The Mystery of the Monkey Man - Desperation Disguised as an Intergalactic Cyborg

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:05]May 14th, 2001. New Delhi, India, home to about 14 million people at the time.

[00:00:13]It's dense. It's crowded. And that month, the heat wave caused the city to reach a maximum temperature of 115° F during the day. Slums expand, infrastructure crumbles, clean water becomes harder to find, and rolling blackouts darken the streets at night.

[00:00:31]The exhausted and overheated residents are on the verge of a collective breakdown. To keep cool, tens of thousands of residents have begun sleeping on rooftop terraces at night since the hot air has been trapped inside their homes. But as quick as they were to escape the dangers of their homes, they ended up exposing themselves to the dangers of a much more terrifying presence. A feral creature roaming the city walkways and climbing up the sides of buildings.

[00:01:00]A father upon one of these rooftops watches over his children sleeping beside him. Their home had lost power, and his neighborhood is nearly as dark as the night sky. First comes the distant scuttle of a nuisance down below in the street and back alleys. Then comes a distant scream that echoes off the cement concrete walls. Only the clouded moonlight guides the father's eyes. This father, devoid of sleep, sits upright before seeing what lies in the shadows of the dense city buildings. He looks to the terrace opposite his own where his neighbor is sleeping.

[00:01:37]Out of the shadows, a 4- foot tall humanoid creature covered in thick jet black hair emerges. The features upon this creature's face, although similar, are not that of a man's. The humanoid has a flat face. Its eyes are sunken, beady, and glowing faint red. Its teeth are sharp inside its large, round mouth.

[00:02:01]Long metallic claws extend from its fingertips, and the creature raises its arms above its head, preparing to strike. Sleepdeprived, the father thinks his dreams have twisted into his reality as he watches the shining claws descend upon his sleeping neighbor. By morning, others would confirm they had not only seen the same thing, but they had suffered scratch marks and gouges across their arms and necks by a wild creature they had never seen before. The Kala Bandar, the monkey man. Phone calls came flooding into the police, often from poor neighborhoods that had continuously lost power. Dozens were reportedly injured, and some of those were proven to be legitimate animal bites of some kind.

[00:02:47]Soon the city would set up a medical board to examine those who were injured.

[00:02:52]And while some questioned whether the colabandar was real or not, many were already convinced a violent creature had brought terror to their family homes.

[00:03:01]They desperately wanted to know where did this beast come from? How could they stop it? And what exactly did it want?

[00:03:21]Welcome to Doo Geese See God, a palendrome turd podcast where I cover true stories, bizarreities, wonders, and folklore from across the world and back.

[00:03:30]I'm your host, Austin Lee, a washedup millennial hipster who thinks he can podcast. And deep behind the wires and cameras and everything, all the studio debris, we have Robert back there helping me out.

[00:03:43]>> What's up, Banana Man?

[00:03:45]>> What up, dude? And here in her bed, as always, our special guest, Jerry. She's doing great today. And before I get into anything here, we have a big episode.

[00:03:55]Oh, if you couldn't tell from what I'm wearing, we This is massive. This is high quality, award-winning journalism we're covering here. Remember to go follow and subscribe on Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts, also on YouTube. I know that's where a lot of you guys have been watching and listening. And also, if you really want to support the show, if you want me to buy more stupid costumes, hop over to the Patreon where I'll be doing stuff like Q&As's in the future.

[00:04:22]We'll be doing merch. We have we have some stuff lined up there I'm fairly hopeful for. I don't want to jump the gun just yet, but we'll be doing merch in the future. And also, even if you just want to join for free, you can do that as well. Come over, hang out. I'm totally cool with that. And also, thank you to everyone who's already signed up for the Patreon. You guys are the best and I love you. Uh, you know, not to be dramatic, but this show, if I could just do this all the time, this would be a dream come true. Cuz really, I mean, I have been doing it all the time. I've been working about six, sometimes seven days a week to bring you guys this show.

