Mermaids, probably (with Stella)

Mermaids have been spotted in ship logs, whispered about by sailors, and sworn into existence by people who swear they know what they saw. But what if the truth is stranger—and sweeter—than the legends? This week, I’m joined by Stella as we dive into mermaid lore, ocean mysteries, and the kind of questions only a kid brave enough to believe will ask. Are mermaids mythical, misunderstood, or just really good at hiding? Grab your snorkel and your imagination… because this one gets weird-ish.

Have a weird story? Email me at Letsgetweirdishpod@gmail.com

Transcript

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Long before sonar satellites or submarines, sailors warned each other about the voices in the water, songs that pulled ships off course shapes that weren't fish and weren't human. Tonight, Stella and I are talking mermaids. where the legends come from and why some people still fear the seed because of them. So grab your scuba gear and welcome back to Let's Get Weird. Let Weirdish. What do we know about our oceans? Direct visual observation is 0.001%. High resolution sonar mapping, 27.3%. General exploration, five to 20%. And that varies by definition. Factually, this means that two thirds of all marine species up to 1 million remain undiscovered. What is the likelihood that mermaids are real? Science says zero, but Blackbeard didn't think so. him and his band of pirates genuinely feared mfo and his log book record entry showed he would deliberately steer his ship away from enchanted waters. Which he believed to have been inhabited by mermaids and mermaid. Mermaids and pirate lore were dangerous and lured sailors to their desks by singing hypnotic songs. black beard, had a pretty fearsome reputation. So what was he so terrified of? If they aren't real? What's up, Stella? Hi. How old are you? Eight. What are we gonna talk about today? Mermaids. What do you think about mermaids? I feel like they're real, but I don't know. You don't know what? What did you tell me that you wanted to ask God when you get to heaven? If I could be a mermaid. What color tail do you want? Rainbow. Rainbow. Do you think mermaids are all one color? Or do you think they have different skin colors? Like the rest of us do? Different? I think so too. What about their hair different? You know, some people say that mermaid sightings are just manatees. Mm-hmm. You don't think so? No. So do you think that maybe there's only good mermaids or that there's maybe bad and good? Well, there's not just mermaids. I think they're sirens, like evil mermaids. Okay. So mermaids are good, but sirens are bad. Well, I think most of our stories today are about sirens. Yes. Are you excited? Yeah. Me too. So I've got some sightings for you. I'm gonna read to you. Okay. Yay. So the first one was in 1610. Dang. Mm-hmm. Captain Richard Whitburn, a highly respected English explorer and colonizer Awesome published a detailed encounter off the coast of Newfoundland. Oh. He described a mermaid that swam cheerfully towards his boat and attempted to climb aboard before being struck with an ore by a frightened sailor. Oh my goodness. Do you think a manatee could climb up the side of a ship? No. Yeah, me either. They don't even have like little flap things. What would you do if you were out in the water and something swam at you like that and tried to climb up the side of your boat? I would get freaked out. I would too. I'd probably, I would call 9 1 1 probably. What, what is the word in Australian for pooping your pants? Crikey. Ingoing in. I might, would Inga dig my pants. I wonder. So obviously they were scared because they hid it pretty much, I guess smacked it in the face with an or. But do you think it was trying to do anything bad? It wasn't singing or anything. Trying to be scary. Well, once they really look at the humans, they probably start saying maybe so. But it tried to get in the boat. Wonder if something was after it. Like a shark Maybe. You think so? Probably. do you know where mermaids come from? No. Okay. So rumor has it, 1000 BCE Assyria is when the mother of mermaids came about. She was the goddess Atter, and she transformed into a mermaid after accidentally killing her. Mortal love keeping her upper human body. I didn't. And growing a fish tail. I didn't know that did you? Uhuh? What? What are you saying? I didn't shut the door. He's out. Can you go put him in? I think Oliver has entered the chat. Hello? Oliver. Say hi, Oliver. He's not interested right now, guys. Yeah. He's not interested. But what does Oliver look like? Orange fat, like Garfield? Yeah. Who made him fat like that? Me. Hmm. He needs to go on a diet. Did you know that Christopher Columbus says he saw a mermaid? What? In 1492. In his personal journal, he described seeing mermaids off of his ola. He said they weren't very pretty, but a lot of historians think that time he actually did see a manatee. I saw a video of sirens. They're gray, but they don't like have big arms. They just have like fins. Oh, really? What color hair did they have? Black. Black. Just gray skin. That's my cat. I guess he's turning in the chat now. Yeah. Hello. Thank you for joining the chat, Oliver, you're about to be, um, booted off this ship. So in 1998, a Hawaiian diver saw a woman with a fish tail swimming with dolphins. He managed to get a photograph of her, so we're gonna look that up. And his name is Lecher? Lecher. Lecher. I'm not sure. I'm not gonna act like I know how to pronounce that. Liker. Maybe. I don't know. This is getting kind of sketchy, so we're gonna look at the picture he took. I'm so happy. Why? Because I love mermaids and I love getting freaked out about them. It's loading. Thanks for joining in the chat, Oliver. Okay. You're gonna have to, um, take Oliver out. Well, if he'll be quiet, he can stay. Okay, so this is the picture that he took. What do you think about that? I believe that, but I don't know if I believe that. You don't think so? I think I'd be more likely to believe this picture than that picture or that picture. I barely believe that. No, that's definitely fake. And also guys, I still haven't figured out how to, but I definitely believe that in that, oh, for sure. I haven't figured out how to put pictures on our link. So Oopsie daisies, so also Stella, there are a lot of fake videos of mermaids, but there is this guy on TikTok. Okay, take Oliver out of the chat. so Oliver has exited the chat. all my TikTok people, if you don't know, there is a guy on there and his username is Sauce 90 and he has been posting videos for three or so years now. Could be more of mermaids. He works on a commercial fishing ship or something out there on a ship, and he's been posting videos, his accounts get deleted, all the things. the government actually came onto the ship after one of the videos he posted and searched the whole ship, brought all kinds of equipment out there. It was crazy. Oh my gosh. So if there's not mermaids, why would they do that? Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. I know they're hiding like aliens and stuff, right? Well, the government had to come out a few years ago and say that there were UFOs and then there's been some government hearings on aliens about how they have some of their bodies. So who's to say, I knew they were hiding something. Yeah, me too. So who's to say that mermaids aren't real? So in 1608, Henry Hudson, he was exploring the Arctic Ocean and his crew reported a mermaid with long, dark hair and the tail of a porus swimming by the boat. What do you think about that? I don't know. Mermaid or siren? Siren. Are you sure? Because what if some mermaids have black hair? This one didn't do anything scary. I guess it could be a mermaid, but I think it's a siren. You're probably right. And two people say Nessie. The lochness monster's not real, but I believe it is. I believe it too, for sure. Because we know so little about our ocean, right? Yeah. We know more about our moon than we do our ocean. And it kind of makes me question what's hiding at the bottom. I don't know. That's, that's why I don't like going deep into the ocean, like mermaids and sirens and Me too. And you know, I love the beach, but you know how nervous I get about the water because Yeah, I do too.'cause I always feel like something's about to come and grab me. Right. Even if you're in shallow water. I think so too. And think about it like this. What if, so you know that we keep trying to go to other planets and things like that. Yeah. Why are we not exploring the ocean? Do you know that NASA was actually created to explore oceans and not outer space? I never knew that. I think that they found something and it scared'em so bad that they're trying to figure out how to get off this planet and they don't wanna go back into the ocean. That's why they probably never went back. I think so. And they're trying to hide it from people because people from thousands of years ago saw mermaids. There's pictures in caved wellings and even hundreds of years ago. Why would pirates make that up? I'm not saying all of them didn't, but all of these stories have to come from somewhere, right? Yeah. Would you like me to read you some Reddit mermaid stories? Yes, please. You know the movie Ariel, right? Oh, I'm sure they do. I feel like the movie Real. You think so? Kind of.'cause I don't know if like, so I feel like the Tentacle Lady's real like Ursula, I think that's her name. Mm-hmm. I feel like that would be real. I mean, it could be if mermaids were real. Who's to say that there aren't other types of. Animals like in the ocean with other types of, of fish bodies. Right. And too, you know, they talk about experiments that the government can do with genealogy, cloning, and mixing like animal breeds. What if they actually took DNA from a human and from a fish and put it all together? Yeah. And it may not be what we think a mermaid looks like, but something along the lines of it. Yeah. Kind of creepy if you think about it. True, true. This one is from antique tradition. 72. My brother doesn't actually remember this now. Back when we were kids, he's three years younger than me. We were on a trip with my grandparents at a condo time share in Florida. An important thing to note. At this point was that this was before we knew I needed glasses, so I could very much not see further than like a foot in front of me. And that was normal to me. Kinda like Uncle Austin. Huh? Uncle Austin's pretty blind. Yeah. But I there a bat, We were on one of those little concrete bridges over the tunnels with the runoff streams that flowed down to the beach, you know what I mean? And it had actually made a pretty big deep pool right below the bridge. And it was all murky and brown and stuff. So I guess where that water was like coming in, it was just like stirring up the sand. Yeah. And the gok making it, making it kind of cloudy. Yeah, making, we were messing around on that bridge and my brother leans over to look down into the runoff pool and he just freezes. I ask him what's wrong? And he's like, you don't see her? And I was like. See what he swears to me up and down. There's a mermaid in the runoff pool. He described her as looking a couple of years older than me. I was 11 to 12, So it was probably 13 to 15. Yeah, probably. Yeah. Light brown hair. And her skin looked light blue. Her tail was about the same length as the rest of her body. So not super long. Like the live action little Mer made with big scales, more like a dragon than an actual fish sticking out, layered on top of each other, like chain mail kind of siren. You think it's a siren? Yep.'cause um, siren's, eyes are pitch black. Well, they haven't said anything about her eyes. I know, but I think it's a siren'cause of the scales and stuff. Well, let's see. I don't know how to describe it. Small fins running down the sides and really small, horizontally aligned. Hale Fins the most basic sort of V shape you can see on a fish with eyes on each of the lobes, like a tropical fish. So like on the side of its head, that's a siren for sure. I think he said she was wearing a top kind of like a sweater that looked like it was woven out of kelp or whatever. The seaweed with a little air pod bubbles is with three fourth sleeves with the buoyancy pod still dangling off of it. He said she was maybe like a foot below the surface of the pool and he only saw her for a second before she saw us. She looked scared and sank back down, and since the water was so dirty he couldn't see her anymore. Why I believe him about this particular incident is because He was a very good rule abiding kid back in those days. And was also awkward, anxious, and an absolutely horrible liar. He cried at imagining getting in trouble or making people mad. He seemed genuinely shocked and swore to me that he'd seen her until he was practically in tears. The mermaid he described was so far out of the typical kid friendly, medium mermaid mold, but also not completely monstrous like the goblet of fire ones. I don't know how to explain it, but it was very grounded mermaid description. Like almost boring in a way. Very much not what I want to hear. I mean, if he was making something up to entertain me, I was enormously into mermaid melody. Oh, you like mermaid melody, huh? Yeah, Ariel's daughter. He could have just described one of those types of mermaids with the frilly tail fin and the arm band bracelets, all of that, or gone classic Ariel or Barbie, Because that's the