September 4, 2012 • 29 mins
Hear The Mermaids Singing: Humans have dreamed of mermaids for ages, but is there any substance to these myths? Is the aquatic ape theory more than just a tale for lonely sailors? Join Robert and Julie as they cast their science net and reel in something half-human and half-fish.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Ariel. No you're not. Yeah, Oh,
was this an early influence on you? Mermaid wise very
all the Mermaid from Bttle Mermaid, Little Mermaid. Yeah, actually
(00:24):
from the hands Christian Anderson, the original tale. Oh you were,
of course you were. You were old school reading the
book as a kid, and then well, yeah, and out
you're harping on and being like, wow, it's not very
true to the original hands Christian, like, there's none of
the gore and the awfulness. The Sea Witch. She was
always my favorite. I think she was. What I remember
(00:45):
the most is that the Mermaid, whenever she tried to
walk on her her legs, her newly formed legs, it
would feel like daggers. Each step would feel like a dagger.
That really stuck with me. Yeah, that they didn't quite
captured that in the the actually animated film. My I
have two sisters, two younger sisters, so growing up they
(01:06):
were really into a Little Mermaid, and they were also
really into the movie Splash, Hannah. They loved Splash. Like Splash,
We splash must have been on our TV like every
day for like a year. There was a lot of
splash going on because that features of mermaid and was
right up their alley. And then there were the mermaid
barbies were everywhere. They were always hanging out like wet
(01:28):
haired by the bathtub. So, I mean, and and the
thing is that the mermaid the myth when you're really
looking to it, I mean, it's it's old, it's fascinating's
been running forever and continues um to fascinate modern audiences
in new ways. Yeah, I mean exactly when those things
that has captured our imaginations through folklore, and you know,
there's probably a little tiny part in all of us
(01:50):
that wished that mermaids were an actual thing. Yeah, so
so why aren't we talking about mer folk? Right? Well,
we recently did an episode about the centaur Um in
which we we looked little, you know, a little bit
at the folk uh tales that gave us the centaur
and and talked to a little bit about where these
ideas come from, you know, why to win, why do
we as humans decide that we need to think about
(02:12):
half humans havelf horses? And then we looked at some
fascinating stuff, some basically comparative anatomy, which which a German
anatomis said, well, let's see if they're Centaurs obviously don't exist,
but if they did, how might it work? And it
serves as an interesting thought experiment into into how uh,
animals actually work on an anatomical level. It's something called
(02:34):
speculative biology. Speculative biology. Yeah, so right after we had
the center, we had a listener right in the name
was Danelle Danielle. Yeah, yeah, she said, hey, please please
cover mr Folk. I actually think she called them rfolk specifically.
And and at the time we're like, okay, yeah, maybe
we'll do our folks. At some point, we weren't in
a particular hurry, but then Animal Planet did this uh
(02:57):
an Animal Planet, of course as part of the discovery
our our our parent company. They did this the show
about me people, and it was a huge hit. And
I my sister is like texting me at night saying,
what's the deal with this Mermaids show? Is? This is
this legit? And uh? And so we're like, well, okay,
we we probably should go ahead and do it. Yeah,
because it's a what if proposition, This this um this show,
(03:19):
it's called Mermaids The Body Found Now. It's it's um
presented in a documentary style fashion, which you know, some
people weren't crazy about. But to be fair, UM, Animal
Planet did say that this was a bit of science
fiction that was you know, based on some scientific theories.
So we wanted to take the premise of this show
(03:40):
and and start to tease apart from the things they
talked about, because it's really interesting how they strung this together. Basically,
the setup is that it's two thousand and four and
whales were washing up from a llegal deep water sonar
emanating from US Navy experiment. Because again, whales and dolphins
that use the echolocation sound is a very important aspect
(04:00):
of the way they navigate, the way they communicate. UM,
we've talked about this in the past. We've talked about
whales and dolphins and uh, and also about underwater sound. Yeah,
and so in this fictional account, what they're what they're
saying is that, you know, the Navy is trying to
cover up something. UM officials are coming out and has
that suits looking at these beached whales and and pulling
(04:22):
in specimens and taking them away. UM. And then the
remains of a mysterious creature is discovered. So then the
plotline starts talking about, uh, this this fringe hypothesis called
the aquatic eight hypothesis, which we'll get into and in
some people actually that insist that it be called the
(04:43):
the the aquatic eate theory of citing that the that
it's not a true scientific hypothesis. But that's kind of
splitting hairs. Well, some people say it's not a theory,
it's a hypothesis, or it's just an idea. Um, So
we probably leave it at that. But then they also
go into not only this aquatic ape idea, but these
(05:03):
unidentified sound profiles from the ocean, which we've talked about before,
like the bloop. And then in the in the plot
of this show, the mysterious body is autopsied and lo
and behold they find pelvic bone. Actually it's kind of
half autopsy if it's half here exactly the torso um.
(05:26):
So the pelic bones are found and hands are discovered,
and so then it becomes this question as well as
then maybe trying to cover up the fact that they
were using this at illegal sonar system or that there's
a creature that we are a new species that we
just don't know about. Mm hmm. So using that is
(05:46):
our backdrop today, we thought, well, why not talk about um,
you know, this this idea of these strange noises in
the ocean, or the aquatic ape theory, or even the
Mermaid RelA of your. Yeah, so let's start with the
Mermaid relics of your because that's the part I really enjoy.
I mean, I love the I love the the the
(06:09):
a hypothesis as well. But I think it's been important
to sort of take a step back and look at
the Mermaid myth and you know where it comes from
and uh and some of the more interesting variations on it. Um.
We can't put an actual date on the Mermaid because
the Mermaid is one of those those stories that has
existed since time out of mind. As long as humans
(06:30):
have lived near the sea and struggled really hard to
live with the sea to go out and and harvest
its riches. We've we've dreamed of people and or quasi
people who can do it naturally that live in the ocean,
and uh and and we've we've speculated about the mysteries
that this would entail. Um. You see a lot of
(06:52):
mermaids in in UH in Scottish, Welsh and Irish tales.
