Nightmares of the Sea: Encounters With Mermaids

Every twenty fourth of June, after nightfall, not a single soul will be found near Ohoveagua Lagoon in Odisava, Veracruz, Mexico. According to legend, after dark on that day every single year, the mermaid of the lagoon can be heard singing and splashing around. If an unfortunate soul happens to walk by, the mermaid comes to the surface and asks the same question, will you take me to the nearest church Church. In the early seventeenth century, a man happened to walk by the lagoon. He hadn't noticed there was the twenty fourth. It was a beautiful night. The moon was shining bright and the stars were glowing in the night. He walked peacefully until he heard the most beautiful voice he had ever heard. He wasn't sure where the voice was coming from, and as far as he knew, he was walking alone, but he had to find out. And that's when he heard splashing from the water. He turned to look, and he was immediately in love. There in the middle of the Ojo de a Wa, he saw a beautiful woman. She had long, golden hair, eyes like the moon, porcelain skin, and her voice. Her voice was out of this world. She swam to shore and motioned for him to get closer, and he did. Of course he did. He would do anything she wanted, and once he was right in front of her, she asked him, will you take me to the nearest church. He quickly agreed. She said he would be rewarded for his favor. Do this and you will be rewarded with riches. She climbed on his back and he got ready to walk, but she interrupted, there's one condition. You must not turn around and look at me. No matter what you hear, you must not turn back. The man agreed to those conditions, and they were on their way. As he got closer to the parish of sing Gertrude, the man was having trouble carrying the mermaid. She grew heavier with every step. There were also strange sounds, hissing and popping and rattling. She got so heavy that he fell to his knees, and this is when curiosity got the best of him, and he turned around. She was no longer the beautiful mermaid he had seen at the lagoon. Instead, she was a horrifying, scaly, snakelike monster. She shrieked, hissing at the man and then slithered back to the lagoon, waiting for that next unfortunate person who walked by on the twenty fourth of June. As for the man, some say he was never seen again. Others say he was found the next morning and then brushed to his house, where he passed the way, but not before recounting his encounter. Either way, his end is not a happy one. In this episode, we have true cases, legends, the true tales behind stories that you have probably heard of before. Mermaids may not be what you think they are. My name is Edwin, and here's a horror story. Mermaids are both fascinating and terrifying. Some of the oldest stories appeared in ancient Greek mythology and seemed to be present in every culture. In early descriptions of mermaids, they were birds with human heads, but over time it evolved into half human half fish, the one that we're all familiar with today. Across most cultures, mermaids and sirens share similar elements. They're beautiful, they can sing, It can be both good or bad. It can also be bad. Omens and lure men to their death. Even the original little mermaids far more sinister than the popular animated movie by Disney. Here's how the original story goes. The Little Mermaid was the youngest of five. Every time her sisters turned fifteen, she watched with jealousy as he got to swim up to the surface, and she had to stay under the sea. When the Little Mermaid finally turned fifteen, she could swim up to shore and sit on rocks and the sea and sing like her sisters. One day, the sun was setting as she poked her head above the water. That's when she saw a ship in the distance. And so I'm up to the window in the main cabin, and this is when she first laid eyes on the handsome young prince, and she was entranced. She had never seen someone as handsome as him. She watched him for hours, and as she stared at the prince and the ship, a storm began. The ship swayed back and forth as the waves grew stronger. Lightning struck the middle of the ship and split it in half. The Little Mermaid watched as her new love sank to the bottom of the sea. First, she was delighted he would join her. Then she remembered he could not live. Don She swam him, then carried him to the surface, and there she held his head above the water until the next day. She kissed him, hoping he would breathe and live, then swam him to the sandy shore and disappeared into the sea. Here she watched as he was found by other humans. The Little Mermaid found herself thinking about the prince and watching him from the sea. Whenever she could, She asked her grandmother. Do men live forever? Or do they die like us down here? Her grandmother told her they too must die. Their life span is shorter than ours, but their souls forever. The little Mermaid was stuck on what her grandmother had said. Why can't our souls live forever like them? Her grandmother told her not to think about that, but it was all the Little Mermaid could think about. At one point, the Little Mermaid found herself swimming in a part of the sea she had never dared to step before, the Witch's part of the sea. The witch knew why the Little Mermaid was there, and here's when the Witch tells her that she can become human if she gives up her voice, to which she agrees. And there's also another catch to her new legs, every step she takes will feel like a dagger that is stabbing her. Another part of the twisted deal is that she has to get married to her love or she'll die. She then arrives at shore, walks to the princess castle, and meets him once again. He tells her that she reminds him of someone who saved his life, but he treats her like a pet instead of a lover. She is forced to go on a trip with the prince where he is to meet his future bride. Once the bride, the Prince, the crew, and everyone is back on the ship, they throw a party. The Little Mermaid dances, though her legs are an excruciating pain, and once the party is over, her sister suddenly rise