type of mermaid he knew I'd want to see. And believe me, at the time, he very much did not have the forethought or whatever to try to make his lies seem more grounded, to make them more convincing. He wasn't dumb, at least not in pure IQ senses, but boy howdy. Was he just the awkwardest, most neurotic little alien changeling of a kid back then? I don't think that's a siren. I don't know. I feel like sirens have like a more of a icky tail, but we don't know.'cause we haven't seen'em. I get freaked out and now I'm getting freaked out. I like it. I'm getting chill bumps. I think that that would be a mermaid. Yeah. And not a siren. Because if it was a siren, you've got two kids that you could trap easily, right? True. And siren can go fast in the water. Right? Here's one This is from True North is calling my coworkers mermaid Tale. A few months ago, my coworker told me a story about when he used to be a deep sea fisherman in Alaska. About 20 years ago, he was on the boat out at sea. The winds picked up and all on board were silent and still. He said the captain looked agitated in his lookout and then something changed in the air that he couldn't explain. The captain called out to him. Fernando, you're about to see something weird. And he said, not 10 seconds later, a mermaid came up out of the water and he knew what it was instantly, even though he had never seen one before. He said it was huge, like 20 feet long, and had fish skin and looked more like the MER people in the fourth Harry Potter movie then beautiful mermaids from the Disney movies, had slimy looking skin, black eyes, powerful, fast swimmers. They did not speak but communicated with frequency. You know how cells make the sounds and the high winds. He said they sounded like that. but used the frequency and the waves to vibrate what they were trying to communicate. He didn't understand what it was saying, but he remembered it was haunting and luring, just like the legends of sirens, luring men to their deaths. it's a siren. I can tell it's a siren. Slimy skin. Everything. A siren. It's gotta be. He said he looked at it and made direct eye contact and he never wants to see another one ever again. I knew the black eyes were true. I knew it. Siren. Oh, I believe you. This one's from the, somebody in the military. This is gonna be a good one, I can tell. Mm-hmm. This is from Vitam. I was US Navy. Pretty sure we heard siren calls somewhere northwest of the Marshall Islands. I was on the smoke deck at three separate occasions at night, and anyone who was out there heard what sounded like a distant scream or screech echoing over the waves. I remember it well because it caused several man overboard scares where we all had to go and muster to make sure that the sounds weren't any of ours. Never actually saw anything, so I rationalized it that it could have been some kind of animal or seabird, but that beep sounded human. Not entirely human, though. We joked for weeks after we left the region. That aerial, the Little mermaid was gonna kill us. This was in 2013, but I still remember that sound like it was yesterday. The kind of sound that hits your core, like a freezing windows, not something I'd want to hear again. Now, I feel like that's true from coming from the military, probably. Well, a guy who worked in the military, so I feel like that's true. Right? I mean, why would he lie? Mm. And some people do. Right. But, but not all people in the military. Why? Right. And I don't know. It sounds, it sounds pretty true to me because if he was lying, he would say he saw something or had this like really crazy story. You know? I feel like that could be a siren. Mm-hmm. Agreed. I've got another one. When I was like six or seven, I was swimming in the ocean and had a cramp in my thigh and couldn't stay afloat. This guy showed up out of nowhere and started swimming with me, carrying me towards the shore. I remember all he said to me was, don't try and hold onto me. But I was panicking and tried and my hands could not get a grip on his arms or body. It was extremely slippery. I remember being so confused about why I couldn't get a grip. My hands just slid off so violently, almost like it was repelled. I have been looking for a swimmer oil or lotion ever since to try to make sense of this siren. Probably. Or a mermaid? I would say mermaid.'cause it saved her life. If it was a siren, wouldn't it have just dragged her to the bottom of the ocean? Probably.'cause she would get, like, she would've screamed if it was a siren. Right. And she said this, this merman was trying to help her and said, don't try to hold onto my skin. So her arms are just like, she's trying to grab him and just slip, slop him all the way around. Yeah, just like that. But he took her back to s. Mermaid, and then I guess he was gone. I mean, Merman, merman, Merman. Here's my question. How do mermaids breathe underwater? I don't know if they have gills. Maybe they have both. Maybe they have two gills on them before. Well, have you ever seen a mermaid in real life? No. Me either. But on the movie, Ariel, it's a movie, but they were still underwater. I feel like. Mm. Maybe they have like a filtration system. let's Google this, please. Do all ocean mammals have gills? No. Wells, dolphins and seals do not have gills. They have lungs and must come to the surface to breathe air, just like laying animals. So I wonder if they don't actually have gills and they come up to the top to breathe, or could they have both? But they can still stop. Still talk under water, but you need to breathe the talk. That's why I'm saying what if they have heels? I don't know. Maybe they're not real. We haven't seen one. I feel like it would be real though, right? Since we're hearing all these stories, we have questions, So let me ask you this. If mermaids are not real, what do you think they could be seeing either? What are those little things there with the horns? You're asking the wrong oceano. It's close to a unicorn, but it is in the water. Oh, it has a horn. I don't how it has a horn though. All right, let's Google that. I forgot the name of it. A Al? Yep. Nor wall. That's it. Well, they're not seeing a horn though. I'd kind of be scared if I saw a nor wall in the ocean.'cause what if it swam towards me and speared me through the heart? I feel like they do have horns.'cause I've seen videos of them with horns. I've ne Well those videos can't be real though. I am getting chill bumps all over my arms and legs. This is getting kind of freaky. If they were seeing a manatee. You would think that they would know the difference because manatees don't have long hair. Yeah. I mean it could be like trapped in seaweed, but all of the s sightings that are like deep out in the ocean, that