Mermaid · 1862
XX-1862ID case-19584a827bAdded to map Oct 8, 2026
- Creature
- Mermaid
- When
- Nov 4, 1862to the day
- Where
- Place unknownno dependable place
- Reports
- 1 document1 independent
The account
A retired sea Captain claims to have seen a dozen mermaids in the surf and witnessed one cooking her tail on a fire in the harbor during a famine.
See the source ↓ one document so far, so there is no trail to follow yet
We map claims, not creatures: this is what the sources say, not proof. How a case is built
Details
- Creature
- Mermaid
- Where
- No dependable place
The account doesn't say where in words we can place, so it isn't drawn on the map; the map lists it under Cases with no resolvable place. Other Mermaid reports with no place (6) - When
- Nov 4, 1862
- Account
- Not first-hand (retold or reported by someone else)
- Backed by
- 1 independent source
- Added to map
- Oct 8, 2026
- Case id
- case-19584a827b
Place lookups use data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), via Nominatim. All credits
Source trail (1)
Every link goes to where we found the account. The earliest we found is marked; it is the earliest found, not necessarily the original.
- Image 4 of Juliet signal (Juliet [i.e. Joliet], Ill.;Joliet, Ill.), November 11, 1862
Newspaper · 1862-11-11
Earliest found, not necessarily the original.
Further reading
- On the Track of Unknown Animals, Bernard Heuvelmans (1959)
The founding work of cryptozoology.
Borrow on Internet Archive - Cryptozoology A to Z, Loren Coleman and Jerome Clark (1999)
Encyclopedia of reported creatures.
Borrow on Internet Archive - Abominable Science!, Daniel Loxton and Donald Prothero (2013)
Skeptical history of the Yeti, Nessie and others.
Borrow on Internet Archive - In Search of Prehistoric Survivors, Karl Shuker (1995)
Borrow on Internet Archive
Books we have not reproduced: borrow them free at archive.org. Listing a book is not an endorsement of its claims.