In the UH. In the Scottish and Welsh tales particularly, um,
you might rescue a mermaid and the mermaid would share
the secrets of various herbal cures with humans, and then
sometimes they would marry humans, but the web footed offspring
would invariably return to the ocean. And and and you see
(07:14):
this as a common theme too, because you know you
have some lonely men out there catching fish, and that
their minds may start to wander and they might think, wow,
you know what, have I met somebody out here? The
chances are slim, and she might be part fish, but
maybe I can find true love, if not on land,
then at sea. They didn't have mermaid match dot com
(07:35):
back then. No, not yet, not then, but but hopefully,
especially with this series being successful, we can start hooking
people up with mermaids and merfolk and merman uh. During
medieval times, the mermaid was considered to be an agent
of the devil in a symbol of the seat and
get this the way this would work. Often you'd see
this in you know and carving, so often church related stuff. Um,
(07:57):
you would see the mermaid holding a fish in the
fish some balizes the entrapment of the Christian soul that
was drawn to sin. And of course the mermaid is
very sinful because she's not wearing a top and all
that she represents lust and attractiveness and grandeur and riches,
not wearing a shell. Bra Um. No, not nothing. These
these early early face It wasn't until later until they
(08:17):
became tool users, I guess right. Um. Later you see
mermaids showing up in coat of arms as well. Uh Merman.
For the most part, when they're depicted, they're they're they're
generally seen as more aggressive. Uh. They're also like the mermaids,
you know, fish lower half humans upper half, but they
have a prevensity to be uglier uh up at the
(08:38):
up at the top. Uh. And they're also big into
like some summoning storms, pulling sailors out of ships to
their death, that kind of thing. Uh merman. Well, he
was a god, but I'm trying to remember how he
was depicted. Well, there the true Well you see depictions
of him where he is uh, where he has mermaid
esque qualities. And they're also the tris of Greek myth
(09:01):
which were which were offspring of gods, and they had
they had lower portions. That were they were they were
essentially mermien. Um. There were the blue There were the
blue Men of Niche, which were a humanoid uh blueskin
creatures that lived supposedly lived in deep water water caves
near the Isle of Man. Uh. They were ruled by
a chief. And the interesting thing about these guys that
(09:24):
they came after your ship. Um. A clever captain could
beat them with a cunning tongue he could use. He
could throw out some riddles. Get the murf the mur
folk these uh, these men of Minich thinking about the
about this and then making out with them. Uh. They're
the Nixies of Scandinavia, Germany and Switzerland. And these are
a fresh water mermaid creature, often gray or gray green
(09:45):
skinned um and their bodies of course terminating these fish
monstrosities as well. Uh. There are the marrows of Ireland.
And these are in these you see traditional mermaids, but
really ugly mermn They have green teeth, sharp uh, red noses,
tiny eyes, green hair, webbed fingers. But they're also shape
(10:07):
shifters who depend on a magical red cap. And they're
they're basically the good natured and they don't like to
they'll wander out and using their shape shifting abilities, they
may marry humans with a magical red cap. There's the
Welsh Morgan, which was a nursery boogie. Uh that was
you know, existed solely to scare children into good behaviors.
(10:28):
Cork Welsh nursery boogie who had abduct bad children. Uh.
They were the halfway people. These are pretty interesting. These
this was a myth of the Micmac people of eastern Canada.
And these mer people sang like a lot of because
with mermaid traditions you see a lot of the siren
in the mermaids. You know, they're these creatures that sing
(10:48):
beautiful songs and they lure sailors to their doom or
they're like the mermaid and they're they're summoning horrible storms. There.
Their gods are demi gods of the ocean. Well, the
the Halfway people of the of Micmac folklore. Uh. They
sang but that, but not to lure humans to their death.
They did to warn local fishermen of brewing storms. It
(11:09):
was only if you managed to antagonize them that they
would actually summon storms against you. And then, as I
mentioned in our episode on milk, Uh, there are a
number of different myths where you see mermaids as herdsman
or herds women for aquatic cattle beasts that may or
may not be whales. Um, they're they're various sort of
hag like creatures. There's a there's for instance, Margreger, a
(11:35):
mermaid made in the folks editions of the people of
Greenland that has an ugly flat face and evil eyes. Um.
There's a creature called the Canito uh in Finland, and
this was a mermaid creature with the breasts so large
that she could throw them over her shoulder. And this
is a really cool In Japan, Uh, their traditional mermaid
(11:57):
was called Thenno and up and basically they were enormous
fish with only the head of a beautiful woman. And
they were benevolent, protective creatures that would warn humans of
pending misfortunes, both at sea and on land. Uh. And
then the one final one to mention here, because I
imagine everyone's seen this one a lot. Uh when you
(12:19):
go to Starbucks, there's a there's a there's a Meliusine
or Meliusina, which is a medieval French mr Monster, daughter
of a fairy and a mortal king. Uh. In the
older depictions you'd see are addressed in medieval finery above
the waist, but then she also has the wings of
a dragon in this double serpentine fish tail below the waist.
(12:41):
And you see this creature showing up in a lot
of coat coat of arms, but also most notably at Starbucks.
You know, I actually have a Mermaian at home. Yeah,
I could you not? Well, I mean not obviously a
real Mermaian, but it is because not your husband, because
I saw him walking on two legs acincing like daggers
(13:01):
were in his his legs or in his feet. Um. Yeah, Actually,
I've got an old carney ride, or it was. It's
a carved wood mermaids about five ft long, and it's
got a little cut out in the center where kids
can get in and ride. But it's obviously they are
all linked together. But I have just one and it
is terrifying, and it has huge glass eyes. Someone put
(13:23):
glass eyes in it, and my daughter hates it, but
it hangs exactly right. It was her cradle first. I'm kidding, um,
but yeah, I mean we definitely have had a relationship
with this idea of of mermaids and um, you know,
it's pervaded our culture. And I think that that that
that bit of wood sculpture I have is from like
(13:45):
the nineties or something so like sort of Fiji mermaid days. Yeah,
which I sent you a picture earlier. Just a real
quick on modern mermaids as we see them in films. Um,
in the rob zombie horror movie House of a Thousand Corpses,
you get to see a pre Dwight shoot Rain Wilson
(14:05):
um sewn to a fish as a as a a
Fiji mermaid. It's pretty It made me kind of scream inside.
