You just can’t make this stuff up. In southern Africa, two dam projects were in danger of being thwarted by … mermaids. According to the Weird Wide Web, the “mermaids had harassed workers installing water pumps at a dam near the small town of Gokwe, in northern Zimbabwe, according to local media reports.” And similar reports came from a project at the “Osborne Dam, near Mutare in the country’s east.”

“Water resources minister Samuel Sipepa Nkomo told a Senate committee last week that work on the pumps at Gokwe dam had stopped after terrified workers complained of machines breaking down under mysterious circumstances, and blamed mermaids, the state-run Herald newspaper reported.” Nkomo suggested that traditional rituals be performed at both dam sites, and that apparently included the use of “traditionally brewed beer, to rid them of the mermaid menace.” And apparently it did the trick. The “mermaid-plagued dam in Zimbabwe is up and working after traditional healers brewed beer to appease the mischievous water spirits.” Who knew?