Fortean TV - Mermaids (1995)

Ever since man has started falling off boats, he's been falling under the spell of mermaids. From ancient Babylonia to India, Japan, Africa and modern Britain, from the sirens of Ulysses to the little mermaid of Hans Christian Andersen, these sirens of the deep have been the source of whimsical fantasy and factual speculation. In Edinburgh, David Heppell, the world's leading authority on mermaids, is investigating whether there's any meat behind this fishy tale.

DH: "In Britain, perhaps not unnaturally. we find most of the mermaid stories come from the fishing areas. There's one very well documented account of one from the island of Yell last century where six fishermen had captured one and had it on their boat for a number of hours. And eventually they let it go because they said its cries were so piteous, and they thought it was probably unlucky to capture a mermaid. Subsequently they swore an afadavit, and that one is very difficult to explain."

In attempting to explain mermaid sightings, scientists have usually pointed to seals or sea cows, whose shimmering silhouette and movements could easily play tricks on weary fishermen.

DH: "There are some families in Scotland that have claimed a mermaid among their ancestors. And in isolated communities, like fishing communities around the world, you do get a high instance of abnormal birth defects, and this includes the sirenomelia, which has given rise to what is called the mermaid syndrome, where the child is born with the leg bones fused together, and there seems to be the possibility that these families who had this defect made light of it by claiming that this was due to having a mermaid among their ancestors."

Such children may explain the sightings in the Victorian era, a time when mermaids generated unprecedented interest. It wasn't until the mid nineteenth century that specimens like this began washing up on beaches in far East Asia, and were imported as curios in Victorian freak shows. These bizarre half fish, half human creatures mesmerised the public and baffled contemporary scientists.

DH: "This is the specimen that started me off on these investigations. This is a male which has a slimmer fish end of it than the females do. This is a rather good example of a female. The nipples are shown fairly clearly, and also the females tend to be hairier and uglier than the males. Now the next specimen is the one that we're going to open up today."

Fortean TV joined David Heppel and taxidermist Phil Howard as they performed the first ever autopsy on one of these haunting specimens.

DH: "So what are we going to do first? We're going to take the head off, do you think?"
PH: "I'm going to remove the head and try and section it right down the middle. It's going to be rather brutal, there's no other way of doing it really."
"It's all pretty dense, David."
DH: ""So we'll have to take the stanley knife to the [spine]?"
PH: "I think we'll just have to cut straight through it." (The head falls off)
"There we go - it's a piece of wood!"

DP: "Obviously, from opening it up we can see it's a man-made construction, but put together very carefully in a particular way. These may well have had a religious intent, and were perhaps floated out to sea on rafts as offerings to the local mermaid goddess to ensure a good harvest of fish."

The analysis identified the mermaid as originating 100 years ago from Java. It was most likely a mermaid totem, fashioned by a south sea fertility cult. Meanwhile, sightings continue. The most recent was in 1991 by a security guard, off the coast of Queensland. They say he was sober and convinced, and he still awaits its return.


The video on You Tube...

The Banff merman, Alberta