Mermaids – are they real? – Adventure's pub

Mermaids or “mammy water” as we know them in Nigeria, are they real?

It was a bright lovely day in December 1983, I had just come back from school, I was in primary 4.

The previous day, my father had thrown away my plastic ball over the fence in annoyance because i came back from school, refused to complete my home work and proceeded to enjoy a game of football all by myself as I had no one to play with; I was a protected kid and the only boy for more than five years.

I got back from school, having bought another ball with my lunch fees because I was given free lunch by the cooks because my mum was the headmistress of the school.

I played my heart out in my lone game dribbling imaginary opponents and scoring so many goals Messi would be ashamed today.

One second I was scoring goals, the next I saw myself flying headlong in a perfect dive into the raised but uncovered water well in my compound.

I hit the water, curled up in foetal position and tumbled to the bottom, on the way down I tried screaming but water rushed into my mouth and I knew to keep my mouth shut.

I hit the bottom and instinctively pushed myself up, as I rose back to the surface my life flashed past me, all I had done, my friends, my brother and sisters, my parents crying, everything flashed in that brief moment. I saw all my past and a glimpse of the immediate future of my death in that brief instant!

I broke the surface and started tumbling again. when I reached bottom, I pushed myself up again, this time as I broke the surface, something told me to spread myself out so I wouldn’t go back down so I wedged my self speared eagle in the well which was the position my father and neighbours met me to effect a rescue.

Hehehe, yes there was no mermaid; it was a water well not the sea!

But are mermaids real? I’m not talking about spiritual stuffs I am talking about real flesh and blood beings living in the oceans and lagoons.

I worked in Eket for a few years, I worked offshore and made it a point to look into the sea anytime I was free or at the boat landing all in hope of sighting a mermaid aside seeing the ever playful dolphins, jelly fishes, stingrays and occasionally courting whales, I didn’t see one. However I heard stories and was involved at a time with a lady who had a mermaid husband, yes you heard me, mermaid husband who gave her money and jewellery whenever she needed it, but it was spiritual because I never got to see the mermaid guy.

Later I launched into learning more and to see if I could meet one. These were some of what I found out.

1. I came to understand that we know more about outer space than we know of what lies beneath our oceans, if we take into account we know so very little about what’s in space then we know absolutely nothing about what’s in our oceans. So mermaid could certainly exist.

2. Fishermen have caught fishes in high seas and found spears made of fish bones embedded in their sides, some sharks have been disemboweled and remains of humanoid creatures with fish like features found in them.

Russian fishermen have a short clip of something caught in their net that lunged at them and slipped back into the sea as the crane operator panicked.

During a US navy sonic weapon test that caused mass beach washing of dead aquatic animals, two young brothers came across a mermaid right in the beach!

3. Why do dolphins save humans or hunt with us? Asian fishermen work in collaboration with dolphins who drive fish into their nets and the fishermen give the dolphins their own share after the cash right in open seas! These fishermen stand in shallow waters and call out to the dolphins in the sea, these dolphins drive and herd the fish towards the fishermen who spread their nets to haul in the catch. The dolphins must have been hunting with human like creatures in the seas!

4. I read a story when I was about 15, a boy mermaid was caught in USSR by fishermen who asked him to tell them where it came from with a promise to release him back into the sea, he did but they refused to keep the bargain, and he said before they turned him over to Russian scientists that USSR would break up within two years. This was at a time USSR breaking up seemed impossible, I watched to see if its predictions would come true and behold it did as USSR split under Gobarchev!

5. Traditions in Nigeria of Osun worshippers involve sacrifice to mermaids who show up when summoned. Fishermen in Epe in Lagos attest to mermaids showing up especially when angry with how they fish.

There is the story of the man named Julius Berger, yes, the same coy that construct roads who died building a bridge after capturing 2 mermaids whom asked to be released but he refused. I remember reading a story decades ago in a newspaper about a man who was having a swim at bar beach and seeing a Caucasian male far ahead in the water swam up to him trying to prove that he could best the man in swimming only for him to get near and few minutes later the man did the dolphin dive and he saw he had a fish tail!

Below are some videos clips.
The main one is of two brothers who went inspecting beached whales (attributed to US navy sonic weapons tests, there was a similar beaching of a whale in Lagos at the bar beach), the younger filmed with one of the earlier versions of camera phones whilst the older one took a stick to prod a strange creature and it turned out to be a humanoid creature.