Mermaid murmurs
★ MERMAIDS are one of the most mysterious creatures to swim out of the oceans.
Real or myth, they get people in a flap and so much so they’re even celebrated with their own International Mermaid Day today.
★ Here KIM CARR dives into 10 splashing facts about mermaid sightings from history…
1 When he was sailing off the coast of Caribbean island Hispaniola, Christopher Columbus claimed he saw three mermaids. He said they were not beautiful, with female faces and flowing locks, but ugly and masculine. Historians dispute the tale and reckon he saw manatees.
2 During WW2, Japanese soldiers in the Kai Islands of Indonesia said they came into contact with many mermaids. They were described as being 150cm tall with spikes on their shoulders, necks and spine, having a mouth like carp, salmon-pink skin, two frog-like long fins and long arms.
3 In 2012 work-ers on a dam in Zimbabwe abandoned their posts after claiming to see mermaids. New blokes hired after the originals quit told of the same experience and also gave up the gig leaving the dam still unfinished now.
4 Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder wrote about mermaids in his book Natural History, telling of how Emperor Augustus’s soldiers in France found a group dead by the sea and claimed they could sink a ship if they went on board and stayed too long.
5 English adventurer Captain John Smith, behind the first permanent English settlement in North America at Jamestown, Virginia, fell in love with a mermaid according to Edward Snow’s Incredible Mysteries And Legends Of The Sea book.
6 Painter Samuel Fallours cre6 ated the image of a mermaid on canvas. He said he caught one and took her to his house, where he kept her in water before she died from starvation four days later.
7 American entertainment businessman P.T. Barnum promised people they could see his own “Feejee Mermaid” at his shows but fans were horrified by the sight of a dead monkey sewn to a fish.
8 In 1967, tourists 8 on a ferry in Canada said they saw a mermaid with silvery blonde hair eating a salmon.
9 The Israeli government of-fered a nearly £1million reward in 2009 for mermaid footage after reports of sightings. No celluloid evidence emerged.
10 Dive master Jeff Leicher was exploring off the Kona coast in Hawaii on April 12, 1998, when he reckoned a mermaid brushed against him and he managed to take a photo. The incident was witnessed by 10 others who said the mermaid is genuine.