But yeah, I mean these Fiji mermaids were something that
we're we're often pro offered by Huckster's right, the turn
of the center. Fish, you get a monkey, you sew
(14:25):
them together. Uh. You know, corpses, you haven't kind of
preserved they either you know, dried out or maybe I
guess you could also most of them you see dried
out and kind of mounted and stuff. But I guess
you could also have put them in from how the
height if you wanted to. Uh, and then you so, hey,
here's the actual proof that mermaids existing, people would panicle
for it, right, and you know, back in the day
when you didn't necessarily have a lot of evidence, Um,
(14:48):
that was like, oh good, yeah, but that is that
could be a mermaid, all right. So that was an
older sort of scientific, if you will, proof that mermaids
did exist or could exist, because here is this body. Uh,
you examine it, you realize it doesn't really hold up. Uh.
Today we have a similar situation with the aquatic Gate.
(15:10):
We should probably take a quick break, but when we
come back, we will perform a necropsy on the idea
of the aquatic days. All right, we're back, so you
can imagine this here in our our podcast studio, and
and stretched out before us on the table is the
(15:31):
aquatic Gate. Uh. And we are going to cut this apart,
look at it, feel it, uh, and see which parts
feel truthful, which parts feel made up, which parts feel
like a fish, which parts feel like a human. Let's
time travel first. Okay, a million years ago, million years
the earth is. You know, there's earthquakes, there's all sorts
(15:52):
of crazy things going on. There's coastal flooding. Okay, and
it's kind of like our future. It's much like her
path right. Uh. And so the idea, this, this aquatic
ape idea, is that hominin hominins, hominal hominins split off
from terrestrial apes millions of years ago and because of
(16:15):
this this coastal flooding and they were treated into the water,
evolving into aquatic creatures somewhat related to humans. So it's
kind of like it's kind of like in the morning,
you wake up, you get out of bed, you realize
you're too tired, you don't really like the waking world,
so you creep back into bed for a little bit.
It's it's similar. Mammals have have have risen out of
the ocean. They've they've they've come onto the land, and
(16:38):
then for whatever reason, they decide this is not working out.
I'm gonna actually go back in the water now, which
is something you see with with whales and dolphins. So
taking that argument and uh and saying hey, maybe it
happened with apes as well, taking the argument and then
even saying like okay, well what about our lack of
body hair. Yeah, we think that we can. You know,
(17:00):
proponents of this idea and our idea, we grew body here,
we evolved into hairy creatures when we initially came out
of the the the oceans of the the primordial earth,
and then when we returned, we lost that hair because
it was unnecessary. Uh. And then you can point to
examples like a hippo or a dolphin and say, look,
there you go, an aquatic mammal doesn't have hair, and
(17:23):
that is why we don't have hair, because we used
to be merc creatures. Well, but people would say some
people would say that doesn't really add up in your
kind of cherry picking details. You're kind of choosing with
your with your aquatic mammals too, because otters are pretty hairy,
beavers are pretty hairy. I mean, these are all aquatic
mammals that have kept a very you know, thick coat
(17:46):
of hair. Right, And then you have the problem of
evolution itself in terms of like, well, how could this
occur in this time period? Because if it took whales
from from going to terrestrial to aquatic beings ten million years,
how could it be that, you know, in a million
years that this could happen with with apes aquatic apes,
(18:06):
So that that's obviously one of the big questions that
comes up um as well is is the philogenny that
this tree of life concept of organisms um that are
are detailed by us and they are cold from evidence
from morphological, biochemical, and gene sequenced data. Right, So this
aquatic ape actually would exist outside of this organization, and
(18:30):
this organization this philogenny is really the bedrock the central
idea of evolution. So that's spotty too. Yeah, and another
some of the other things that are thrown out there
is is proof of the aquatic ape theory. Are are
pretty suspect as well, Like the idea that, oh, well,
look look at the human body. It's so it's a
streamlined clearly it was made to swim. Well, not so
(18:51):
much because you look at at truly aquatic mammals and
they tend to have more of the torpedo shape. Well,
and it's actually pretty hard for us to swim in general,
right like such, and other people say, oh, we're such
great swimmers, and we're not really great swimmers. I mean,
Michael Phelps maybe, but but he is aside, everyone else
is kind of kind of lacking. Okay, so we've talked
(19:12):
about aquatic apes. Let's talk about the mermaid problem. The
mermaid problem like as then we have a mermaid problem,
and we need to put out some traps to catch
some mermaids. Yeah, some combat, little huge traps, right that
you just put behind your kitchen counter or your bathtube,
because they're going to show some lobsters and some shells
in there and a little bit of gold and they'll
be attracted, you know. Now. The mermaid problem is this
(19:35):
idea is that if they really existed, then what about
their reproductive abilities? Um? And this is also it's kind
of like what we got into with the center. Yeah,
where is it going to go? How's it gonna work? Yeah?
Because human human and equine biologies rather rather different, and
you if you try to merge the two, it's problematic.
(19:55):
Even more so when you're trying to combine a human
and a fish. Yeah. Uh. And um, here's the thing too.
If you've got the torso of a human and the
trunk of the fish tail, then you've got all sorts
of logistical nightmare problems going on here, because apparently if
you've got the breast, then there's going to be some
sort of lactation going on, right, And then if you've
(20:16):
got a navel, then that suggests that there's going to
be some sort of umbilical cord tied to any sort
of progeny. So then you look at the tail itself
and you say, ah, where where would all the stuff go?
Where would all the genitalia go? And you can look
to something like a dolphin, for instance, and you can
(20:36):
say that there could be a genitalia slit much like
there's with a dolphin, But that still doesn't all sort
of line up with how would um with the torso
of human and this idea of a umbilical cord, how
would all this work together? Yeah, it's it's really hard
to to try and form a like a full theory
(20:57):
of mermaid anatomy. Yeah, and yet because people have been
so entranced by this idea of mermaids, especially lately, UM
Noah has actually put up a special fact sheet about
mermaids and they went to to the links to say,
no mermaids have ever been found. Just about that, I mean,
(21:21):
certainly throughout history to humans have I mean, part of
it has been this sort of dream of what would
it be like if there were people in the in
the ocean, and what would it be like if I
could need a beautiful woman out here in the sea.
