This is not my story, as it belongs to an individual who posted on Reddit under r/mermaids with a prompt asking, “Does anyone have legit mermaid stories or encounters?”
This is something that’s been bothering me for years. I’m 20F, and when I was 13, my dad and my younger brother went to Thailand. We traveled to Phi Phi islands by boat and stopped at different islands to snorkel.
On one of these stops, my brother and I were right next to each other, looking at a fish that I found really cute. To paint the picture a bit better: at this moment, we were snorkeling in the water right by a floating island, while the others in our group were a bit further away from this island. This island was like a chunk of land that extended downward into the water rather than having a gradual slope.
Suddenly, our dad called out for us. Someone in our group saw a small shark, and everyone gathered around to see it. My brother swam over there, but I stayed put and kept watching the different fish that were swimming close to me.
Then, something caught my attention. There seemed to be smaller caves underwater by the shore, and I saw something slowly coming out of there. It was similar to a human head, facing down towards the bottom of the ocean. I completely froze up and kept staring. The “person” floated out of the cave, never faced up towards the surface, and did it REALLY slowly. Nothing of this person (that I could see) was moving. By this point, I could see the back of the head and most of the back. The person had sparse black hair, slicked down to the scalp. Their skin looked gray, and the spine was extremely pronounced. I was so sure that I was looking at a corpse. I couldn’t breathe or move. Time stood still. The person kept floating out of the cave, and that’s when I saw its tail. The tail was dark gray and looked like a stereotypical mermaid tail. I blinked multiple times, convinced I was hallucinating, but I kept seeing it. I’ve never believed in the supernatural, but this thing was only a few meters below me, and I could see it so clearly. I felt a sense of danger, I knew that I wasn’t supposed to be seeing this, and I was terrified that it would see me and attack me. The thing never once looked up. Once it was out, it swayed to the side and kept a close distance to the island, and disappeared into another cave.
After a few seconds, I snapped out of it and quickly swam to my dad and brother. I burst into tears and frantically told them that we had to get back on the boat right away. My dad asked me what happened, and I told him. Obviously, he didn’t believe me and got furious at me for “lying”. When we got back to the boat, I told them again, and stood by the fact that I wasn’t lying. My father told me that he really hoped I was, that it was either a lie or that I was insane and had to be locked up in a mental hospital. I knew how crazy all of this sounded, and honestly, I didn’t even believe myself. I decided to tell him that I made it all up.
Since that day, I’ve tried to convince myself that I made it all up, but I’ve never experienced any hallucinations, and I know what I saw. I’ve told others, but of course, most of them thought I made it up. It’s so insanely frustrating, feeling like you’re being gaslit by the entire world, and I truly hope that someone out there believes me.