Ningen (folklore)
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| Creature information | |
|---|---|
| Other name | 人間 Human in Japan |
| Grouping | Sea cryptid |
| Sub grouping | aquatic humanoid |
| Similar entities | land Ningen |
| Folklore | Japanese folklore |
| Origin | |
| First attested | "2005" |
| Known for | being spotted by fishing boats |
| Country | Japan |
| Region | Subantarctic, Antarctica |
| Habitat | deep antarctic water and ice sheets |
In modern Japanese folklore since the mid-2000s, the Ningen (ニンゲン) is an aquatic humanoid whale-like and mermaid-like creature with other sighting suggesting it has two legs and roams ice sheets in Antarctica, supposedly inhabiting the subantarctic oceans and ice sheets. It was invented by Japanese 2chan users with collaborators all over the world. By late 2007, the Japanese paranormal magazine Mu had published an article about a mysterious white figure spotted on Google Earth off the coast of Namibia, describing it as potentially a “human-shaped monster called ningen or hitogata.” The magazine acknowledged the 2channel origins but also connected the creature to an older account of an unusual sighting by the crew of a research vessel called the Soya-maru in 1958.[1][2][3]
The story of the Ningen began in 2007 on a post on the Japanese online forum, 2channel, which claimed that the crew of a whale research ship witnessed the creature as it surfaced near their ship off the Antarctic coast.[4] Originally thinking it was a submarine, they went to take a closer look, but the "submarine" vanished into the waves.[citation needed] In 2005, Google Earth captured what some people believed to be a Ningen near the Southern Ocean. Skeptics suggest that the "Ningen" was actually an iceberg or beluga whale that coincidentally looked like the sea monster.[citation needed] In 2010, the Japanese Enoshima Aquarium published a YouTube video showing the ocean life that they observed. Near the end of the video, a large object appearing to have small eyes and a large, slit-like mouth can be spotted lying on the ocean floor. It was claimed that the video shows the Ningen.[5][citation needed] However, the aquarium identifies the object as an unusual rock formation in the shape of a frog, with two sponges forming its "eyes".[5] Sometime around the 2010s, an unknown user posted underwater footage depicting a large humanoid sea creature which some believe to be the Ningen.[6]
Description
The Ningen is described in two forms; one has it as a large, aquatic, whale-like creature with anatomical similarities to humans, such as a distinct, humanoid face; sometimes it is given extremely large limbs and/or arms and hands, about 20–30 m (65–100 feet) long.[7] The second, less common, description portrays it as a considerably smaller, terrestrial organism that consists of little more than a large head on humanoid legs about 10-6 m (32-19 feet),[8] with which wanders Antarctica.[9] The pigmentation of this creature is said to be pale blue. The creature has a large, slit-like mouth and either small or large gaping eyes.[7]
