The Nashville Mermaid Sighting: Diving Into the Case More

Last month, shortly after I published, “A Mermaid in Nashville: Does She Live in Percy Priest Lake?,” I received an email from William Uchtman about the Nashville mermaid sighting.

William sometimes contributes content to Haunt Jaunts. He’s a fellow Middle Tennessean who I’ve known pretty much since I started HJ back in 2009.

He had been of the same mindset that I was when he learned that Paranormal Caught on Camera would feature a possible mermaid sighting in Nashville. That is to say, suspicious. Not only did we both douth the veracity of such an incident, but we questioned whether they meant Nashville proper or a lake in the close vicinity.

We were both interested to find that it was the lake closest to Nashville’s downtown: Percy Priest Lake.

The Mermaid and the Dam

I was excited it had happened at Percy Priest because that’s where our boat is docked. But I grew even more interested after watching the Paranormal Caught on Camera mermaid segment because to me it looked like she’d been filmed near the dam.

Our slip faces the dam. This has given me something new to look for every time we go out to the boat besides blue herons. (They’re my favorites.) But I’m also constantly keeping watch for bald eagles, ever since I saw one on Christmas soaring above the marina, as well as otters. I didn’t know there were any out there until they decided to use our deck as their toilet this winter. I’d like to see them and not just their poop!

Hoax or Prank?

I knew, however, that it was not likely a real mermaid had been caught on camera. Still, it was fun because it had happened somewhere I was familiar with. It also gave me another reason to get excited about getting back on the water this spring.

But William confirmed my suspicions it was fake when he emailed a link to a Hoax or Fact article about the Nashville mermaid sighting. It talked about the viral video where the woman gets all excited about seeing a mermaid swimming in the lake —that allegedly no one else pays any mind to.

Even in the Paranormal Caught on Camera clip, I could tell it was a woman swimming. The so-called experts on the show tried to point out that she had fins instead of arms and swam very fast. I saw hands, not fin arms. Also, they have clearly never been swimmers. Put a pair of fins on and dolphin kick. You can definitely swim faster than a person without such enhancements!

What’s not clear is if the woman who filmed the mermaid was in on the joke or not. It doesn’t seem like she is. It seems like she genuinely thought she was seeing a real mermaid.

Deciphering Location Clues

Anyway, my big thing wasn’t so much trying to figure out if the mermaid was hoaxed or a prank. I wanted to know exactly where in Percy Priest she had been filmed and if it was near the dam like I suspected.

To me, it looked like it because the rocks in the video look like the ones at the dam.

Except, I was confused by the cars driving “under” the woman’s vehicle. If she had been parked at the dam overlook, that wouldn’t be possible. There was no way for cars to do that. So where else could she have been parked?

As I made a video using part of the clip from Paranormal Caught on Camera, I realized I was mistaken. The cars I noticed in her video were from her rearview mirror. That made more sense.

I’m still pretty sure it’s at the dam, but not positive. In case the mermaid decides to reappear on a hot day this summer, I want to have the best chance possible of knowing where to look for her. If I happen to catch her, you know you’ll be hearing about it!

What Else Paranormal Caught on Camera Fudged

One thing I know, the Devil really is in the details. The “Mermaid in Nashville” Paranormal Caught on Camera segment introduces Percy Priest Lake and shows an awesome lakeside park. People are riding bikes and walking on the paths, and in the distance, there’s a nice marina.

Wayne and I were both like, “Where is that and how come we’ve never been there yet?”

We’ve been to all of the marinas around Percy Priest and the parks too. None of them look like that.

Wherever it is, it’s not Nashville. It took me a second to realize the dead giveaway though: the mountain that’s across the water.

We have hills in Nashville, but no mountains like that. That looks more like someplace in the Northwest or maybe even Canada. (It reminded me a lot of Victoria, B.C., but then again my mind is often there.)

Anyway, I had to point out that Paranormal Caught on Camera clearly uses stock footage in their episodes and they’re not necessarily representative of the places they’re featuring.

Watch as the Search Begins

I plan to make more videos of our excursions aboard the SS Restless Spirit this year, but here’s a short one I made showing the layout of our slip in relation to Percy Priest Dam.

Check-In

Have you ever caught a paranormal show misrepresenting something about where you live too?