The Real-Life Little Mermaid (The 1891 Sea Girl Case)

In 1891, a group of children in La Crique-Sac, France, saw something impossible—an unnamed girl crawling out of the Atlantic. Her clothes were soaked, but her skin was bone dry. She didn’t speak, didn’t blink, and hummed slow, unfamiliar melodies at night. The nuns at a nearby convent school took her in, believing she was a castaway, but strange things happened wherever she walked. Water turned cloudy when she touched it, students grew pale and silent, and soon girls began disappearing.

Shoes were found on the beach filled with wet sand. On the fifteenth morning, her bed was empty. All that remained were giant iridescent fish scales scattered across the sheets and a neat pile of human finger bones on the pillow. The room was sealed—and remains sealed to this day.