wouldn't make any sense. And if you would like catch a mermaid and it would like flop around like fish. Right. So you could tell'cause it's like it would do like the worm, but yeah. Alright, so let's read this one. This was from, I was born in 86. I heard my two aunts tell the story that they saw a mermaid pop up out of the water onto a rock wave at them and jump back in. I think this was back in the seventies when they were a lot younger. Mermaid or siren. If it was a siren, it would like, look at them, stare at them. It would not wave. Agreed. So it had to be a mermaid. Here's a theory. Okay, first off, this is from, uh, OKS. I can't pronounce it so we're not gonna try. Oh, this talks about sauce 90. Sauce 90 is awesome. My wife's got maternal family up near his neck of the woods, new Bedford and Fall River, Massachusetts. Zo Aian Immigrant. If I, if I said that wrong, guys, I apologize in advance or post. Post. Apologize. She's got all kinds of eerie mermaid stories too. Personally, I lean towards the serious mystery theory. Mermaids and mermaid are actually an alien race from the serious star system. But who knows? What do you think about that? I don't know. What if mermaids are actually from another planet, but how would they travel to earth? Well, what if they're interdimensional like aliens or Bigfoot? Wait, what if they have like a little portal underwater? Right? That's what I'm trying to figure out. What if they have like a little ball you throw in and they'll just stuck them in? It could be, would that make more sense to them living under the ocean? I don't know. But if they had a their own planet, wouldn't scientists figure that out? I have no idea. Remember, for years, they were telling us that UFOs weren't real and aliens weren't real, and now they say they are and that they have bodies. Area 51 was lying to us right now. They came to the truth. Some people actually say that Area 51 has mermaids in tanks and they run tests on'em. That's like that movie. They kept that mermaid in the tank and just carried it around. What movie? Um, what's that pirate movie? Oh. Um, with Captain Jack Spra. Yes, yes, yes. That's it. What is it called? Pirates of the Caribbean. Yes. Yes. Pirate Pirates of the Caribbean. They carried around a mermaid in that tank. And remember all the mermaids that swim up and took down the boat? Mm-hmm. Well, you know, back in the gap, they say that, um, some of the traveling circuses had a mermaid. But how'd they get it? Well, I don't know. Was it actually a person who just put a tail on and was paid to pretend to be a mermaid? I don't know. This is from introduction brief 1 24. I was sitting on a dock at night in St. Thomas. The dock had underwater lighting, so I was sitting quietly on the edge of the dock watching the fish. It was a long dock, so I was a good ways offshore, and it was deep out further than the dock lights reached, but nothing but the dark abyss off the ocean. My wife was next to me, but laying back on the dock, eyes closed. At this point, a mermaid swims right underneath me. I reach over and shake my wife and say, babe, you're gonna need to see this. As she sits up, the mermaid pops her head above water And her fish tail was fully visible under the light she proceeds to start chatting with us. Turns out she was hired to swim under, under the glass bottom of kayaks for a little girl's birthday party. Apparently she had no fear of the dark ocean as the kayaks were long gone and she was just out taking a swim in her mermaid costume. Why would you even put that on the internet? I was feeling like it's a real mermaid. Well, I mean, she's real and she had a mermaid tail. I think it counts a little bit. I was so happy about that, that, you know, you know, those people were probably freaked out until they realized, yeah, I would like not get in the ocean again. Because of that, I wouldn't get ding my pants for sure. Me too. I wouldn't get in my pants. Mm-hmm. This one is from a deleted user. My grandmother has been retelling the same story for over 50 years about her brief encounter with a mermaid. This was in Henderson, North Carolina at Kerr Lake, specifically in an area known as Nut Bush Bridge that is now overgrown and flooded. Oh my goodness. I feel like every time we would get in the water at that beach, I feel like a mermaid would come grab me, or a siren, grab my feet and just take me down. I would get so freaked out. I don't know. Story goes like this. She goes fishing for the day with her husband at the time, at the above mentioned place. After a bit, her husband goes off to find his own better spot. Not long after a woman pops up outta the water waves at my granny enthusiastically and says hi. She is described as being a beautiful Caucasian woman with long, golden brown hair, understandably taken aback by the randomness. My grandma does wave back and the lady proceeds to dive down into the water, but when her bottom half briefly comes up, that's when my grandma sees her fish tail scales and all The lady is a literal half fish. In that moment, she drops her fishing pole and starts screaming at the top of her lungs, and her husband comes over to ask what is wrong, but surprise, he doesn't believe her as well as most people when she tells this story. I kind of feel bad for her in a way because she's very passionate when she relives this encounter, but she never gives up telling it. She's not even into stuff like this, you know, cryptids and the whole nine. But believe it or not. There have been quite a few mermaid sightings in North Carolina, which shocked me. Mermaid the most infamous being Mermaid Point. Also Ramsey Tavern and Cape Fear River sightings. Please. I'd love to hear anyone else's encounters out there That cannot be a siren. No, that's totally gotta be a mermaid, brown, golden hair. Well, and you've seen, I've seen, well I've seen that people see'em in lakes and ponds and stuff too. That's why I don't swim. So there would be like different types. Who, when do you ever go alone? Sometimes I swim in a pool and like people are outside. But I don't like swimming in there alone. Like, no. Do you wanna know what one of my biggest fears was as a kid? What? Swimming in a pool and a shark somehow coming from the bottom and eating me. Very irrational. Oh, remember that pool where my nose started bleeding when I jumped in? I would always get so freaked out when I jumped in'cause it looked like a big shark mouth. I would always think the pool's a huge shark. Mm. And it would just boop. Well, that was one of my biggest irrational fears as a kid, was that a shark was gonna come from the bottom of the pool and eat me. So I don't like sharks. That's why I like, I think sharks are cool. You know, my favorite week of the