The Feejee Mermaid - Odd history

The true story of one of the most ridiculous hoaxes ever. The Feejee Mermaid was made famous by P.T. Barnum when it was shown to audiences in 1842. Subtitles in English and Spanish. Follow Crypticc! Twitter: ****** Facebook: ****** Music: Enchanting Adventures by Jay Man (ourmusicbox.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License ****** No changes were made to this work. Cherry Blossom Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License ****** Image: Wellcome Library, London By: Edward Purcell Collection: Iconographic Collections Library reference no.: ICV No 7688 Full Bibliographic Record Link to Wellcome Library Catalogue Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0****** Subscribe to Crypticc for more.

Mermaids...whether they are depicted as symbols of beauty or harbingers of doom that lead boats astray, they've fascinated mankind for centuries. This is probably the reason why in 1822, a sea captain from America named Samuel Barett Edes was willing to steal $6,000 of his ship's money to buy what he believed to be a real mermaid specimen from Japanese sailors. In 1822, $6,000 was worth about as much as $140,000 today, so you'd think that what Edes bought would probably be worth it, right? Wrong. Edes had been swindled by the Japanese sailors who had actually sold him a hybrid specimen that had the upper body of an orangutan sewn on to the body of a large salmon. Edes took the thing to London where he had it displayed, but he never recouped the money he spent on it. He died believing that the mermaid was real, and he left it to his son after his death. His son sold it to the Boston Museum in 1842 and shortly thereafter the mermaid caught the attention of none other than PT Barnum, the creator of Barnum & Bailey circus and a famous purveyor of curiosities, sideshow attractions and hoaxes. Barnum, who was a master at generating public interest, fooled newspapers with fake letters alluding to a mysterious Dr. Griffin who had allegedly caught a mermaid off of the South American coast. The doctor wished to keep the mermaid a secret, showing it only to a select few. In reality, Dr. Griffin was Levi Lyman, an associate of Barnum and the story about the doctor was a ruse to spark word of mouth and interest in the mermaid. I guess you could say it was like 19th century viral marketing. Newspapers also ran woodcuts, some of which depicted beautiful sea maidens that seemed plucked straight out of a fairy tale. It's obvious that Barnum had no hang ups about false advertising. The exhibition took place in New York and was a monumental success. The mermaid went on to tour the American south, where it was less successful. Barnum eventually moved on to other endeavors. Unfortunately in the 1860s the mermaid is believed to have been destroyed when Barnum's entire collection caught fire. But by this point, the concept of the feejee mermaid had become so popular that copycats had sprouted in sideshows and curio shops all over the world. If you liked this video, please subscribe to Crypticc for more.