Center For IFO Studies: Non-Human Intelligence

MERMAIDS AND MERMEN

Detailed descriptions of mermaids & mermen are found in The King's Mirror, an anonymous 13th century Norse manuscript.

"It is reported that the waters about Greenland are infested with monsters, though I do not believe that they have been seen very frequently. Still, people have stories to tell about them, so men must have seen or caught sight of them. It is reported that the monster called merman [hafstrambr] is found in the seas of Greenland. This monster is tall and of great size and rises straight out of the water. It appears to have shoulders, neck and head, eyes and mouth, and nose and chin like those of a human being; but above the eyes and the eyebrows it looks more like a man with a peaked helmet on his head. It has shoulders like a man's but no hands. Its body apparently grows narrower from the shoulders down, so that the lower down it has been observed, the more slender it has seemed to be. But no one has ever seen how the lower end is shaped, whether it terminates in a fin like a fish or is pointed like a pole. The form of this prodigy has, therefore, looked much like an icicle. No one has ever observed it closely enough to determine whether its body has scales like a fish or skin like a man...

"Another prodigy called mermaid [margygr] has also been seen there. This appears to have the form of a woman from the waist upward, for it has large nipples on its breast like a woman, long hands and heavy hair, and its neck and head are formed in every respect like those of a human being. The monster is said to have large hands and its fingers are not parted but bound together by a web like that which joins the toes of water fowls. Below the waist line it has the shape of a fish with scales and tail and fins... The monster is described as having a large and terrifying face, a long sloping forehead and wide brows, a large mouth and wrinkled cheeks..."

One famous study concluded that these were descriptions of mirages. We'd like to challenge that conclusion. Our proposal: the mermen were beluga whales and the mermaids were sunbathing harp seals and whales engaged in "kelping," an activity which can make them appear to wear wigs and hats made of seaweed.

Illustrations from a 15th-century French manuscripts:

The beluga: tall, rising straight out of the water in an activity known as "skyhopping":

The "human" face (the beluga's chin) beneath a "peaked helmet" (the beluga's mouth & forehead) is the result of pareidolia not unlike the famous "face on Mars" or the "toast Madonna":

Once you see the ghostly "face," it's hard to unsee it:

Harp seals at rest - the "breasts & scales" illusion:

The "mermaid holding a child to her breast" illusion:

Whales kelping - the "long-haired mermaid" illusion:

In summary:

Mermen are beluga whales

•Peaked helmet: Beluga forehead & beak

•Human face: Beluga chin (pareidolia)

•Tapered torso: Beluga body

•Like an icicle: Beluga body

•Shoulders but no arms: Beluga flippers

•Rising from the water: Beluga skyhopping

Mermaids are harp seals & kelping whales

•Breasts: Seal flippers at rest

•Nipples: Harp seal spots

•Webbed hands: Seal flippers

•Scales: Seal fur patterns

•Long, "heavy" hair: Whales kelping

ELVES AND FAIRIES

FAIRIES

"Ignis fatuus, and grosse fatty flames... wander abroad with a wispe of paper at their tails like Hobgoblins, and lead men up and down in a circle of absurdity a whole week, and never know where they are... Daylight possesseth the sky that was dimmed; wherefore break of your dance you Fayries and Elves." - Philip Sidney, Astrophel and Stella, 1593

WILL O' THE WISP

"'Will o' the Wisp' [was] an unearthly light which hovered over marshy places... This light, once looked upon with superstitious awe, is now known, except by the most ignorant, to be caused by the exhalations arising from undrained ground, a state of matters very common in olden times, and productive of ague and fevers, as well as of ghostly lights... Improved agriculture and drainage has banished Will, for the marshes and bogs being removed, there is no longer a cause for his useless existence. He may, however, still be seen by the curious in peat mosses and damp woods in certain conditions of the atmosphere... Thus science throws its light on many things mysterious to our forefathers." - Jeanie M. Laing, Notes on Superstition, 1885