But then the other. The other part of that, we've
we've often seen other creatures from a distance. We've seen
seals or sea lions or manatees and uh, and we've
(21:41):
fooled ourselves into thinking that we saw something that was
half man and half fish. Right. And here's the other
problem with this. If if mermaids are are going to
be uh, this new species, this this idea that there
would be a new species, and um, they would be
connected to this bluep sound that we talked about. And
we'll get more into that. Um. In order to produce
(22:04):
that bluop song sound, they would have to be at
least a hundred and ten feet long, longer than any
other known organism, so that you would think that you'd
be able to spot that pretty easily, right, Um, Which
that gets into this whole blup idea in the first place.
We talked about this before in our Underwater Sounds podcast,
(22:24):
but just to bring it up again. The blue sound
was actually recorded in originated from a point about fift
miles west of the southern Chilean coast, and it was
powerful enough to be picked up on sensors located up
to three thousand miles away. Now there are a bunch
of different sounds that um that Noah has picked up
(22:45):
and has catalogued. But this is and remains an unidentified sound.
And um, there is this idea that the sound profile
sounds animalistic, but we're not quite sure. You know. Again,
there's there's the morphology problem. If this emanated from an animal,
it's got to be huge, a huge animal that would
(23:07):
be easily spotted, right and would have to have would
have to work fit into the ecosystem itself. Um, which
is which is another thing you get into when you're
we're talking about any cryptozoological creature via a a mermaid
or bigfoot. Um, you know where where how is that?
How would this fit into a given ecosystem? Where where
is its uh it's protection particular niche in the system
(23:29):
at large and uh and and often that that's where
you see a lot of big holes. We'd be like, well,
we would we would have observed it because there would
be ex number of them. We would uh you know,
we would we would see evidence of their feeding. Yeah,
and so you know the the animal planets, Uh, what
if scenario of of mermaids definitely entertaining. But you can
kind of see how when you start to look at
(23:51):
some of those details in earnest um. I mean, and
everybody knows that they're not for real anyway, but you
can see how the the sort of organism probably would
never exist. Yeah. But I love the idea of just
getting people talking about it, you know, like just you know,
get get people drawn into to view a show about
mermaids and then uh, you know, then let's discuss the
(24:12):
science of it. Let's uh, I mean, it's it's good
food for thought, all right. You know, I'm gonna be
a total downer here too, Okay, Okay, I'm gonna say
to the other thing that I think that it does
and inadvertently is to throw a little light on this
problem of sonar. As you say, um, you know, this
has been a concern with with naval testing and just
general noise pollution in the oceans. Yeah, and as you say,
(24:35):
dolphins oils they use echo location um and just um.
Just not too long ago, earth Watch reported that three
thousand dolphins were found dead along the coast of Peru,
and they were killed by deep water sonar sonar systems
using seabed oil. UM exploration and researchers at the Organization
(24:57):
for the Conservation of Aquatic Animals says that they found
image in the dolphins middle earbones which was caused by
ships son are blast and these acoustic booms actually disorient
the animals and they produce hemorrhages and this is why
they beached themselves. So actually, uh, the Animal Planet show
does go into detail about this in the fictionalized account. Um,
(25:18):
but I did think it was important to to bring
this up, that that that is an actual, you know,
part of the show, that that does have um, a
foundation in reality. Downer Yeah, yeah, kind of a downer.
And plus mermaids don't exist, so there's that too. So
I'm sorry for for anyone who was listening hoping for
for something different, but it would it would have been
(25:39):
kind of jerky if we hadn't just come clean on
that and said, well, they might have existed, because I
don't want to build up false hope, especially for those
lonely sailors out there who are listening to this podcast. Yeah,
but you don't want to be at a cocktail party
and start like dropping mermaid fats, you know. Ah, the
mermaids are are they continue to just be a really
fascinating creature at least you know, in the in the
(26:01):
mind and whether you're just thinking about it as as
a folk tale idea or is a possible scientific reality,
or as a it's just a fodder for for movies.
A couple of other film mermaids that come to mind. Uh.
There was a movie called The She Creature years ago.
I believe it had rufus Sewel in it and uh,
and it was like an old timy horror story on
(26:23):
a boat, and there was like a mysterious mermaid, but
she had like a dual nature, so sometimes she looked like, uh,
you know, typical pretty lady on the top, half fish
on the lower, and but then she would also turn
into this aquatic monster that kind of looked like a
Fiji mermaid. Uh. And then there was a there was
another film that came out called Dagon, which loosely based
(26:45):
on HP Lovecraft's uh the Shadow over in Smith and
some of the other aquatic horror tales and uh this
uh it was this movie was kind of a mixed bag,
but it did depict a mermaid with that double tail
the star about stage, which is kind of neat. So
if you ever find yourself, uh considering picking up that film,
(27:07):
it has some moments that work, and you do get
to see a a double tailed mermaid in it. So
there's that. I really wish that Splash would be remade
with droll Hannah and uh, Quentin Tarantino would direct it
a horror film or she's just okay, that's a horror film, now, okay,
horror film. Yes, there's a lot of I mean, it
(27:29):
clicks because clearly you look at the folk tales as
there are many of these stories where it's like the
Mermaid is there, the mer people are dragging humans down
and they're you know, to some watery hell of drowned sailors.
There's there's all sorts of horrible stuff with the Mermaid.
It seems like you would see more horror tales involving
them rather than just straight up fantasy. But well maybe
(27:50):
we will. But then again, you said, you said that
in the Christian's Christian Anderson there was more more horror
than we have. There's always horror and gore. Yes, yes,
so there you go. Mermaids. You can check out the
show on Animal Planet and you can also write into
us and like, let us know what you think about Mermaids.
Do you have particular thoughts about mermaids and folk tales,
mermaids and legend and myth, Mermaids at the cinema, I
(28:11):
don't know, mermaids in video games? Where wherever mermaids gathered?
Mermaids in space, mermaids in space. I'm not sure how
that would work, but I'm all for it. Um. And
there you know there's actually um. I forgot to mention
the merror creature that is a half pope. I should
have like the pontiff. Yeah, is this in the pontiff?
I'll have to throw him on the block press because
(28:33):
he's pretty cool. But yeah, they're They're just countless cool
mermaids from history. Um, So let us know what you
think about that. Let us know what you think about
this aquatic eight uh theory slash hypothesis. If you have
any thoughts on that, we'd love to hear from you.
