Former CIA Agent Admits They’ve Been Tracking Mermaids Since 1958 – Mermaid Conspiracy

I am seventy-two years old, and for more than four decades, I have carried a secret that has shaped my life and haunted my conscience. My name is Dr. Richard Holstead. From 1980 until my retirement in 2016, I served as a marine biologist in a division so secretive it never appeared on any organizational chart. What we studied was not a weapon, not a foreign adversary, but something far older and more mysterious: intelligent aquatic beings—humanoids of the deep, known only to a few as “mermaids.”

I was born in San Diego, raised among tide pools and kelp forests. My fascination with the ocean led me to a doctorate in marine biology at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. I thought I understood the ocean’s mysteries. I was wrong.

In May 1980, I received a letter on Naval letterhead inviting me to interview for a research position. Expecting a conversation about bioluminescent fish, I instead found myself in a windowless room with two strangers. The older man asked, “Dr. Holstead, if you discovered a species with human-level intelligence in the ocean, would you tell anyone?” I hesitated, sensing the gravity. “Not immediately,” I said. “I’d document it first. Consider the implications.”

Two days later, an envelope arrived at my apartment. It contained nothing but a time and address. I almost ignored it, but curiosity won. That decision changed my life.

II. The Division Without a Name

The address led to a nondescript office park in Virginia. Inside, I was greeted by the same two men. They handed me a non-disclosure agreement and explained the stakes: I would be studying “non-human intelligence entities” in the ocean. I signed.

The older man opened a thick folder and slid across a black-and-white photograph, dated August 1958. It showed a grainy, periscope-level image of open water. In the center was a figure—humanoid, but with odd proportions. “This was taken by the USS Nautilus near Greenland,” he said. “Tracked for seventeen minutes. No diving gear. No mechanical propulsion. It dove to depths exceeding four hundred feet and maintained speeds no human swimmer could match.”

He showed me more photographs—one of a figure with a humanlike torso and a tail, another with a face just beneath the surface, eyes wide and set farther apart than any human’s. “They’re real,” he said. “They’re intelligent. And they avoid us.”

I was stunned. The men explained the division’s mission: to document, observe, and understand these beings without exposing them—or us—to unnecessary risk. I was to begin orientation immediately.

III. The Hidden Record

For six months, I read every classified encounter since 1958: periscope sightings, sonar contacts, blurry underwater footage, and hundreds of witness statements from sailors, researchers, and fishermen. The earliest file described the Nautilus encounter: a humanoid figure swimming with extraordinary speed, diving to impossible depths, and surfacing to observe the submarine.

Every report was consistent: humanoid upper bodies, webbed hands, streamlined forms, tails instead of legs. Eyes that reflected light like a cat’s. They appeared most often near deep-sea trenches, continental shelves, and hydrothermal vents—always at the edge of human reach.

By the 1970s, the Navy had developed specialized sonar and underwater cameras to track these beings. Footage from the late 1970s showed unmistakable forms moving with effortless grace in the deep, sometimes pausing to examine the cameras before vanishing into darkness.

IV. First Contact

In November 1982, I boarded the research vessel Atlantis II for my first field deployment. Our official mission was to study deep-sea ecosystems near the Azores; our true objective was to monitor for “anomalous humanoid” activity.

For days, I watched sonar screens and video feeds, seeing only fish and the occasional shark. Then, one night, something flashed across the monitor—too fast for a diver, too smooth for a dolphin. Frame by frame, I saw it: a humanoid shape, arms tucked, tail undulating, moving at speeds no human could survive.

We deployed a mobile camera. Hours later, the lights caught her: a female, forty feet from the lens, hovering in the water, body streamlined, hair drifting in the current. Her eyes reflected a pale green. For seventeen minutes, she watched us. Then, with a flick of her tail, she vanished.

We recorded everything. I wrote a forty-seven-page report. The data was undeniable: these beings existed, and they were aware of us.

V. Patterns in the Past

Between expeditions, I was granted access to a unique archive: centuries of historical accounts, folklore, and sailor’s logs referencing aquatic humanoids. From Babylonian tablets to medieval ship logs to indigenous legends, I found a pattern: sightings clustered near deep water, often during periods of low human activity. When human presence increased, sightings stopped.

The most striking accounts described cooperative hunting, vocalizations that resembled language, and avoidance of human settlements. The beings were not monsters—they were elusive, intelligent, and organized.

VI. The Attempt at Dialogue

By the late 1980s, our division launched an ambitious project: to establish communication. We deployed underwater speakers broadcasting mathematical sequences—prime numbers, ratios, patterns. For months, there was no reply.

Then, off Tasmania, we received a sequence in response: four more prime numbers, matching our rhythm and frequency. We tried visual signals—light arrays displaying shapes and patterns. Off the Mariana Trench, a female approached and traced the same patterns with her hand, then added new ones: spirals, intersecting lines, complex forms.

The breakthrough came when a male, larger than any we’d seen, manipulated our light beams to create images—schools of beings, geometric structures, the fading of light into darkness. He showed us his world. For thirty-four minutes, we witnessed a conversation beyond words.

VII. The Hidden Civilization

In 2003, a deep submersible expedition to the Mariana Trench changed everything. At twelve thousand feet, our lights revealed stone structures—entrances, tunnels, chambers, all built into the trench wall. We sent drones inside. The tunnels were smooth and regular, the chambers vast, with carved benches and markings on the walls.

On a later dive, a drone encountered a male humanoid. He examined the device, detached its cable, and carried it deeper into the tunnels, which were lit by an unknown source. Our equipment was never recovered. The message was clear: we were being watched, and our presence was tolerated only at a distance.

VIII. The Ethics of Discovery

As I read more, I found a disturbing pattern in history. Every time these beings became visible to humans, the result was violence or exploitation. Ship logs described the capture and display of “merfolk” as curiosities. Diaries detailed failed attempts to keep them alive in tanks. Legends spoke of hunts and disappearances.

The beings had learned to hide—not out of weakness, but from experience. Our attempts at communication were met with caution, not curiosity. They had seen what happened when humans discovered something valuable and vulnerable.

IX. The Crossroads

In the last years of my career, new technology emerged—satellite imaging, advanced sonar, machine learning algorithms. The agency’s focus shifted from passive observation to active tracking. The goal: to map every population of these beings worldwide.

For the first time, I questioned my role. What right did we have to expose them? What would humans do if we succeeded? History suggested the answer was not coexistence, but control.

X. The Last Warning

Now, as I write this, I am no longer bound by silence. My conscience outweighs my oath. The beings I studied are not monsters or myths. They are intelligent, social, and cautious. They have culture, technology, and the right to remain undiscovered.

If we expose them, we risk repeating the mistakes of the past—treating them as curiosities, resources, or threats. The ocean is vast, but our reach grows every year. If we are not careful, we may force them into extinction before we even understand what we have found.

This is my testimony. I have provided coordinates, dates, and evidence to those who can verify it. I do not expect the world to believe me at once. But as new anomalies are recorded, as new technologies reveal what has always been hidden, remember this: some mysteries are not meant to be solved. Some secrets are not ours to share.

If you ever find yourself on a quiet shore, looking out over the endless blue, remember that you are not alone. There are eyes in the deep, watching, hoping we will choose respect over curiosity, protection over conquest.

The future of two worlds may depend on that choice.