A woman is claiming to be a mermaid after authorities spotted her walking down the middle of a street in Fresno, California, mostly naked with wet hair and webbed toes on both feet.
The Fresno Police Department said they found the unidentified woman early Tuesday morning, according to CBS News. According to a statement that was released late Tuesday, the woman told police that she had been in the water, and said she was a mermaid named Joanna.
“She was wet, she said she had been in the lake, said she needed help and needed to be taken to the hospital,” Fresno Police Lt. Mark Hudson told YourCentralValley.com, which noted that police believe they have identified her but are withholding her possible name.
As police asked the woman more questions to get insight into who she really is, she mostly answered by saying, “I don’t know.”
The woman was then taken to a police station, but after being fingerprinted and going through other protocol, police still weren’t able to determine who she was, and they called on the public for help, according to CBS News.
“We did go through records after fingerprinting her and we still did not come up with her identity,” Hudson said.
Fresno police took to Facebook, asking people on social media if they could identify the so called mermaid.
“Help identify this female,” Fresno police said in the Facebook post.
The post has been shared by more than 2,200 people, and some are even saying they’ve seen the woman at a local Starbucks on multiple occasions, according to CBS News.
“She is a nice, quiet, polite girl that comes to Starbucks every once in a while,” one Facebook user wrote. “I’ve forwarded transaction info from the last time we saw her to FPD.”
According to the Daily Mail, police said the woman is between 16 and 30 years of age. She has brown eyes and brown hair and is about 5’4 and 150 pounds.
If anyone knows anything about her, authorities are encouraging them to call 559-621-2455.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.