You can find us on Facebook, where we are stuff
to blow your Mind, and you can also find us
on Twitter, where we go under the handle below the mind,
(28:53):
and you can always drop us a line at blew
the Mind at house to coorts dot com. For more
on this and thousands of other topics, visit Howstuff Works
dot com
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Ariel. No you're not. Yeah, Oh,
was this an early influence on you? Mermaid wise very
all the Mermaid from Bttle Mermaid, Little Mermaid. Yeah, actually
(00:24):
from the hands Christian Anderson, the original tale. Oh you were,
of course you were. You were old school reading the
book as a kid, and then well, yeah, and out
you're harping on and being like, wow, it's not very
true to the original hands Christian, like, there's none of
the gore and the awfulness. The Sea Witch. She was
always my favorite. I think she was. What I remember
(00:45):
the most is that the Mermaid, whenever she tried to
walk on her her legs, her newly formed legs, it
would feel like daggers. Each step would feel like a dagger.
That really stuck with me. Yeah, that they didn't quite
captured that in the the actually animated film. My I
have two sisters, two younger sisters, so growing up they
(01:06):
were really into a Little Mermaid, and they were also
really into the movie Splash, Hannah. They loved Splash. Like Splash,
We splash must have been on our TV like every
day for like a year. There was a lot of
splash going on because that features of mermaid and was
right up their alley. And then there were the mermaid
barbies were everywhere. They were always hanging out like wet
(01:28):
haired by the bathtub. So, I mean, and and the
thing is that the mermaid the myth when you're really
looking to it, I mean, it's it's old, it's fascinating's
been running forever and continues um to fascinate modern audiences
in new ways. Yeah, I mean exactly when those things
that has captured our imaginations through folklore, and you know,
there's probably a little tiny part in all of us
(01:50):
that wished that mermaids were an actual thing. Yeah, so
so why aren't we talking about mer folk? Right? Well,
we recently did an episode about the centaur Um in
which we we looked little, you know, a little bit
at the folk uh tales that gave us the centaur
and and talked to a little bit about where these
ideas come from, you know, why to win, why do
we as humans decide that we need to think about
(02:12):
half humans havelf horses? And then we looked at some
fascinating stuff, some basically comparative anatomy, which which a German
anatomis said, well, let's see if they're Centaurs obviously don't exist,
but if they did, how might it work? And it
serves as an interesting thought experiment into into how uh,
animals actually work on an anatomical level. It's something called
(02:34):
speculative biology. Speculative biology. Yeah, so right after we had
the center, we had a listener right in the name
was Danelle Danielle. Yeah, yeah, she said, hey, please please
cover mr Folk. I actually think she called them rfolk specifically.
And and at the time we're like, okay, yeah, maybe
we'll do our folks. At some point, we weren't in
a particular hurry, but then Animal Planet did this uh
(02:57):
an Animal Planet, of course as part of the discovery
our our our parent company. They did this the show
about me people, and it was a huge hit. And
I my sister is like texting me at night saying,
what's the deal with this Mermaids show? Is? This is
this legit? And uh? And so we're like, well, okay,
we we probably should go ahead and do it. Yeah,
because it's a what if proposition, This this um this show,
(03:19):
it's called Mermaids The Body Found Now. It's it's um
presented in a documentary style fashion, which you know, some
people weren't crazy about. But to be fair, UM, Animal
Planet did say that this was a bit of science
fiction that was you know, based on some scientific theories.
So we wanted to take the premise of this show
(03:40):
and and start to tease apart from the things they
talked about, because it's really interesting how they strung this together. Basically,
the setup is that it's two thousand and four and
whales were washing up from a llegal deep water sonar
emanating from US Navy experiment. Because again, whales and dolphins
that use the echolocation sound is a very important aspect
(04:00):
of the way they navigate, the way they communicate. UM,
we've talked about this in the past. We've talked about
whales and dolphins and uh, and also about underwater sound. Yeah,
and so in this fictional account, what they're what they're
saying is that, you know, the Navy is trying to
cover up something. UM officials are coming out and has
that suits looking at these beached whales and and pulling
(04:22):
in specimens and taking them away. UM. And then the
remains of a mysterious creature is discovered. So then the
plotline starts talking about, uh, this this fringe hypothesis called
the aquatic eight hypothesis, which we'll get into and in
some people actually that insist that it be called the
(04:43):
the the aquatic eate theory of citing that the that
it's not a true scientific hypothesis. But that's kind of
splitting hairs. Well, some people say it's not a theory,
it's a hypothesis, or it's just an idea. Um, So
we probably leave it at that. But then they also
go into not only this aquatic ape idea, but these
(05:03):
unidentified sound profiles from the ocean, which we've talked about before,
like the bloop. And then in the in the plot
of this show, the mysterious body is autopsied and lo
and behold they find pelvic bone. Actually it's kind of
half autopsy if it's half here exactly the torso um.
(05:26):
So the pelic bones are found and hands are discovered,
and so then it becomes this question as well as
then maybe trying to cover up the fact that they
were using this at illegal sonar system or that there's
a creature that we are a new species that we
just don't know about. Mm hmm. So using that is
(05:46):
our backdrop today, we thought, well, why not talk about um,
you know, this this idea of these strange noises in
the ocean, or the aquatic ape theory, or even the
Mermaid RelA of your. Yeah, so let's start with the
Mermaid relics of your because that's the part I really enjoy.
I mean, I love the I love the the the
(06:09):
a hypothesis as well. But I think it's been important
to sort of take a step back and look at
the Mermaid myth and you know where it comes from
and uh and some of the more interesting variations on it. Um.
We can't put an actual date on the Mermaid because
the Mermaid is one of those those stories that has
existed since time out of mind. As long as humans
(06:30):
have lived near the sea and struggled really hard to
live with the sea to go out and and harvest
its riches. We've we've dreamed of people and or quasi
people who can do it naturally that live in the ocean,
and uh and and we've we've speculated about the mysteries
that this would entail. Um. You see a lot of
(06:52):
mermaids in in UH in Scottish, Welsh and Irish tales.
