaids are real.
The program was filmed to appear to be a
documentary, complete with interviews
with "scientists" (paid actors) and phonecamera footage. With only the show's
very brief disclaimer in the end credits
noting it was a work of fiction, many
viewers thought that proof of mermaids'
existence had finally come to light.
A month after the program aired, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
posted a statement on its website denouncing the supposed existence of the half-human,
half-fish beings. "No evidence of aquatic humanoids has ever been found," the post read.
In mythology, mermaids or mermaid-like creatures have existed for thousands of
years.
The first myths of mermaids may have originated around 1000 B.C. stories tell the tale
of a Syrian goddess who jumped into a lake to turn into a fish, but her great beauty could
not be changed and only her bottom half transformed.
Since then, many other mermaid stories have appeared in folklore from various cultures
around the world. For instance, the African water spirit Mami Wata is mermaid in form, as
is the water spirit Lasirn, who is popular in folklore in the Caribbean Islands.
Throughout history, various explorers have reported sightings of mermaids, the most
famous of which was Christopher Columbus.
Columbus claimed to have spotted mermaids near Haiti in 1493, which he described as
being "not as pretty as they are depicted, for somehow in the face they look like men,"
according to the American Museum of Natural History.
Captain John Smith is described in Edward Rowe Snow's "Incredible Mysteries and
Legends of the Sea" (Dodd Mead, January 1967) as seeing a big-eyed, green-haired
mermaid in 1614 off the coast of Newfoundland; apparently Smith felt "love" for her until he
realized she was a fish from the waist down.
Experts believe Columbus, Smith and other mermaid-spotting explorers really caught
glimpses of human-sized marine mammals called manatees and dugongs.

Indeed, despite past and recent "sightings" of the mythical sea creatures, mermaids, like
the Loch Ness Monster, may just be a case of mistaken identity.