year is Shark Week, so I like to watch'em breach. I like Corn Dog Week because we would always say, oh, so when me and Bebe, um, and Cameron and everyone we went to go grab something from Sonic and they would say It's Corn Dog Day. And we would say, Hey, give me like six corn dogs, or please. And they said two. And he said, no, just get me cheese sticks. And they said, okay, you know what I miss. So every time it was, uh, 50 cent Corn Dog Day at Sonic, granddaddy would call and he'd call all week the week before and tell us about the signs from Corn Dog Day and what day. It was gonna be pretty good, isn't it? Did he actually, yeah. You know that Remember one time, oh yeah. You made us do that contest. Yep. And he called and he told us how many he ate, And then I had to tell him how many each of y'all ate. And y'all ate more than him. How many did I eat? I think it was like six. Because we got 12. No, we got 12 or 14, and I ate two. So I guess you ate six And Reed ate six. And Granddaddy only ate four. Remember? That's so good to my soul. Mm. That's good to my soul too. All right. This one is from Sigrid. This sounds crazy, but I'm sure that I saw a mermaid or a mer man when I was on vacation in Creek Greece in 2022. So that's like two years ago, three years ago. Wait, what year is it? It's 2026. This is four years ago. But gosh, I don't even know time. What is time? Me and my family were taking a boat trip to do some snorkeling by one of the small islands not far from the shore when we were on the boat and passed the island. And it says in quotes, very rocky with no one living there except goats. So they must not remember the name of the island. I see what I'm sure to be a man sitting on a rock by the water. Some kind of human-like person. He had long hair and a fish like tail, and just as fast as I spotted him, he was gone. He jumped into the water super fast. I even told my family and they don't know what to believe.'cause I was the only person who saw it. I'm not one to make up stories like this. I still think about it from time to time. I'm sure of what I saw. Even though my mind keeps telling me it's not possible. I've never told anyone else but my close family who was there with me, it's so strange now. That's freaking me out. Mermaid. You would all think mermaids are real, but I kind of believe mermaid for sure. Well, if there's mermaids, there's gotta be mermaid, right? Yeah. What if they want a boyfriend? Are you ever gonna get married one day? No. This one is from adventurous coffee. Not my story, but my grand aunt. I'm from The Bahamas, and according to my grand aunt, this is what happened to her as a little girl. She was coming out of the shallows and looked back and some 100 feet out. She saw a figure with long hair and a fish tail sitting out on the rock near the caverns. There are a lot of cave openings near bodies of water in The Bahamas. She said she couldn't make out the exact features, but she remembers the hair and tell and how it flopped back into the water. The way she tells this story, you can genuinely tell that whatever she saw terrified her and she truly believes it. Now that's kind of cool. I think so too. This one is ladder towel 94 0 3. It's hard to explain. I was fishing in a river This is where I'd gone since I was a kid. I was down fishing with my dog, Josie, and was sitting and leaning against the tree. Then my bobber went down and my rod almost went out of my hands. I figured I had a bass or a catfish for some reason. I started following my line as if something was drawing me in. Josie was freaking out, barking, and even biting my leg, trying to get me back. But I kept following it as if I were in a trance. Then something broke the surface of the water in front of me, and all I could see was this torso and the head like greenish brown head and saw its hand. Yes, hand was pulling my line towards it, and I was so scared, but couldn't stop. As it brought me closer, then Josie was between us barking and snapping at it, and I was suddenly able to go back towards the bank, leaving everything. I saw it grab Josie and grabbing my knife. I cut the line, which broke the trance, and as I struggled out of the water, I saw Josie and grabbed her and ran. I heard a weird slapping sound and a grunt, and kept running until I was almost home. Josie was hurt. One of her ears was gone and bleeding, and I finally got to the house. I was crying and threw her in the car and drove straight to the vet, still wet and shaking. I told him something, got her, and waited anxiously until he came back and said she was lucky and that he had extracted a tooth from her skull. He said it looked like an alligator tooth, but I knew better. I never told my family about what happened, but I knew dang well wasn't an alligator. Siren. Siren for sure. Siren for sure. I guess they don't all have, um, gray skin. Maybe not. That would've freak me out if me and Finley were down there fishing and I would've threw my knife at it. You, I know he was too scared. He was trying to get the bejesus out of there. I would've threw if I could pick up a tree that I would throw it at it. I do not like sirens, but I'm a mermaid girl. No sirens, but I do like unicorns. I am, yeah. I'm also a mermaid unicorn girl, for sure. This is from one amphibian 58, 31. English isn't my native language, so please keep that in mind. So this might not word wise, make complete sense. We'll put it together as we go. I'm a 20-year-old female, and when I was 13, me, my dad and my younger brother went to Thailand. We traveled to Fifi Islands by boat with one of those travel companies for tourists. We stopped at different islands to snorkel. On one of these stops, me and my brother were right next to each other looking at fish that I found really cute. To paint a better picture at this moment, me and my brother were snorkeling in the water right by a floating island, while others in our group were a bit further away from this island. This island was like a chunk of land that extended downward in the water. Rather than having a gradual slope, suddenly our dad called for us. Someone in our group saw a small shark and everyone was gathering around to see it. My brother swam over there, but for some reason I stayed put and kept watching the different fish that were swimming closely to me. Then something caught my attention. There seemed to be smaller caves underwater by the shore, and I saw something slowly coming out of there. it was similar to a human head. Facing downward at the bottom of the ocean. So like laying out and looking down, kinda like how we float on the water, you know, like looking into the water. Yeah, like looking down. Yeah. I completely froze up and kept staring. This quote unquote person kind