2024 Author: Adelina Croftoon | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 02:07
At the end of the 19th century, two strange creatures, similar at the same time to an animal and a person, were seen floating on the muddy shallows of the Ohio River. Where they came from and where they later disappeared is unknown
At the word "mermaid" usually there is an image of a beautiful girl with a fish tail, who swims in the sea or the open ocean. However, in the United States more than a hundred years ago, people met mermaids in a completely "inappropriate" place - on muddy shoals.
This place is located near the town of Vevey with a population of one and a half thousand people, in Indiana. There is a vast area of muddy shoals, from which rotting stumps of old trees stick out during a decrease in the water level.
Beginning in 1891, reports began to arrive from Vevey that strange creatures, similar to a hybrid of man and fish, were frolicking on these shoals. There were probably few of them, since they had never seen more than two such creatures at a time.
They had no body hair, they had membranes on their fingers, they had sharp claws instead of nails, the ears on their heads were with pointed ends, and the teeth in their mouths were small and very sharp. There were fins on the body in different places.
"The beast is about 5 feet long (155 cm). Its general color is yellowish. The body has four limbs and the lower part of the hind limbs is very narrow. The forelimbs are similar to hands, but with webbing and sharp claws. There is no hair on the body. The ears are pointed and pointed. look like dogs, "- this is how these creatures were described in a report from the newspaper" Cincinnati Enquirer ".
One of the eyewitnesses of these muddy mermaids was Captain J. M. Ozier and he even made a drawing of these creatures, claiming that they were predatory and rather aggressive.
Ozier was sure that the pair of "mermaids" they saw were a male and a female, and when he later saw one male and tried to get closer, the male tried several times to pounce on him and bite.
At some point, journalists in newspapers began to call these creatures muddy mermaids (Mud Mermaids) and this name quickly became common. But nowadays you can also find the name "mermaids from the Ohio River".
“On the sandy spit of the Ohio River off Vevey, Indiana, there are two nondescript creatures, terrible in appearance and habits. They are amphibians by nature and look like huge lizards with human features.
When partially submerged in the yellow waters of Ohio, they look strangely human. No one knows what species they belong to, since it is impossible to get close enough to them to look at them in more detail.
At low tide, this sand spit is covered with huge stumps and snags. When the water level is high enough, these creatures swim here, and when the water recedes, they disappear into some unknown den and wait for the end of the low tide.
In many ways, they appear to be carnivorous. Among the driftwood you can find various molluscs, including mussels, as well as the remains of fish and animals. Those who regularly observed these creatures believe that they eat just such food, - reported in another newspaper of the time.
All this is very curious, but very strange. First of all, because there is no mention anywhere of these strange muddy mermaids before 1891. Over the next few years, reports of them became less and less frequent, completely disappearing by the beginning of the twentieth century.
The Ohio River is the largest tributary of the Mississippi River, which has an outlet to the Atlantic Ocean, so there is a version that once two sea creatures swam into the Ohio River from the ocean and somehow adapted to life in fresh water, settling on the shallows off Vevey.
It is difficult to guess what these creatures were. These could not be dugongs or manatees, since they feed on algae, not mussels or animal remains. In addition, they are quite thick, they do not have claws and noticeable ears.
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