Singapore (CNN)"We're all weird here," Syrena says, as she sits on the pool step flipping her tail in the water as her students bob beneath the surface practicing their breathing.
The founder of Singapore's first Mermaid School is on a mission to create the city-state's first pod.
"I wanted to create a community where people who shared the same interests could come together," Syrena says, who's also a mermaid performer otherwise known as Cara Nicole Neo.
The fascination with mermaids dates back to "time immemorial," according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which issued a statement denying their existence in 2013.
"Magical female figures first appear in cave paintings in the late Paleolithic (Stone Age) period some 30,000 years ago, when modern humans gained dominion over the land and, presumably, began to sail the seas," the NOAA said.
However, it concluded "no evidence of aquatic humanoids has ever been found."
The statement followed a blockbuster episode of Animal Planet -- "Mermaids: The Body Found" -- which claimed to show new evidence of aquatic humanoids. The episode, later revealed to be a hoax, delivered record-beating ratings.
More recently, Disney's animated rendition of author Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid" thrust Ariel front-and-center of mermaid lore, backed by a huge merchandising machine.