of floated out of the cave, never faced up towards the surface and did it really slowly. Nothing of this person that I could see was moving by that point, I could see the back of the head and most of the spine. the person had really sparse black hair, so that means it was maybe like going bald. It was slicked down to the scalp. Their skin looked gray and the spine was extremely pronounced. I was so sure that I was looking at a corpse, so dead body, and I completely froze up. I couldn't breathe or move. It felt like time was standing still. The person kept floating out of the cave, and that's when I started to see its tail. The tail was dark gray and looked like a stereotypical mermaid tail. I blinked multiple times, convinced that I was hallucinating, but I kept seeing it. I've never believed in the supernatural, but this thing was only a few meters below me and I could see it so clearly. I felt a sense of danger. I knew I wasn't supposed to be seeing this, and I was terrified that it would see me and attack me. But the thing never once faced up. Once it was out, it swayed to the side and kept a close distance to the island and disappeared into another cave. After a few seconds, I snapped out of it and quickly swam to my dad and brother. I burst into tears and frantically told them that we had to get back on the boat right away. My dad asked me what happened, and I told him what I saw. Obviously he didn't believe me and got furious at me for lying. When we got back to the boat, I told him again and I stood by the fact that I wasn't lying. My father told me he really hoped I was, and that it was either a lie or that I was insane and needed to be locked up in a mental hospital. Hmm. I knew how crazy all this sounded, and honestly, I didn't even believe myself. I'm imagining that right now, and I'm freaked out just by imagining it. Mm-hmm. Since that day I've tried to convince myself that I made it all up, but I've never experienced any hallucinations and I know what I saw. I've told others, but of course most of them thought I made it up. It's so insanely frustrating feeling like you're being gaslit by the entire world, and I truly hope that someone out there believes me now. That's freaky. It's freaky. So it like kind of floated out really still out of one k. And did a quick turn into another cave? No, I feel like that mermaid's in danger or something. I don't know. What if it's a sick mermaid, if it was losing its hair? I don't know. That's kind of sad. Well, I feel like the Ursula Cave, you know from Ariel? Mm-hmm. You know how she had the cave and stuff? Yeah. I feel like that would be it. Sing me a little song from The Little Mermaid. I don't know any, I haven't watched that movie in a long time. Under The Sea Darling. It's better. Take it from Me. Who sings that? That crab? Sebastian. Sebastian. I'm, um, quietly laughing. Okay. This one is from Calm Art 68 23. I was alone at the beach during the daytime, but this beach wasn't well known in a town of 10,000 people called Rockport, Texas. This happened during 2022. I was just waiting in the water sitting down at the shore. No one knew about this hidden little spot because it wasn't on the main beach in town that everyone went to. Really, only the locals know about it, and not even some locals know. I mean like you have to live right by it to know about it. I found it on a walk one day, and every time I go out there, there's never anyone there. At most I would see one or two people out there, usually the same folks with their cars and dogs. It was usually me and two other people maybe there, but it was where when I ran into anyone, because it was a tiny little shore made of shells, and it wasn't actual sand, it hurt to walk on the shells because that would stab your feet. But anyways, I liked the solitude of the place and we would walk there often and was like four blocks from my place roughly. So this one day I was waiting, just had my lower half in the water and my arms were perched up beside me and I was just kicking my feet. And I felt the urge to go farther in the ocean. Like I felt something calling to me to go deeper, my gut told me it was evil and dangerous. Then I saw two heads pop up not far from the shore. That's where I was feeling called to swim to, and I really wanted to, but I knew they were gonna take me sirens. Mm-hmm. And I will never forget those two siren heads that I saw. Siren songs too. I knew they were mermaids because there was no one else there, no cars and no boats nearby. They just showed up out of nowhere. They looked human from a distance, and I could make out their heads. They had brown hair and I could make out the outline of their faces, but I knew they were not human because of how they showed up. And then they disappeared shortly into nowhere. Yeah, I could tell there's definitely sirens. If they were human, I would've known, but obviously they could breathe underwater because they had been there for so long. They swam like dolphins. I believe they were 100% real. That's why I don't swim in ocean. Mm-hmm. You never know when his iron came. Boop, take you underwater. This is a creepy one. English is not my first language. Old supermarket, 56 57. I was in Montego Bay, Jamaica, and I was sitting on the beach alone during a silent lightning storm at night. All of a sudden I felt this intense urge to run into the water. Mind you, I don't swim. After a while, the urge intensified and I stupidly went to put my feet in the water. I remember the water was bubbling and it was pitch black, I immediately felt the sense of dread and danger and ran out of the water. After getting out, I went back to sit down on my folding chair and out of nowhere a bolt of lightning lit up the sky and the sea. And I saw this big black figure with long hair, not too far away from me staring at me from the water. After the lightning was gone, the figure was nowhere to be found. I sat there for half an hour trying to figure out what I saw, but it never happened again. And I believe it was a mermaid trying to take me out to sea. Now that's creeping me out. Yeah, that's freaky. That was our last story. so what do you think? Do you still think mermaids are real? Yeah. After all those stories, I really think they're real now. Yeah. So you still think mermaids are good and sirens are bad? Kind of. I do. I mean,'cause you've got some who didn't bother anybody and just waved and were friendly. And then you've got some who are like. Come out here, but did you notice nobody said that they heard singing that one person heard screaming, but the rest of'em just felt like this intense urge to go out into the water. I felt like they sung and then they were just forget and then just have the urge to come out. Yeah. That's