It is fairly common knowledge that the world is made up of mostly water and of all of the

oceans and bodies of water in the world, we have only been able to explore less than
5% of it. There are creatures that might not have been discovered by humans.
This fact has led many people from conspiracy theorists, normal people, and even
scientists to believe in the existence of mermaids. Athough they may not believe that
there are typical fairy tale mermaids with beautiful hair and long tail swimming around in
the ocean, they do believe there is some sort of human-like creature that exists in the
ocean. This belief was popular in the 70s and 80s with the rise of the “aquatic ape
theory” and later died but recently, a lot of information about this belief can be found on
the internet and there seems to have been an increase in popularity of “conspiracy
videos” on YouTube and many YouTubers have touched on this subject. Animal Planet
also has come out with a documentary recently that raised awareness to the possibility
of the existence of mermaids called Mermaids: The Body Found and increased the
popularity of this belief. This is considered an extraordinary belief because it contradicts
our current belief that humans evolved from primates which are land animals and are
not adapted to live in the sea so how could there be human-like creatures living in the
ocean?

The most important piece of “evidence” for this belief in mermaids is a theory called the
“aquatic ape theory” which essentially states that millions of years ago the primates that
preceded humans may have been competing for food so some of them could have
chosen to find food on land instead of trees which is why we walk on two legs, but even
then there was too much competition and because the Earth is made up of so much
water, some had to have started looking for food in the water. Those who started
hunting in the water must have adapted themselves to live in the water. That must have
been the beginning of mermaids. This theory seems to be supported by many of our
characteristics on our bodies. For example, we have very little body hair which helps us
swim faster, we can hold our breaths underwater longer than other land animals, we are
pretty good swimmers, our fingers shrivel up in the water which makes it easier to grip
things in water, and we seem to have a little bit of webbing in between our fingers and
some people are even born with completely webbed hands. Also there are been many
instances in which people have put their babies in pools or water and they instinctively
know to hold their breaths and swim.