The ancient Roman writer Pliny described mermaids from Gaul (modern France, Luxembourg, Belgium and western Germany). He said there were a lot of people who washed up on the shore, who were covered in ...

In reality, tales of the kraken probably stemmed from people seeing washed-up giant squids and large octopuses that had been partly digested or started to rot. In the live-action Little Mermaid, ...

'In Norway, the kraken myth grew and such washed-up specimens were interpreted as messages from God or the Devil, sometimes called sea angels, sea devils or sea monks.' Illustration from Japetus ...

The mermaid globster hasn't been the only bizarre corpse to wash up on shores in recent years. For example, in 2008, the "Montauk Monster" turned up on Long Island, sparking theories about an ...