creepy. Yeah. So how do you feel about your first episode? Good. Creeped out. Do you wanna do this again with me? Yes. What do you think your next episode is gonna be about? Aliens or unicorns? That's pretty cool. What was your favorite story? The last one. You think so? With the lightning? Yeah. Yeah. When the person is staring at them. That's kind of freaky. I know That one's my favorite. Or the military one. Oh yeah. I like the military one too. Well, madam, I was glad to have you on today. Thank you for the little handshake. I appreciate doing business with you. I am so happy. But also giggling. Well, happy and giggling are both kind of hand in hand, right? Yeah. Tell everybody what we're going to do today. We're gonna go look at houses. Mm-hmm. And I remember that video. Um, the podcast that you did about the house stuff. Oh yeah. You did it to, you listened to that episode, didn't you? Mm-hmm. Um, with when dad was watching the truck. I listened to half your episodes and the one with Uncle Austin. Which episode has been your favorite so far that you've listened to? Uncle Austin. The one with you and Uncle Austin. Why, why was that one of your favorite? I don't know.'cause y'all,'cause uh, y'all kept giggling. Mm-hmm. And um, I remember y'all telling a story about that crazy old man in Jones. Oh, crazy old man hunt. Yes. Yeah, he was pretty crazy. He probably had a mermaid in his house. Oh. Now if we had a mermaid in the house, Oliver and dad would be freaking out. It is so hard not to laugh when Oliver's meowing. I know. Okay, so I've got some questions for you. Okay. If mermaids are real, where do you think they actually live in the sea? What obviously, like what kind of houses do you think they have? You know, those like huge seashells in the movies. Yeah. I feel like they would live in there like a giant clamshell. Yeah. With the pearls and stuff. Oh yeah. Do you think mermaids will wanna be friends with humans or would they want to avoid us friends? You think so? Friends? Yeah. Maybe they know people they can show themselves to, like that lady who is fishing and that mermaid popped up waves and like took off or said hi. Yeah, maybe they like choose the people. They let see'em. Yeah. Sirens probably don't care. Like they probably look at them, uh, underwater and like feel they know, like if they can look at say hi to them or not. Mm-hmm. Would you rather be a freshwater mermaid or an ocean mermaid? Ocean water. Why? Because I feel like that would be better, but also I kind of wanna be a fresh water mermaid. I don't know. I think it depends for me. So ocean, because I love fish and you know how obsessed I am with Yeah. Like in the day you can see all the turtles and stuff. Yeah. You can talk to them and have conversations, but, but sharks, like, I have this intense fear. I love sharks and I'm obsessed with them, but I'm also scared of them. So one time we were on a cruise and we went to snorkeling in Cobell. And I had a panic attack in the water and had to get back on the boat because the water was so clear that I knew if a shark was gonna come eat me, I would see it The whole time it was coming towards me because, especially back then, I looked like a very small adult or a large child and that I would look like a little snack and that it would just come get me. But also freshwater. There's no sharks. But did you know that sharks swim up the Mississippi? Mm-hmm. So technically, I guess there are some sharks in freshwater. So either if you choose it'll be sharks either way, possibly. Hmm. I would choose ocean. And you said your perfect mermaid tail would be, what color? Rainbow. Would it be like iridescent, like shiny? Yeah. But I also thought like right now, like a shiny, um, metallic teal. Oh, that would be beautiful. Yeah, I just said that in my head. I would do that. Oh, with your blonde hair, that would be so pretty. Mm-hmm. Do you think mermaids have pets? And if yes, what kind? Um, yeah. Um, I think either a little baby sea horse, a gold fish or a baby turtle goldfish in the ocean or in fresh water. Like fresh water. I would take a koi. Yeah. But also in oceans, um, seahorse or baby turtle. True. I, I don't know if y'all can all hear Oliver in Stella's room, way down the hall meowing, but it's an issue. He's obsessed with Stella and needs to be with her 24 7. He doesn't like anyone else except for me. He does not. And earlier he rubs on my feet. I think that's the first time he ever did that. Okay. if you were a mermaid, would you rather have a mermaid tail or have the ability to breathe underwater? So like if you had to choose, you have a mermaid tail, but you have to go up to the surface to breathe. Or would you rather just have your legs and be able to breathe underwater? Mermaid tail. Definitely mermaid tale. But also wanna, so why do you think humans have told mermaid stories for so long? If they're not real? I think they were real when dinosaurs were real. Yeah. But they weren't like stink.'cause they were like down, down in the water. Yeah. They stayed hidden caves. Yeah. Yeah. That probably is right. Do you think mermaids would be curious about us? Like we're curious about them? Yeah.'cause they would be like freaked out and if they would have legs, they wouldn't be able to walk. Well, do you think that when they see us they're like, holy tense, there's a. There's a person with two little dangly things coming off their body. what if we freak them out too? Mm. Mm-hmm. I'll give that like a 95% chance of that 95% chance. If mermaids exist, why do you think they don't want to be seen? Because authorities and like men that are on boat, they would like to trust, you know the movie Luca? Mm-hmm. Like spear em? Yeah. Oh, I love the movie Luca. Mm-hmm. That is one of my favorite movies. I love that movie. Such a good one. Do you think the ocean is more scary or magical? Magical at night? I mean, it would be scary, but kind of magical cause. Um, I love the movie migration. I feel like this is real in Jamaica, the water glows at night. It does. Uh, yep. That's what I feel like it would be magical about. Like it would just glow when you knew. Isn't it crazy how God made all these things to just work in tandem with each other? Yeah. Why do you think the ocean feels so mysterious even now? I, because like we're just now figuring out that aliens are real and, um, some people still say they're not real. Okay. That says weird. I know. Um, so. The first time I like heard about mermaids when I was little, I got freaked out and said, in my mind, I feel like this is what I said. Um, so I knew I said something about mermaids. Mm-hmm. And I, I feel like this is exactly what I said. Oh my goodness, we're going to eat me in the water. Well, surely they won't. They