out of the sea. They look different. They are missing their beautiful long hair. It turns out they had made a deal with the Witch to save the Little Mermaid's life. They give her a dagger. If she stabs a prince in the heart before sunrise, she can return to sea as a mermaid instead of dissolving into seaphone. The Little Mermaid refuses, but before dying, she is turned to air by the Daughters of the Air which is basically a type of spirit. She doesn't get a happy ending, and every moment of her existences as human was full of pain. That's pretty dark. It's no wonder most mermaids are feared. Coming across the original Mermaid story, you made me think about how mermaids are portrayed in pop culture versus how they're viewed in real life. Has anyone seen an actual mermaid? You might be surprised. One of the first recorded sightings took place in fourteen ninety three near the Caribbean Sea. The day before, when the Admiral was going to Rio de l Oro. He said he saw three mermaids who came quite high out of the water, but are not as pretty as are depicted. For somehow, in the face they look like men. Christopher Columbus wrote that journal entry on January ninth, fourteen ninety three. As he sailed past the Dominican Republic. Sailors often spoke of mermaids sidings, but were they really seeing mermaids. Most accepted theory claims that Christopher Columbus actually saw manatees and that during this time his vision was failing him. This debunks his alleged sighting but in these very waters. Hundreds of years later, reports of sightings continue to take place. In a Twitter post from twenty twenty, user Hazy twenty one fifty quoted a now deleted post. They wrote a warning, if you see this at the beach in Haiti, don't go. It's a mermaid. It went viral with thousands of comments, all saying very similar things, quote a mermaid took my grandma or I was almost taken by a mermaid. One of the most jarring comments was posted by user keeps swimming. My grandma is eighty four years old and she's from jacques Mel, Haiti. This happened back in the day when she was in her teen year years. There was this waterfall in Jacques Mel that a lot of people liked to go to. Women especially liked to go there to wash clothes or to shower and bathe. One day, this man went and he hid somewhere watching the women bathe. While he was watching them, a lady came out of the water near him. She asked him why he was watching the women. He couldn't speak because he was so stunned at her beauty. She took him down into the waterfall and he disappeared for years without a trace. When he returned, he told people that he married a mermaid and he couldn't live on land. It transformed him and he had to go back. He was never seen again. That wasn't the only story involving disappearances either. Another user wrote, a lady in my neighborhood always told is the same story. She was taken by a mermaid in the ocean. She doesn't remember much after that, everyone thought she was dead. A year later, she appeared on the same beach, but she lost most of her memory and one of her fingers was missing. And under that same post someone commented, look up Stephen Kubaki and here's what we found. Stephen Kubaki went missing in February of nineteen seventy eight, very close to Lake Michigan. His ski poles and skis were found near the lake. After that, his footsteps went on for a bit and then vanished. Not a single trace was found. It was believed he had drowned in the lake until suddenly he reappeared. Detectives never really bought the whole drowning theory, and they even had Stephen's dental records pulled. They use the records to make sure that he was not one of serial killer John Wayne Gacy's unidentified victims. He wasn't. Detectives, friends and family members were left with questions and zero answers for almost two years. And by the way, this wasn't his body like dead, it was him alive. Fifteen months later, he reappeared at his stepfather's home. When reporters, friends and anyone asked him what happened, he could not recall. He had lost his memory, just like the lady with a missing finger. Decades later, he still does not remember a single thing from those fifteen months. Many speculate that he's making it all up, but I still wonder. I mean, after all, this isn't the first alleged mermaids siding in Michigan. I'll tell you all about it up next stay with me. On May thirteenth, seventeen eighty two, a Canadian fur trader, Venette Saint Germain, was in Lake Superior. He was making a stop at Pie Island in the northern part of the lake when he saw something right there in the deep cold waters of Lake Superior. It was a merman with brownish skin, long hair, and quote extremely brilliant eyes. When he set eyes upon this creature, he drew his gun and tried to shoot it, but he was stopped by a member of his party. He truly believed in what he saw. He even signed an affid David in an attempt to prove that he was telling the truth. He also wasn't the only one to speak of creatures living in the lake. The indigenous Ojibwe tell tales of a merman called may May Guashie. It had been an Ojibwe woman that stopped Vain and Saint Germain from shooting the merman. She told him it was bad luck to threaten water creatures, and almost as if she had prophesied it, the ment bad luck. The storm rolled through and it lasted three days, putting a halt to their travels. This may be just a coincidence, but Vayan and Saint Germain went on to die in a very unlucky manner. A friend of his pulled out a shotgun and fired, believing it to be a prop gun, but it was real. There's too many similarities between mermaids stories, Stephen Kubaki stories, and sea creatures that are believed to dwell in the Great Lakes in Michigan. It's strange. Mermaids and missing people seem to be a recurring tale and one that spans time in different cultures. In twenty twenty one, TikTok user saus ninety went viral. He uploaded a one minute and a half video in which he claims to have heard mermaids. He was a fisherman and when he recorded the video, he was on the job on a commercial fishing boat. What is that going? Where are