PUCK

"The peasantry in Alfrick, and those parts, say that they are sometimes what they call Poake-ledden; that is, that they are occasionally waylaid in the night by a mischievous sprite, whom they call Poake, who leads them into ditches, bogs, pools, and other such scrapes, and then sets up a loud laugh, and leaves them quite bewildered in the lurch. Now, it is natural enough for these simple-minded peasantry, when bewildered and misled in the night by a Jack-o'-Lantern, particularly should they previously have had plenty of good old cider at some neighbouring farmhouse, to fancy, as their ancestors, time out of mind, did before them, that any noise they might then hear, such as the hooting of an owl, the crowing of a cock, the bleating of a calf, the neighing of a horse, or the braying of an ass, is the laughter and ridicule of Poake, or Puck." - Jabez Allies, On Ignis Fatuus or Will-o'-the-Wisp and the Fairies, 1845

CHANGELINGS

"A correspondent, to whom I am much indebted for many curious examples of the folk-lore of the people in the remote districts to the west of Penzance, says, in reference to some stories of fairy changelings--'I never knew but one child that had been kept by the Spriggans more than three days. It was always complaining, sickly, and weakly, and had the very face of a changeling.'

"It has been my fortune, some thirty or forty years since, to have seen several children of whom it had been whispered amongst the peasantry that they were changelings. In every case they have been sad examples of the influence of mesenteric disease--the countenance much altered -- their eyes glassy and sunk in their sockets--the nose sharpened--the cheeks of a marble whiteness, unless when they were flushed with hectic fever--the lips sometimes swollen and of a deep,- red colour, and small ulcers not unfrequently at the angles of the mouth. The wasted frame, with sometimes strumous swellings, and the unnatural abdominal enlargement which accompanies disease of mesenteric glands, gives a very sad, and often a most unnatural appearance to the sufferer." - Robert Hunt, Popular Romances of the West of England (1865)

DRAGONS

"Fire-drake or Fire-dragon. A fiery serpent, an ignis fatuus of large proportions, superstitiously believed to be a flying dragon keeping guard over hid treasures." - Ebenezer Brewer, Dictionary of Phrase & Fable, 1895

This might refer to other atmospheric phenomena, e.g. meteors, auroras and red sprites.

BROWNIES

"Tales of elves or brownies most probably were suggested to those who told them by the existence in their midst of certain small, hairy, alien races who lived in holes in the earth or in hollow trees or caves, and who were reputed to possess magical powers. Now what races correspond to this description and are found all over the earth? Clearly, the big, fluffy owls, the hairy wolves, foxes and jackals, and other beasts of a like kind." - Pierce Bruns, Conservative Review, 1899

DEVILS, BANSHEES & HELLHOUNDS

DEVIL AT THE DOOR

"Suddenly about midnight, there was a great rumbling below under [Simon Davies'] chamber window, which amazed [he and his wife, Adie] exceedingly. For they conceived that the devil was below, though he had no power to come up, because of their fervent prayers...as for the rumbling, it was by occasion of a sheep, which was flawed, and hung by the walls, so as a dog came and devoured it; whereby grew the noise which I before mentioned." - Reginald Scot, Discovery of Witchcraft, 1584

HELLHOUNDS

"At midnight, on the eve of Saint John,

so the story goes, a weird procession of

gaunt fiery-eyed hounds, with blood besprinkled sides, sweeps through the long dark lanes about Dartmoor, until at a blast from their black master's horn they sink

into the earth. These are the Wish, Yelk, Yell, or Heath-hounds, supposed by some to be the spirits of unbaptised children. Often heard by night-walkers, the dogs of darkness are occasionally seen, careering across the moors in hot pursuit of some lost spirit, doomed for earthly sin to be hunted for ever by the demon pack...The sky-yelpers being, in fact, simply innocent wild geese bound on their annual excursion beyond seas...'You will hear them coming,' says Captain Hawker, 'like a pack of hounds in full cry.'" - Charles Dickens, 1873

BANSHEES, HELLHOUNDS, WRAITHS

"Migratory birds, from the chiff-chaff to the wild goose, usually pursue their long and dangerous journey by night; and no doubt their strange and varied calls, heard suddenly amid the darkness, have done as much as the notes of the true birds of night to encourage the growth of superstitions, to which savage and civilised men alike have been, and yet are, a prey, whether the unseen terror at which they tremble be hell-hound or banshee, wraith or wildjäger." - Frank Finn, Night Birds, Gentleman's Magazine, 1891

SEA SERPENTS

Fig. 1: Daedalus serpent, 1863.

