People have always been fascinated and terrified by the ocean. Stories of sea monsters can be found even in places that have been landlocked for a long time. One of these creatures is a mermaid, half-human and half-blood that lives in the mysterious blue depths. Sometimes they were friendly and helped people lost at sea. In other cases, they caused shipwrecks and carried the victim into the abyss of the sea.
The earliest records of mermaids came from Assyria and date back to around 1000 BC, but their depictions in cave paintings are much older. The Karoo Desert in South Africa is home to a series of caves inhabited by humans thousands of years ago.
The paintings on the walls show mysterious creatures with fish tails, and the legends of the local Bushmen tell of strange and evil water spirits. These spirits sometimes take the form of beautiful women, luring and drowning anyone who dares to walk through their territory.
The legends are interesting and date back thousands of years, but can they be more than just fairy tales? Perhaps mermaids are just a product of a rich imagination, backed up by something we could never achieve - the dream of mastery over the depths of the sea.
Given the possibility that alien species have been visiting Earth for many years, it can be assumed that some of the aliens may have been aquatic creatures. After all, life tends to colonize all environments.
We know very little about what our oceans contain. Recent advances in satellite imagery have revealed underwater mountain ranges we had no idea about. In fact, more people have visited outer space than the Mariana Trench, the deepest point in the Pacific Ocean. Every deep sea expedition discovers previously unknown species of animals, and many discoveries are yet to come.
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While the subject of mermaids has attracted the attention of many, it is difficult to find convincing evidence. But the lack of evidence is not an argument either.