In the UH. In the Scottish and Welsh tales particularly, um,
you might rescue a mermaid and the mermaid would share
the secrets of various herbal cures with humans, and then
sometimes they would marry humans, but the web footed offspring
would invariably return to the ocean. And and and you see
(07:14):
this as a common theme too, because you know you
have some lonely men out there catching fish, and that
their minds may start to wander and they might think, wow,
you know what, have I met somebody out here? The
chances are slim, and she might be part fish, but
maybe I can find true love, if not on land,
then at sea. They didn't have mermaid match dot com
(07:35):
back then. No, not yet, not then, but but hopefully,
especially with this series being successful, we can start hooking
people up with mermaids and merfolk and merman uh. During
medieval times, the mermaid was considered to be an agent
of the devil in a symbol of the seat and
get this the way this would work. Often you'd see
this in you know and carving, so often church related stuff. Um,
(07:57):
you would see the mermaid holding a fish in the
fish some balizes the entrapment of the Christian soul that
was drawn to sin. And of course the mermaid is
very sinful because she's not wearing a top and all
that she represents lust and attractiveness and grandeur and riches,
not wearing a shell. Bra Um. No, not nothing. These
these early early face It wasn't until later until they
(08:17):
became tool users, I guess right. Um. Later you see
mermaids showing up in coat of arms as well. Uh Merman.
For the most part, when they're depicted, they're they're they're
generally seen as more aggressive. Uh. They're also like the mermaids,
you know, fish lower half humans upper half, but they
have a prevensity to be uglier uh up at the
(08:38):
up at the top. Uh. And they're also big into
like some summoning storms, pulling sailors out of ships to
their death, that kind of thing. Uh merman. Well, he
was a god, but I'm trying to remember how he
was depicted. Well, there the true Well you see depictions
of him where he is uh, where he has mermaid
esque qualities. And they're also the tris of Greek myth
(09:01):
which were which were offspring of gods, and they had
they had lower portions. That were they were they were
essentially mermien. Um. There were the blue There were the
blue Men of Niche, which were a humanoid uh blueskin
creatures that lived supposedly lived in deep water water caves
near the Isle of Man. Uh. They were ruled by
a chief. And the interesting thing about these guys that
(09:24):
they came after your ship. Um. A clever captain could
beat them with a cunning tongue he could use. He
could throw out some riddles. Get the murf the mur
folk these uh, these men of Minich thinking about the
about this and then making out with them. Uh. They're
the Nixies of Scandinavia, Germany and Switzerland. And these are
a fresh water mermaid creature, often gray or gray green
(09:45):
skinned um and their bodies of course terminating these fish
monstrosities as well. Uh. There are the marrows of Ireland.
And these are in these you see traditional mermaids, but
really ugly mermn They have green teeth, sharp uh, red noses,
tiny eyes, green hair, webbed fingers. But they're also shape
(10:07):
shifters who depend on a magical red cap. And they're
they're basically the good natured and they don't like to
they'll wander out and using their shape shifting abilities, they
may marry humans with a magical red cap. There's the
Welsh Morgan, which was a nursery boogie. Uh that was
you know, existed solely to scare children into good behaviors.
(10:28):
Cork Welsh nursery boogie who had abduct bad children. Uh.
They were the halfway people. These are pretty interesting. These
this was a myth of the Micmac people of eastern Canada.
And these mer people sang like a lot of because
with mermaid traditions you see a lot of the siren
in the mermaids. You know, they're these creatures that sing
(10:48):
beautiful songs and they lure sailors to their doom or
they're like the mermaid and they're they're summoning horrible storms. There.
Their gods are demi gods of the ocean. Well, the
the Halfway people of the of Micmac folklore. Uh. They
sang but that, but not to lure humans to their death.
They did to warn local fishermen of brewing storms. It
(11:09):
was only if you managed to antagonize them that they
would actually summon storms against you. And then, as I
mentioned in our episode on milk, Uh, there are a
number of different myths where you see mermaids as herdsman
or herds women for aquatic cattle beasts that may or
may not be whales. Um, they're they're various sort of
hag like creatures. There's a there's for instance, Margreger, a
(11:35):
mermaid made in the folks editions of the people of
Greenland that has an ugly flat face and evil eyes. Um.
There's a creature called the Canito uh in Finland, and
this was a mermaid creature with the breasts so large
that she could throw them over her shoulder. And this
is a really cool In Japan, Uh, their traditional mermaid
(11:57):
was called Thenno and up and basically they were enormous
fish with only the head of a beautiful woman. And
they were benevolent, protective creatures that would warn humans of
pending misfortunes, both at sea and on land. Uh. And
then the one final one to mention here, because I
imagine everyone's seen this one a lot. Uh when you
(12:19):
go to Starbucks, there's a there's a there's a Meliusine
or Meliusina, which is a medieval French mr Monster, daughter
of a fairy and a mortal king. Uh. In the
older depictions you'd see are addressed in medieval finery above
the waist, but then she also has the wings of
a dragon in this double serpentine fish tail below the waist.
(12:41):
And you see this creature showing up in a lot
of coat coat of arms, but also most notably at Starbucks.
You know, I actually have a Mermaian at home. Yeah,
I could you not? Well, I mean not obviously a
real Mermaian, but it is because not your husband, because
I saw him walking on two legs acincing like daggers
(13:01):
were in his his legs or in his feet. Um. Yeah, Actually,
I've got an old carney ride, or it was. It's
a carved wood mermaids about five ft long, and it's
got a little cut out in the center where kids
can get in and ride. But it's obviously they are
all linked together. But I have just one and it
is terrifying, and it has huge glass eyes. Someone put
(13:23):
glass eyes in it, and my daughter hates it, but
it hangs exactly right. It was her cradle first. I'm kidding, um,
but yeah, I mean we definitely have had a relationship
with this idea of of mermaids and um, you know,
it's pervaded our culture. And I think that that that
that bit of wood sculpture I have is from like
(13:45):
the nineties or something so like sort of Fiji mermaid days. Yeah,
which I sent you a picture earlier. Just a real
quick on modern mermaids as we see them in films. Um,
in the rob zombie horror movie House of a Thousand Corpses,
you get to see a pre Dwight shoot Rain Wilson
(14:05):
um sewn to a fish as a as a a
Fiji mermaid. It's pretty It made me kind of scream inside.