[00:05:00]But we've all been working very hard for very little. Uh my small team and I uh you know, we want to keep these episodes rolling. We have a dream. We have a vision. And if you can't tell, we take ourselves extremely seriously here.

[00:05:17]So this this is I'm an award-winning podcaster if you didn't know. And I'm shoot with this episode. I am shooting for a Pulitzer.

[00:05:28]So stay tuned. And I'm very excited to bring this episode to you guys.

[00:05:32]Honestly, actually, jokes aside, um, like I've said before, stories help us explain the world around us. They help us make sense of things when they're incredibly confusing. And really with this episode, even though I was, you know, I was being flippant about everything, the the monkey man of New Delhi, honestly, is a prime example of something that is so bizarre and so ridiculous, but really, if you stick around through this episode, I will explain to you how something that on the surface level sounds so stupid and so far-fetched and so made up, but it's actually possibly a revelation of something very real and a revelation of a very tragic truth. So, please stick around. This isn't just a stupid episode. I promise you, I put a lot of effort into this one because we're covering the legend of the Kalabandar or the monkey man of New Delhi. It's a very bizarre incident in India's recent history. And within only 3 weeks in May 2001, nearly 400 people reported sightings of a humanoid monkey creature in certain neighborhoods of India's capital city. About 60 residents suffered injuries that brought them to the hospital. So, was the monkey man a real unexplained invasion of some sort of crypted or did other circumstances contribute to the panic? We'll also be touching on a very real story of a full-scale monkey invasion. Uh some theories on the monkey man as well as some counterpoints to the generally accepted theory of mass hysteria which I don't know I'm not 100% sold on. But folklore, it's important to remember this. Folklore like the monkey man is often a mirror to a region's geography, history, and cultural identity. and it often reveals a truth or possibly many truths in a sometimes thinly veiled story. So before you write this story off as just a stupid story about a monkey, stick around because by the end I promise you I'll pitch you an idea that might truly explain what the monkey man actually was.

[00:07:53]Before we dive into this episode, I am bringing back the rapid fire segment.

[00:07:58]It's been uh a few episodes and we haven't done it because I I kind of scrapped it. I didn't initially like it, but I I like it now. So, for this one, rapid fire monkey facts. Yeah. 1952, a Japanese snow monkey named Imo suddenly began washing the dirt and sand off of her sweet potatoes with water before eating it. This had never been seen before among this group of monkeys. And the other monkeys soon joined in. And over 70 years later, these monkeys still wash their food. Pretty crazy. Capichin monkeys in Brazil have been using stone tools for at least 3,000 years. And if I know anything about Stanley Kubri's 2001, A Space Odyssey, things would never be the same again. And there was probably that huge alien monolith somewhere nearby when they started using those tools. And speaking of space, the first living mammal and primate in space was a Reese's monkey named Albert II. He sadly died upon landing because the capsule's parachute failed upon re-entry. Uh, bigger noses on male probosus monkeys are seen as highly attractive to females. So, to all my fellow bigs men out there, it's a feature, not a hindrance. It's about time we hype up our kings with the big schnozes. Howler monkeys, which can be found in the Amazon, are the loudest land animals, almost louder than a jet engine taking off, which uh reminds me of my upstairs neighbor. Am I right, guys? Potus monkeys can run up to 34 mph, making it the fastest monkey in the world. And nocturnal owl monkeys sleep for around 17 hours a day, which I'm incredibly jealous of. And that is it for our rapidfire segment. Now we move on to the mystery of the monkey man.

[00:10:02]India is known for its diverse ecosystems with unique animals like the clouded leopard, the Indian purple frog and the hulak gibbon. The reesus monkey is a common visitor to many urban areas as well. often seen wandering in packs around the capital city. But in May 2001, locals weren't ready for a newly discovered life form that began terrorizing their neighborhoods in the densely populated city. The descriptions of this creature have varied pretty drastically depending on the eyewitnesses, and many reported it being smaller, about 4t tall, but others claimed it stood up to 8t tall. Some said it had metal claws. Others said it wore metal gloves. Some described it as thinner and small, while others said it was muscular and large like Bigfoot. It also might have worn a metal helmet and a utility belt, almost like a superhero.