just wanna be part of your world. Have you seen, um, the movie Elsa? I mean like, um, frozen really? Um, so Ola has his own like little show, it's called he dresses up as princesses and he will do Ariel and he will do, I just wanna be part of that world. Olaf would be the perfect mermaid. True. I need to show you that after we do this, I've seen, you've showed me like 97 times. Yeah, I think so. Mm-hmm. You, oh, I know for a fact. What would you do if you saw a mermaid while you were swimming? Mm. I would freak out. See if I had my phone in my pocket, but I know I wouldn't. But you're swimming, so there you don't even have a phone. So I would get really freaked out if you were in the water. I would come grab you. You would? Yeah. And if it was a siren, I like how the first thing you think about is your would punch it. Imaginary phone. I would punch it if it was a siren. Just punch it in the head. True. But then it would get even mad if a mermaid came up to the surface and talked to you, what would you ask her? If she would want to be my best friend. Oh, and she probably would because you're amazing. Do you think mermaids would have rules like, don't talk to humans? Probably like the kings would. Mm-hmm. Like, you know Ariel's dad. Oh yeah. King Triton. Mm-hmm. And if he would have like a human kind water, the little stabbing. I mean, I can understand his 16-year-old daughter runs away with a, with a, a thing with two legs. A pirate thing. He wasn't a pirate, he was a prince, but she was 16. Can you even imagine getting married at that age? Yeah. Cute gag face. What do you think a mermaid city would look like underwater? Mm. You would ride on turtles and the roads would be sand and a tree. Well, would you need roads? You have a tail. to know where you're going. Oh, I see. And I feel like the little shops would be in like clams. That would be cool. Or tunnels like you go through. Yeah. And it'll take you to different shops. Mm-hmm. I feel like that's real. That, I mean, I would be very disappointed if they didn't have the hotels. What if they have antique shops, mermaid, antique shops down there? Oh, would you be in heaven? Yes. Yes. And what if they like, um, so if you had a hotel underwater mm-hmm. It would either be made out of clams. So do you think mermaids travel to other parts of the world? for vacation? Like somebody saw a mermaid in Alaska, so it's, the water's pretty manipulated. 95% chance. 95% chance. oh, let's go to a cold water ocean for a vacay. I would, but I also wouldn't You think mermaids ever get tired of swimming? Maybe, but I wouldn't.'cause I would have like no feet. And I hate walking. You do hate walking. Remember that time we hiked to that? Oh yeah, I do. Promise me water waterfall. Me and Tay had to promise you, dominoes to get you to keep walking. Yeah, we got you dominoes. That was fun that day. I got my favorite thing, but I also had to walk back. Yeah. It really wasn't that far. I felt like I was walking for two hours.'cause I kept doing this. You got to swim under the waterfall. I kept thinking mermaids were in there though. No, you did not. I did.'cause it looked magical to me. It was pretty magical. It, I felt like something was about to grab me. Do you think mermaids would like pizza? Yes. What do you think they would put on their pizza? Um, oysters. Oh, probably. Do you think mermaids actually brush their hair or do they just have magical hair? If they did, they would bust their hair. With forks. With forks like Ariel does, I don't think they would.'cause it would like get silky in the water and then it would be shiny. Yeah. If mermaids went to school, what would their hardest subject be? Mmm. They would probably learn about different stuff than we would. Culture. Culture. Oh yeah. Or presidents.'cause they don't have a president. Well, they might not even know Presidents are a thing. True. Sign language. Know? Oh yeah. You love sign language, don't you? Do you think mermaids could be dangerous? Some. Mm-hmm. you know how we have bad guys? Like we have good people, bad people. Do you think there could be bad people? Mermaids? Just like there are bad people. Humans. Yeah, I think so too. Wait, what if we have a mermaid in the family? That would freak me out. Like, what if every family had a mermaid? I just thought about that. What if it's a Harris or a Goodson? I don't know. Oh, I don't know. We'll have to do some research and see if maybe we have a magical mermaid in our family. If it would, uh, I would name it either Penelope or Melody. Well, they probably already have a name if there are ancestors too. But if I would name it I would do that. Yeah. Those are good names. Why do you think sailors were so scared of mermaids? Because mermaids and like they would go at night sometimes. Mm-hmm. And they would get freaked out'cause they would usually see sirens. Right. And you think about it and there was no technology and so everything spread by word of mouth. So they were seeing this and then going back to shore and telling all these other people's stories. And maybe some saw mermaids and some saw sirens. And so then people who hadn't seen them were so scared, you know, of the ocean. Mm-hmm. Do you think mermaids sing because they want attention or because they're lonely? Tension, attention. Mm-hmm. Because in the movie parts of the Caribbean, the mermaids would sing. Oh yes. True. Do you hope mermaids are real? Yes. Me too. That would be amazing if I would have like a secret best friend in the water and if it was a mermaid, I would have so much fun and I wish they could turn me into a mermaid. Yes. So what do you think mermaids would want humans to know? That they were not real, like the king would think that, but like the little girls and all that would think they, that would want the humans to know they're real. I feel like that. If you could meet a mermaid and ask one question, what would that question be? If she could turn me into a mermaid and make me breathe under water and have a shiny tail, okay, but what if it was like a question about her or her life? If she could breathe under water? Well, I guess if that's what you really wanna know. Yeah, that's what I really wanna know. Gills or lungs, that's the question. Gi, if you have your own mermaid story or any weird story at all, shoot us an email at let's get weirdish pod@gmail.com. Whether mermaids are real. Or something we just haven't discovered yet. One thing's clear. The ocean still holds secrets and talking about them together is part of the magic. Thanks for diving into this one with us. And next time you hear waves at night, maybe listen a little bit closer. So until next time, Keep it it weird. Yes, you did a good job. I, next time I wanna do it about unicorns.