He’s Been Encountering Mermaids Since the 1970s. What They Told Him About Humanity Will Shock You

My name is Robert Callahan. I am seventy‑one years old, and for nearly fifty years I have carried a secret that has weighed on me like a stone.

I was a fisherman. Cod, haddock, halibut. Nets, engines, taxes. Ordinary work that paid mortgages and raised daughters. To anyone who knew me, I was a quiet man who preferred solitude on the water to noise in town.

But since August 1974, I have known something that does not fit into ordinary life. I have seen beings that science denies. I have touched their hands. I have heard their voices. And I have learned truths about why they hide from us.

Now, with a doctor’s prognosis that gives me less than a year, I cannot die with this knowledge locked inside.

II. The First Encounter

August 12, 1974. I was twenty‑four, working my third season on the Mary Catherine, a rust‑streaked trawler I had bought with saved wages.

At dawn, sixty miles offshore, the sea was flat and blue. I hauled nets alone. Then something surfaced twenty yards off starboard.

At first I thought seal. But seals do not float upright.

Binoculars revealed pale shoulders, dark hair, arms moving slowly. A swimmer? Someone lost overboard?

I called out. The figure turned. Eyes too large, nose too flat, mouth too wide. Upright without effort.

Then she dove. Not legs, but a tail. Gray‑blue, powerful, flukes horizontal like a whale.

I stood at the rail, hands shaking. Rational explanations failed. Costume? Hoax? No. The way she moved was too fluid, too certain.

I told no one.

III. The Net

Weeks later, desperate for a catch, I returned to the same coordinates.

The swells were rough. My net came up heavy. Tangled inside was her.

Gray‑blue skin, dark hair, tail wrapped tight, blood streaking pale flesh. Dying.

I should have cut the net loose. Let her sink. But I couldn’t.

Knife in hand, I sawed nylon strand by strand. Fifteen minutes of struggle. She watched me through half‑closed eyes.

Finally, she slid free. Surfaced gasping. Panic in her gaze.

I stripped off boots, tied a rope to the cleat, and went in after her. Cold water bit hard. I held her head above waves for two hours. My arms numbed, legs cramped. Slowly her color returned.

She made sounds. Low, resonant notes that vibrated in my chest. Patterns. Communication.

Then she touched my hand. Webbed fingers cool and smooth. Gratitude.

And she dove.

IV. The Return

The next morning, I drifted at the same spot. At 7:15 she surfaced.

I raised my hand. She circled the boat, watching.

I drew shapes in my waterproof notebook. Fish. Man. She responded with sounds. Three notes. Her name.

I repeated it clumsily. She corrected me. Approval.

For a week, we met daily. I showed her tools, compasses, pictures. She brought shells, coral, relics from the deep.

We built a language. Gestures. Sounds. Yes. No. Danger. Food.

By November, I saw others. Five heads above water, watching from distance. She spoke to them. They answered.

She was not alone.

V. The Pod

Spring 1975. Communication grew. I documented twelve distinct vocalizations. Greeting. Danger. Curiosity. Sadness.

She brought others closer. Males, females, younger ones. They tested me. Watched me. Then accepted me.

One day she asked—through gestures—if her people had once walked on land. She mimed walking, then drew her finger across her throat. Death.

They had walked once. Something had driven them into the sea.

VI. The Stone

June 1975. She surfaced with a rope woven from kelp. Tied it to my rail, dove, returned with a carved stone. Symbols etched deep.

She pointed at herself, at the stone, then down. Civilization. History.

She brought pottery, tools, more stones. A museum beneath the waves.

Then she and the others sang. A layered chorus, ten seconds long. A ritual. A memory.

I realized I was being trusted with knowledge hidden for centuries.

VII. The Years

Through 1976 and beyond, I balanced fishing with secret meetings. My wife Sarah never knew. My daughters grew. I kept notebooks filled with diagrams, phonetic sounds, sketches of artifacts.

She learned gestures quickly. I learned her sounds slowly. We built a fragile bridge across species.

Sometimes she came alone. Sometimes with her pod. Always cautious, always deliberate.

She showed me relics of ships, compasses corroded, shells that shimmered purple and green. She laughed once—her version of laughter—when I offered soup she disliked.

I laughed too.

VIII. The Warning

By 1977, storms kept me from sea for weeks. When I returned, she was agitated. Urgent sounds. Gestures pointing down.

She brought rusted metal from a wreck. Pointed again. Danger.

I understood: something below threatened them. Perhaps us too.

But I lacked equipment, training, courage. I could not dive to their depths.

IX. The Truth

Over years, I pieced fragments. They had once walked land. They had built. They had been hunted. Steel traps scarred their wrists.

They retreated into ocean, hiding from us. Watching. Waiting.

And yet they trusted me.

X. The Silence

By the 1980s, my visits grew fewer. Family, debts, storms. But whenever I returned, she was there.

Older. Wiser. Still watching.

Sometimes she touched my hand. Sometimes she sang.

Always she reminded me: they were real.

XI. The Confession

Now, with cancer in my pancreas, I cannot keep silent.

I do not need belief. I do not need proof.

But I know this: beneath the waves, they are still out there. Intelligent. Compassionate. Scarred by us.

And perhaps still hoping we might prove them wrong about what kind of species we are.