Mermaid and merman sightings map

Accounts of a human-shaped figure in the water, reported as a mermaid or merman. Many are old ships' reports and travellers' tales, and sirenians -- manatees and dugongs -- are the usual explanation offered. These are the reports, not a claim about them.

Other names in the sources: Merman, Merfolk.

Background reading on Wikipedia: Mermaid.

We map claims, not creatures. A case is what some source says someone saw or heard, with the link to that source. It is not proof that anything was there, and a retelling counts once, not as a second sighting.

See Mermaid on the map All 41 cases

By the numbers

41 cases on the map, 1 of them first-hand (the witness telling it). A case may stand on several documents; copies and reprints are not confirmations.

Best-documented cases

Ranked by independent sources first, then documents, then first-hand accounts. This says how well a claim is documented, not whether it is true.

1. 

   Mermaid · Saint Augustine, Florida · 1890

   Saint Augustine, Florida1 independent source

   Witness reports that W. W. Stanton caught a six-foot, pure white, scaleless creature with a human-like head and face, well-defined breasts, and four flippers while fishing off St. Augustine.

2. 

   Mermaid · 対馬, 長崎県 · 1891

   対馬, 長崎県1 independent source

   Fishermen in the sea of Tsushima reportedly killed and ate a creature with a girl's head and human appendages on its pectoral fins, which they identified as a mermaid.

3. 

   Mermaid · Caithness, Alba / Scotland · 1809

   Caithness, Alba / Scotland1 independent source

   Witness reports that two servant girls and a boy saw something in the water which they decided must be a mermaid.

4. 

   Mermaid · Martinique · 1819

   Martinique1 independent source

   Witness reports that persons who saw a merman near Diamond Rock on the coast of Martinique gave in a precise description before a notary.

5. 

   Mermaid · 1608

   location unknown1 independent source

   Witnesses on Henry Hudson's ship in 1608 report sighting a mermaid with white skin, black hair, and a porpoise-like tail that was overturned by a wave.

6. 

   Mermaid · Saint Thomas, United States Virgin Islands

   Saint Thomas, United States Virgin Islands1 independent source

   The narrator and their wife observed a mermaid swimming underwater near a dock at night in St Thomas.

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.