Fig. 2-4: Basking sharks.

Water-spouting serpents.

Fig. 1-2: Drawings of sea serpents based on eyewitness accounts.

Fig. 3-5: Great white sharks breaching to catch small surface prey, bringing a mouthful of water with them. As they bite down, the water shoots out of their mouths.

"'T. Say, Esq., of Philadelphia... announces that a Captain Rich had fitted out an expedition purposely to take this leviathan, of which so much has been said in the newspapers and even in some scientific journals. He succeeded in fastening his harpoon in what was acknowledged by all the crew to be the veritable sea-serpent (and which several of them had previously seen and made oath to): but when drawn from the water, and full within the sphere of their vision, it proved that this serpent, which fear had loomed to the gigantic length of 100 feet, was no other than a harmless Tunny [tuna] (Scombrus Thynnus) nine or ten feet long!'" - The Philosophical Magazine, Vol. LIII, p.71, January, 1819

Prof. Jacop Biestow, of Boston (Stnuiman’s Am. Journ. Se. Arts, Vol. IL, Boston, 1820): “In the following year’ (1818) “Capt. Rich of Boston, went on an expedition fitted out for the purpose of taking the Sea-Serpent , and after a fruitless cruise of some weeks brought into port a fish of the species commonly known to mariners and fishermen by the name of ‘Tunny, Albicore or Horse Mackerel, the Scomber Thynanus of Linnaeus, and which fish he asserted to be the same as that denominated Sea-Serpent. This disappointment of public curiosity was attended at the time by a disbelief on the part of many, of the existence of a distinct marine animal of the serpent-kind, or of the dimensions and Shape represented by the witnesses of Gloucester and elsewhere.”

"Prof. [Charles] Edwards said that probably in all the many cases reported, something had been seen, for it is impossible to believe that all these people were liars. The universal declaration that the thing proceeded with an undulating motion does away with the theory of its being actually a big snake. He showed that the stories might arise from the appearance of a manatee, a big stingray, a gigantic squid (one was caught with arms and body 300 feet long), a basking shark, whales or schools of porpoises." - The Mitchell Capital, October 7, 1904

DEVIL IN DEVONSHIRE, 1855

"The excitement and, among some classes, the consternation was intense. Devonshire was, and is, a superstitious county, and the ignorant unhesitatingly believed the footsteps to be those of his Satanic majesty. Many educated people, no really satisfactory explanation ever being forthcoming, retained the idea that there was something uncanny about the affair." - W. Courthope Forman, in Notes & Queries series VII volume 9 (1890)

"The beast was discovered to be a common badger, and the storm that the footprints had caused dropped to dead calm in a single day." - D., ibid.

NEWHOUSE UFO

Trementon, Utah, 1952. A flock of seagulls.

FLATWOODS MONSTER

Menzel:

Air Force investigators concluded immediately that the flaming object first seen was the meteor observed that night by thousands of persons in Virginia and West Virginia and reported officially to various observatories. What the frightened family saw when they reached the hilltop and flashed the light was probably the glowing eyes or body of some mundane creature of the woods. A local group of civilian saucer investigators [Gray Barker, et al] rejected this explanation, as usual, and after making its own study concluded that the monster story could very well have been true!

- Menzel, The World of Flying Saucers (1963)

POZZOULI UFO

Hudson Valley, New York, 1984. A flock of snow geese.

LAKE CHAMPLAIN MONSTER

Photo of the monster taken in 1977.

The object in the photo is a great blue heron, standing in the shallow water with it's neck submerged to catch a fish. The apparent head, neck and hump of the "monster" are the heron's wings.