Myths and mysteries

Published April 13, 2013

Who or what is the Ningen?

Strange and unique creatures, all big and small live on our planet. On the ground, under the earth, in icy regions and in the vast oceans and seas. It is said that we have still to discover a lot on this planet of ours, as quite a bit of it remains unexplored. But since we are all enthralled by mystery and want to believe in the unbelievable, sometimes it becomes difficult to understand what creatures really exist undetected from the prying eyes of us humans. Here we have a most unusual tale or tail in the waters around Japan. The mystery is fairly new. A research team was sailing the waters looking for whales. Suddenly, a crewmember spotted something floating on the water. At first sight everyone else thought it was a submarine of some sort. Then taking a better look revealed something strange. A white skinned long creature, which looked almost humanlike. It is rumoured that they even snapped some pictures just before the creature sank into the water. The team, it is alleged, reported the unusual incident to the authorities who took away their photographs and did their best to suppress the story for reasons of ridicule and possible more funding for research. But as they say the truth shall be told one way or another. The story spread around the area through the Internet and a Japanese magazine called Mu got really interested in the enigma and published the story. As more and more people came to know of the baffling account more people came forward with stories of the human-like creature being seen. The bizarre creature was named “Ningen”, which means “human” in Japanese. With an enormous size of about 60 feet to 90 feet, this strange beast or sea creature has been described as having a blubbery whale-like skin, which is white and is supposed to have arms like fins with fingers. It has two separate tails, which give the appearance of the entire form being quite like that of a very large white human. When these Pacific fishermen saw this puzzling form in the 1990s, they were also astounded by its huge size. The face, it is said has a strange humanoid look with two eyes, a flattish nose and a slit of a mouth. But so far the photographs that have appeared and the eyewitness accounts are not enough evidence to prove that the creature is real. The eyewitnesses could have mistaken a human-like form of an ice floe or maybe saw an unknown kind of ray fish which also seem to look unusually human-like as far as their facial features are concerned and are quite large at times. And the photos? Well, they could be hoaxes that aren’t difficult to do in this day of clever imaging and graphics. The grainy video film too could be a hoax. But since we are into mysteries here, lets suppose that there might be some element of truth to this sinister sea creature. So what could this thing be? It is an accepted fact even by scientists and researchers that we have only identified 20 per cent of all the species that live in the vast oceans of the planet. There are so many possibilities of finding strange and unique species as we discover more of the hidden creatures that we find in the dark depths of the oceans especially if their habitat is under the icy surfaces of the waters. Paranormal enthusiasts too have their own explanations. In old Japanese legends, Yokai are mystical creatures that live under water and can appear to have animal like appearances. This is because the only people who seem to have seen these creatures are Japanese sailors. So do paranormal entities float in the waters around Japan? Now let’s get a little scientific in our mystery- hunting. Since the article about the Ningen also showed a Google Maps image of something like the said creature in the South Atlantic Ocean around the coast of Namibia, we can suppose that if this thing is real, could it be a secret experiment to breed a strong race of water humanoids? Bizarre, but possible, in this day and age of cloning, inter-breeding and what –not kind of experiments that might be going on. A possible scenario many think because these creatures are a very recent discovery. The other possibility could be that since the Antarctic Ice and other frozen regions around the world are melting due to global warming, we are witness to a hidden species that were previously living their lives in the frozen regions of the unknown depths of the oceans. And now we come to the intriguing possibility of some sort of water-based life form from the cosmos, another world, watery perhaps or a species capable to adapting to a wet and cold environment. Why not? As it has been surmised that life might be abundant in the cosmos according to even sceptics. But whether it has or will be here on Earth is an ongoing debate. Nevertheless, if we entertain the thought that it might be an alien life form underwater, it will also coincide with the theory of the many people who say that they have seen strange crafts coming from above and going into the water or emerging from the ocean and zooming off into the skies. Some say that if they are alien in origin, they might not be purely biological but maybe some sort of mechanical intelligent android forms sent or made to scan the waters. The concept seems quite far-fetched but then that is what we are talking about. However we should not forget that the legendary “Kraken” in folklore which was said to be a humongous octopus-like sea monster, previously laughed at by researchers was confirmed to exist in the salty depths in the form of an extremely large squid-like species capable of battling even a large whale. So, maybe there is something like the Ningen roaming about the Pacific, Antarctic, and even as some reports suggest the Atlantic oceans? The enigma might end one day if this intriguing creature is washed ashore on some remote beach or maybe years from now a frozen specimen is found in the frozen ice of a glacier just like the woolly mammoth.

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