[00:10:57]And some claimed it even wore roller skates and night vision goggles. That's right. Some claimed the monkey man could walk on two legs and could leap from roof to roof in a single jump. One witness said it could jump 20 ft across with ease. Some said the creature had three electric buttons embedded in its chest in the shape of a triangle. And theories spread about the purpose of these buttons and they seemed to be a complete mixed bag of powers. One man claimed that after the creature scratched him, it pressed one of the buttons and vanished into thin air.

[00:11:32]Another claimed the monkey man pressed a button and shapeshifted into a small cat with fierce eyes and metal claws. And yet another claimed that the monkey could push a button and fire lasers from its red glowing eyes. And if he held all three buttons at the same time, he could teleport long distances.

[00:11:52]While it knew how to move silently in the dark, it would sometimes declare its presence by screaming a loud oi. There seemed to be no consistency in the creature's descriptions, and locals could barely even agree that it was a humanoid monkey with jet black hair, which was its most basic description.

[00:12:09]Some thought it was just a hairy human in a helmet causing mayhem. With all these different descriptions, some even wondered if there was possibly more than one of these creatures lurking the streets, or the inconsistent sightings might have been simply due to the fact that these encounters happened at the darkest time of the night while the street lights were out because of the rolling blackouts. With so much confusion surrounding the description, many believe the creature might have even been an extraterrestrial, an intelligent life form from another planet. And some said it even had gleaming bulbs on its body. it was maybe a cyborg of some sort. Or others thought it was a lab experiment gone wrong.

[00:12:48]Theories quickly spread about how water and light could be weaponized against the creature. But with all the panic over safety, many didn't know what to do. Either sleep indoors and roast under the intense heat or risk sleeping outside on the terrace exposed to the monkey man. Very quickly, Indian news media began reporting and obviously sensationalizing the encounters and locals spread even crazier rumors.

[00:13:18]Within the first 3 weeks of May, there were 397 reported sightings and 52 injuries requiring medical attention.

[00:13:26]Almost always these attacks happened at night between midnight and 6:00 a.m. A few rumors claimed the monkey man had even committed coldblooded murder. But full disclosure, a lot of the events are difficult to verify since the area was so swept up in the monkey man panic. So I would take many of these reports with a healthy dose of skepticism. The earliest reported sighting was supposedly on April 5th, 2001. A man had contacted police and frantically reported that he had been viciously attacked by a monkey in the middle of the night. For 2 weeks, nothing else happened. But then on April 18th, another report came in. A resident claimed they were attacked by a creature in the early morning hours while they slept on their terrace. The following day, another sleeping man was brutally attacked and he would spend the next 3 weeks bedridden at home because of his injuries. As April rolled into May, there were so many reports of monkey attacks and sightings that the police actually had to start a separate register of monkey attacks just to keep track of them. Hundreds of residents came forward and police drew up even a couple sketches to release to the public. And these sketches are kind of ridiculous. They they look like a like a cartoon. But as more police were called, more news reports got out to the public and more incidents were reported.

[00:14:47]Hospitals saw an uptick in animal attack victims and several of these victims claimed the bites and scratches weren't from dogs or feral animals. They claimed it was from the kala bundar, the monkey man. Dentists were brought in to examine these bite wounds and they confirmed that at least one was not human, but other than that there wasn't much to go on. They found out that no animals had escaped the zoo and animals including vermin often freely roam the streets in New Delhi. Regardless of the confusion, many still believed a real menace was on the loose. In a defensive maneuver, locals began holding nighttime vigils and they patrolled the streets with sticks and torches. Meanwhile, police offered 50,000 rupees, which is about a thousand US dollars, to whoever could help catch this monkey man. In a single night alone, May 14th, dozens of locals called the police to report sightings of the monkey man, 16 were hospitalized and claimed to be injured by the creature in that single night. At the height of these attacks, at least two people died trying to flee the monkey man's attacks.

