Mermaid · Porthleven, England · 1786
UNI-1786ID case-72e69990abAdded to map Nov 10, 2026
- Creature
- Mermaid
- When
- Sep 14, 1786to the day
- Where
- Porthleven, Englandto town level
- Reports
- 1 document1 independent
The account
Witnesses report that a large creature with stubby arms and a tough back was found on the beach after a storm and killed by locals who debated whether it was a whale or a mermaid.
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
- Porthleven, Kernow / Cornwall, England, United Kingdom
mapped to town level · from the report's own words - When
- Sep 14, 1786
- Account
- Not first-hand (retold or reported by someone else)
- Backed by
- 1 independent source
- Added to map
- Nov 10, 2026
- Case id
- case-72e69990ab
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.
- Mermaid or Whale
paranormaldb
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.