But yeah, I mean these Fiji mermaids were something that
we're we're often pro offered by Huckster's right, the turn
of the center. Fish, you get a monkey, you sew
(14:25):
them together. Uh. You know, corpses, you haven't kind of
preserved they either you know, dried out or maybe I
guess you could also most of them you see dried
out and kind of mounted and stuff. But I guess
you could also have put them in from how the
height if you wanted to. Uh, and then you so, hey,
here's the actual proof that mermaids existing, people would panicle
for it, right, and you know, back in the day
when you didn't necessarily have a lot of evidence, Um,
(14:48):
that was like, oh good, yeah, but that is that
could be a mermaid, all right. So that was an
older sort of scientific, if you will, proof that mermaids
did exist or could exist, because here is this body. Uh,
you examine it, you realize it doesn't really hold up. Uh.
Today we have a similar situation with the aquatic Gate.
(15:10):
We should probably take a quick break, but when we
come back, we will perform a necropsy on the idea
of the aquatic days. All right, we're back, so you
can imagine this here in our our podcast studio, and
and stretched out before us on the table is the
(15:31):
aquatic Gate. Uh. And we are going to cut this apart,
look at it, feel it, uh, and see which parts
feel truthful, which parts feel made up, which parts feel
like a fish, which parts feel like a human. Let's
time travel first. Okay, a million years ago, million years
the earth is. You know, there's earthquakes, there's all sorts
(15:52):
of crazy things going on. There's coastal flooding. Okay, and
it's kind of like our future. It's much like her
path right. Uh. And so the idea, this, this aquatic
ape idea, is that hominin hominins, hominal hominins split off
from terrestrial apes millions of years ago and because of
(16:15):
this this coastal flooding and they were treated into the water,
evolving into aquatic creatures somewhat related to humans. So it's
kind of like it's kind of like in the morning,
you wake up, you get out of bed, you realize
you're too tired, you don't really like the waking world,
so you creep back into bed for a little bit.
It's it's similar. Mammals have have have risen out of
the ocean. They've they've they've come onto the land, and
(16:38):
then for whatever reason, they decide this is not working out.
I'm gonna actually go back in the water now, which
is something you see with with whales and dolphins. So
taking that argument and uh and saying hey, maybe it
happened with apes as well, taking the argument and then
even saying like okay, well what about our lack of
body hair. Yeah, we think that we can. You know,
(17:00):
proponents of this idea and our idea, we grew body here,
we evolved into hairy creatures when we initially came out
of the the the oceans of the the primordial earth,
and then when we returned, we lost that hair because
it was unnecessary. Uh. And then you can point to
examples like a hippo or a dolphin and say, look,
there you go, an aquatic mammal doesn't have hair, and
(17:23):
that is why we don't have hair, because we used
to be merc creatures. Well, but people would say some
people would say that doesn't really add up in your
kind of cherry picking details. You're kind of choosing with
your with your aquatic mammals too, because otters are pretty hairy,
beavers are pretty hairy. I mean, these are all aquatic
mammals that have kept a very you know, thick coat
(17:46):
of hair. Right, And then you have the problem of
evolution itself in terms of like, well, how could this
occur in this time period? Because if it took whales
from from going to terrestrial to aquatic beings ten million years,
how could it be that, you know, in a million
years that this could happen with with apes aquatic apes,
(18:06):
So that that's obviously one of the big questions that
comes up um as well is is the philogenny that
this tree of life concept of organisms um that are
are detailed by us and they are cold from evidence
from morphological, biochemical, and gene sequenced data. Right, So this
aquatic ape actually would exist outside of this organization, and
(18:30):
this organization this philogenny is really the bedrock the central
idea of evolution. So that's spotty too. Yeah, and another
some of the other things that are thrown out there
is is proof of the aquatic ape theory. Are are
pretty suspect as well, Like the idea that, oh, well,
look look at the human body. It's so it's a
streamlined clearly it was made to swim. Well, not so
(18:51):
much because you look at at truly aquatic mammals and
they tend to have more of the torpedo shape. Well,
and it's actually pretty hard for us to swim in general,
right like such, and other people say, oh, we're such
great swimmers, and we're not really great swimmers. I mean,
Michael Phelps maybe, but but he is aside, everyone else
is kind of kind of lacking. Okay, so we've talked
(19:12):
about aquatic apes. Let's talk about the mermaid problem. The
mermaid problem like as then we have a mermaid problem,
and we need to put out some traps to catch
some mermaids. Yeah, some combat, little huge traps, right that
you just put behind your kitchen counter or your bathtube,
because they're going to show some lobsters and some shells
in there and a little bit of gold and they'll
be attracted, you know. Now. The mermaid problem is this
(19:35):
idea is that if they really existed, then what about
their reproductive abilities? Um? And this is also it's kind
of like what we got into with the center. Yeah,
where is it going to go? How's it gonna work? Yeah?
Because human human and equine biologies rather rather different, and
you if you try to merge the two, it's problematic.
(19:55):
Even more so when you're trying to combine a human
and a fish. Yeah. Uh. And um, here's the thing too.
If you've got the torso of a human and the
trunk of the fish tail, then you've got all sorts
of logistical nightmare problems going on here, because apparently if
you've got the breast, then there's going to be some
sort of lactation going on, right, And then if you've
(20:16):
got a navel, then that suggests that there's going to
be some sort of umbilical cord tied to any sort
of progeny. So then you look at the tail itself
and you say, ah, where where would all the stuff go?
Where would all the genitalia go? And you can look
to something like a dolphin, for instance, and you can
(20:36):
say that there could be a genitalia slit much like
there's with a dolphin, But that still doesn't all sort
of line up with how would um with the torso
of human and this idea of a umbilical cord, how
would all this work together? Yeah, it's it's really hard
to to try and form a like a full theory
(20:57):
of mermaid anatomy. Yeah, and yet because people have been
so entranced by this idea of mermaids, especially lately, UM
Noah has actually put up a special fact sheet about
mermaids and they went to to the links to say,
no mermaids have ever been found. Just about that, I mean,
(21:21):
certainly throughout history to humans have I mean, part of
it has been this sort of dream of what would
it be like if there were people in the in
the ocean, and what would it be like if I
could need a beautiful woman out here in the sea.
But then the other. The other part of that, we've
we've often seen other creatures from a distance. We've seen
seals or sea lions or manatees and uh, and we've
(21:41):
fooled ourselves into thinking that we saw something that was
half man and half fish. Right. And here's the other
problem with this. If if mermaids are are going to
be uh, this new species, this this idea that there
would be a new species, and um, they would be
connected to this bluep sound that we talked about. And
we'll get more into that. Um. In order to produce
(22:04):
that bluop song sound, they would have to be at
least a hundred and ten feet long, longer than any
other known organism, so that you would think that you'd
be able to spot that pretty easily, right, Um, Which
that gets into this whole blup idea in the first place.