[00:15:57]One man died after falling off a roof after a false alarm was raised by neighbors. And a pregnant woman also fell down a staircase after a false sighting of the creature had set off a nearby stampede. She was rushed to the hospital but died soon after. Pictures of the victims with scratch marks on their torsos began to spread in the news and those who were quick to call the monkey man superstitious mumbo jumbo now began to believe something was seriously wrong. In response, police set up a monkey man hunt mostly in East and Northeast Delhi, and they were determined to catch whatever was out there. 1,000 to 3,000 police officers were deployed, stationed on streets and rooftops. But still, this creature eluded law enforcement. People began barricading themselves inside their homes, while others formed angry mobs out in the streets. And since the monkey man couldn't be caught, some began to believe other humans had been disguising themselves as the monkey man and causing panic. Or possibly other humans were transporting and releasing these monkey creatures into the streets. The mobs would wander around looking for any sign of trouble. And in one instance on May 18th, a mob attacked a van driver who they dragged out into the street and assaulted. They had somehow become convinced the man was responsible, and the reasons were not entirely clear, but it might have been due to the fact that the man had enough space in his van to transport one of these creatures. In another instance, a 4-ft tall Hindu mystic was assaulted by a mob who had mistaken him for the monkey man. And a young girl was also supposedly attacked by people who believed she was possessed by the monkey man's evil spirit. Many were reminded that light and water seemed to be the only two things that could drive the creature away. The water could shortcircuit his three buttons and his quote unquote motherboard heart, and shining a light on him would render his night vision useless. Strangely, just as fast as the monkey man had made some serious headlines, he was gone. The sightings peaked in mid-May, but by the end of the month, it was already old news. And the monkey man reports seemed to just disappear along with the monkey man himself.

[00:18:16]Only a few remnants of the Kalabandar persisted after this. 200 m away in Rajasthan, people began seeing a cross between a huge monkey and a computerized robot. And the following year, a monkeylike machine with red and blue lights was seen again in New Delhi. But really, this barely made the news. One man claimed the creature stole his cell phone and even had the ability to speak, but those stories died on the vine. In July 2002, in the aftershocks of the monkey man, a new wave of panic would sweep through the rural region of Utar Pradesh outside of New Delhi. Some claimed this mysterious creature was an insect or maybe a hawk or a feline-like entity that could fly at people's faces and scratch them with claws, giving it the name face scratcher or monoqua.

[00:19:10]In one single night, five teenagers were attacked, leaving nail-ike bite marks across their faces. Some even compared it to the face huggers in the movie franchise Alien. Much like the monkey man, many couldn't agree on exactly what it was or what it looked like. Rumors spread about the face scratcher not being a biological creature, but fully robotic and possibly man-made. Some reports describe the object as an insect with red and blue lights. As this theory went, a person living on the fringe of society might have developed a robotic creature disguised as an animal that could be remotely controlled just to terrorize people. The paranoia had actually gotten so bad that the locals began staying up late into the night just like the people of New Delhi did with the monkey man. They lit bonfires.

[00:19:58]They carried water canes and even armed themselves with firearms. Patrol groups roame the streets and people kept their house lights on all through the night.

[00:20:08]But eventually these incidents died down and just like the monkey man, the face scratchers disappeared almost immediately.

[00:20:15]So what was this? What was the monkey man? When rumors and reports of the monkey man had settled down at the end of May 2001, hospitalized victims fell to absolutely zero. This marked the end of roughly 3 weeks of intense panic. In hindsight, some thought the monkey man was just a man or possibly several men wearing disguises, but police never identified a promising suspect. Joint Commissioner of Police Sesh Roy said that it was most likely the handiwork of some mischief mongers, but this didn't slow down the paranoia and fear that was spreading. During the height of the panic, police arrested at least five people who had been talking about the creature and amplifying the rumors.