you? This is crazy? I heard it, I heard it, I hear it. Oh my god. He became known as the mermaid Guy, and most of his videos involving talk about mermaids went viral. During a TikTok live, he claimed to have been raided by the government while he was in the fishing boat. After that, the live video feed went silent and stopped transmitting. The original video and TikTok account are now gone. After the account, saus ninety himself seemed to have vanished from the internet, conspiracy theories about him started surfacing. Comments read he is being silenced and they got him. They don't want us to know. Rumors that he had been killed began to spread, but fifteen months later, he resurfaced again. It turns out he had been in a near fatal car accident, and it took many months for him to heal. He's back on social media with a different handle, and though he is certainly alive, he maintains that what he heard back in twenty twenty one was definitely a mermaid. If his video is real, this is the first ever recording of real mermaids. It seems that since the dawn of time, people have been seeing mermaids in the sea. In the late eighteen seventies, a local newspaper in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada reported a mermaid's Three fishermen and an indigenous man had spotted a mermaid off the coast of Point Gray, where the University of British Columbia is located today. Three fishermen were out on the water with an Indigenous guide when they spotted a woman with brown skin and long blonde hair. As a group of men were gazing at the woman, she rose from the water and stared at them. The mermaid had surfaced only feet from their boat. The native guide was so scared by the sighting that he stopped guiding the fishermen and avoided the water altogether. The man believed that seeing a mermaid was a bad omen. Just a week before this siding, he heard of another native who died shortly after seeing a mermaid in Squamish River north of Vancouver, British Columbia. At the end of the article, the reporter made sure to mention that the men were of reputable standing there was no reason to distrust their story. In less than one hundred years later, the night eighteen sixties, very close to where the three men saw the mermaid, there was another sighting fairy. Passengers claim to have seen a mermaid sitting on some rocks. She had long blonde hair and was eating salmon. Photos taken by a man on an aircraft over the ferry support what the passenger saw. The newspaper report that followed can still be found, and follow up reports continued for several days. The colonists stopped recording on the mermaid after that, and unfortunately the alleged picture has been lost. The time. One of the strangest mermaid tales happened in Zimbabwe. Mermaid folklore is serious in Zimbabwe. Here, mermaids are feared. They are said to have sharp teeth and often pull people to their debts. In June of two thousand, two men drowned in a dam in Mohendoro. That was not unusual, but villagers were afraid the two men had drowned trying to chase a mermaid. Locals still avoid the dam after the sun sets, and they believe the mermaid traveled to the dam after causing havoc in other parts of Zimbabwe. South of Moendoro, in the Muenezi District, a girl went missing. Townspeople began to believe she had been taken by a mermaid. She had gone missing in twenty ten, and in twenty twenty one, villagers gathered where the girl had been seen last bathing in the river. They gathered, sang, played instruments, and called to her, hoping that she would return. There had been cases of people returning forty years after being taken by mermaids in that same village, and every year they gather calling her name. Just a year after this little girl had gone missing in the Midlands region of Zimbabwe, mermaids were scaring locals again. The President of Zimbabwe ordered a dam to be constructed between the towns of Goke and mutare. Local workers were installing water pumps until they suddenly refused to keep working. Workers were going missing, and many claimed to have been chased off by mermaids. Government officials found this ridiculous and instead believed every one of their workers was lazy, so they brought in workers from different countries, people who didn't believe in mermaids, and thought this was enough. And it was for a few days, but then the newly hired workers all fled while installing water pumps. He never said what they saw down there, but they also refused to work. The dam was essential for getting water into the nearby towns and needed to be completed. The government had no choice but to lean into mermaid folklore. Traditional leaders were brought in to perform a ritual where cows are slaughtered and beer was brewed. These were then used as offerings to appease of mermaids. The local workers returned after this. The dam eventually was completed only after the workers felt safe. Mermaids fascinate us. That can be seen through the books that we read and the movies we watch, and there are people that spend hundreds to become real mermaids for just a little bit there's a dark side to it too. Across the world, stories of vengeful mermaids dwelling in lakes waiting for their next victim can be heard from Modisava and Veracruz to the Great Lakes of Michigan, the Caribbean Sea, and even smaller bodies of water like the dams in Zimbabwe. The next time you find yourself in water, whether you're swimming or on a boat, look towards the rocks. Maybe you'll see a mermaid. What you do next is completely up to you. This episode of Horror Story was produced by Christina Lumaggi and myself, Edwin Kovarrubias. If you have ideas for topics for Horror Story, let me know. Leave my contact information and the description of this episode. And if you're a fan of true crime, we have an upcoming show called Murders. It's popping up across podcast platforms right now and you can be one of the first to listen to our brand new episodes. Just a warning though, they do contain strong depictions and they are tragic, so listener discretion is advised. Anyway, Thank you very much for listening. See as soon