We talked about this before in our Underwater Sounds podcast,
(22:24):
but just to bring it up again. The blue sound
was actually recorded in originated from a point about fift
miles west of the southern Chilean coast, and it was
powerful enough to be picked up on sensors located up
to three thousand miles away. Now there are a bunch
of different sounds that um that Noah has picked up
(22:45):
and has catalogued. But this is and remains an unidentified sound.
And um, there is this idea that the sound profile
sounds animalistic, but we're not quite sure. You know. Again,
there's there's the morphology problem. If this emanated from an animal,
it's got to be huge, a huge animal that would
(23:07):
be easily spotted, right and would have to have would
have to work fit into the ecosystem itself. Um, which
is which is another thing you get into when you're
we're talking about any cryptozoological creature via a a mermaid
or bigfoot. Um, you know where where how is that?
How would this fit into a given ecosystem? Where where
is its uh it's protection particular niche in the system
(23:29):
at large and uh and and often that that's where
you see a lot of big holes. We'd be like, well,
we would we would have observed it because there would
be ex number of them. We would uh you know,
we would we would see evidence of their feeding. Yeah,
and so you know the the animal planets, Uh, what
if scenario of of mermaids definitely entertaining. But you can
kind of see how when you start to look at
(23:51):
some of those details in earnest um. I mean, and
everybody knows that they're not for real anyway, but you
can see how the the sort of organism probably would
never exist. Yeah. But I love the idea of just
getting people talking about it, you know, like just you know,
get get people drawn into to view a show about
mermaids and then uh, you know, then let's discuss the
(24:12):
science of it. Let's uh, I mean, it's it's good
food for thought, all right. You know, I'm gonna be
a total downer here too, Okay, Okay, I'm gonna say
to the other thing that I think that it does
and inadvertently is to throw a little light on this
problem of sonar. As you say, um, you know, this
has been a concern with with naval testing and just
general noise pollution in the oceans. Yeah, and as you say,
(24:35):
dolphins oils they use echo location um and just um.
Just not too long ago, earth Watch reported that three
thousand dolphins were found dead along the coast of Peru,
and they were killed by deep water sonar sonar systems
using seabed oil. UM exploration and researchers at the Organization
(24:57):
for the Conservation of Aquatic Animals says that they found
image in the dolphins middle earbones which was caused by
ships son are blast and these acoustic booms actually disorient
the animals and they produce hemorrhages and this is why
they beached themselves. So actually, uh, the Animal Planet show
does go into detail about this in the fictionalized account. Um,
(25:18):
but I did think it was important to to bring
this up, that that that is an actual, you know,
part of the show, that that does have um, a
foundation in reality. Downer Yeah, yeah, kind of a downer.
And plus mermaids don't exist, so there's that too. So
I'm sorry for for anyone who was listening hoping for
for something different, but it would it would have been
(25:39):
kind of jerky if we hadn't just come clean on
that and said, well, they might have existed, because I
don't want to build up false hope, especially for those
lonely sailors out there who are listening to this podcast. Yeah,
but you don't want to be at a cocktail party
and start like dropping mermaid fats, you know. Ah, the
mermaids are are they continue to just be a really
fascinating creature at least you know, in the in the
(26:01):
mind and whether you're just thinking about it as as
a folk tale idea or is a possible scientific reality,
or as a it's just a fodder for for movies.
A couple of other film mermaids that come to mind. Uh.
There was a movie called The She Creature years ago.
I believe it had rufus Sewel in it and uh,
and it was like an old timy horror story on
(26:23):
a boat, and there was like a mysterious mermaid, but
she had like a dual nature, so sometimes she looked like, uh,
you know, typical pretty lady on the top, half fish
on the lower, and but then she would also turn
into this aquatic monster that kind of looked like a
Fiji mermaid. Uh. And then there was a there was
another film that came out called Dagon, which loosely based
(26:45):
on HP Lovecraft's uh the Shadow over in Smith and
some of the other aquatic horror tales and uh this
uh it was this movie was kind of a mixed bag,
but it did depict a mermaid with that double tail
the star about stage, which is kind of neat. So
if you ever find yourself, uh considering picking up that film,
(27:07):
it has some moments that work, and you do get
to see a a double tailed mermaid in it. So
there's that. I really wish that Splash would be remade
with droll Hannah and uh, Quentin Tarantino would direct it
a horror film or she's just okay, that's a horror film, now, okay,
horror film. Yes, there's a lot of I mean, it
(27:29):
clicks because clearly you look at the folk tales as
there are many of these stories where it's like the
Mermaid is there, the mer people are dragging humans down
and they're you know, to some watery hell of drowned sailors.
There's there's all sorts of horrible stuff with the Mermaid.
It seems like you would see more horror tales involving
them rather than just straight up fantasy. But well maybe
(27:50):
we will. But then again, you said, you said that
in the Christian's Christian Anderson there was more more horror
than we have. There's always horror and gore. Yes, yes,
so there you go. Mermaids. You can check out the
show on Animal Planet and you can also write into
us and like, let us know what you think about Mermaids.
Do you have particular thoughts about mermaids and folk tales,
mermaids and legend and myth, Mermaids at the cinema, I
(28:11):
don't know, mermaids in video games? Where wherever mermaids gathered?
Mermaids in space, mermaids in space. I'm not sure how
that would work, but I'm all for it. Um. And
there you know there's actually um. I forgot to mention
the merror creature that is a half pope. I should
have like the pontiff. Yeah, is this in the pontiff?
I'll have to throw him on the block press because
(28:33):
he's pretty cool. But yeah, they're They're just countless cool
mermaids from history. Um, So let us know what you
think about that. Let us know what you think about
this aquatic eight uh theory slash hypothesis. If you have
any thoughts on that, we'd love to hear from you.
You can find us on Facebook, where we are stuff
to blow your Mind, and you can also find us
on Twitter, where we go under the handle below the mind,
(28:53):
and you can always drop us a line at blew
the Mind at house to coorts dot com. For more
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