[00:21:00]Several pranksters were looking to cause mayhem while the population at large was stressed, hot, dehydrated, and lacked sleep. Many of the calls to police were also pranks, and one caller even admitted that he was only testing police's response time. A doctor who was arrested had played a prank on a neighbor, and he took a latex glove, covered it in dark hair, and left it for his neighbor to find. He hoped the neighbor would think he had found a piece of the dismembered monkey man's hand. The doctor was later released. One man was arrested while wearing a monkey mask, but nothing came of it. He apparently claimed he was taking advantage of the widespread panic and he was hoping that people would refuse to touch him knowing how violent the monkey man was. But much of the information the New Delhi police received, it was just written off as pranks or rumors. No one was able to capture a photo or a video of the creature and no definitive answer was ever found. Hindu nationalists proposed this theory. They said that the military intelligence agency in Pakistan had sent the monkey man to India in a sinister plot to destabilize their country and drain valuable resources.

[00:22:12]Out of desperation, some even wanted the government to send in paramilitary units to capture the monkey man to finally put an end to the madness. There's another really halfbaked theory about a potential moving shoot involving a humanoid monkey creature in New Delhi.

[00:22:27]This theory, honestly, it's so worthless. I don't even want to give it time because no one is going to shoot a movie in a poor New Delhi neighborhood during rolling blackouts that lasted up to 10 hours and also have people in full monkey costume and makeup in 100 plus degree weather. So, I'm not even going to entertain that one. If you want to look it up yourself, uh, by all means, it's really stupid. But as for the scratch and bite marks that were reported, many skeptics claimed they were either self-inflicted or they were caused by the countless vermin, rodents, and feral animals that roam the streets of New Delhi. One man was clearly bitten by a rat even though he claimed it was the monkey man. But we'll touch a bit more on these reports a bit later. So, let's just go with AAM's razor for a little bit. The simplest answer with the fewest assumptions is usually the best option because what if the monkey man was just a monkey or several monkeys? Bear with me. Countless Reese's monkeys are known to casually roam the streets of New Delhi and really any given city in India. It's actually become a very large problem across the country. Earlier that same year in 2001, only a few months before the monkey man story spread, the New Delhi government building suffered an invasion. The BBC reported that around 10,000 monkeys in the city had begun wreaking havoc in and around government buildings. At least 500 had barged into government offices, stole food, tore at women's clothing, shredded invaluable documents, and even threatened government workers.

[00:24:07]Most of the mayhem occurred between the offices of finance, defense, and external affairs, and monkeys were even spotted inside the prime minister's office. Some monkeys were even accused of killing people. One apparently dropped a flower pot on someone's head, killing them instantly. Although these reports were never verified, officials said that not much could be done and they couldn't kill the animals because monkeys are seen as divine beings in Hinduism. The monkey god Hanaman is one of the most prominent deities in the Hindu pantheon. He even inspired the really cool movie uh 2024 movie Monkey Man with Dev Patel. Crazy movie. It's basically if uh John Wick was Indian to really cool movie to check out. But get this, the monkey god Hanuman is commonly depicted as half monkey and half man.

[00:25:00]This depiction of the religious icon might have inspired the monkey man of New Delhi. But either way, because of the deep respect for the monkeys in India, they are often welcomed in public places and around temples. And they are seen as protectors from evil. Many locals feed them thinking it's for good luck. But that is also unfortunately why they stick around for so long.

[00:25:22]At best, the government workers could arm themselves with sticks or stones for defense, but any violence had to be non-lethal. Although divine, these monkeys are known to do things like steal ice cream cones, clothing, money.

[00:25:35]They also attack babies, vandalize properties, and they can even coordinate ambushes and raids.

[00:25:43]Once witnesses claimed they saw 14 monkeys marching in a single file line around an office building. Their patrol would attack anyone in the area who lit up a cigarette. Sometimes they would steal cigarette packs and dump them out or grab them and smoke them themselves, which made them even angrier. As for capturing and moving them to other neighboring areas, which is what they used to do, it was no longer an option because surrounding areas had overpopulation problems of their own.

[00:26:12]Two years before this, the government held a meeting about what to do with these monkeys because they were overrunning the city. Some suggested a park or sanctuary where they could place the captured monkeys. Some even suggested a form of monkey contraception. But in the end, they had men with trained Langour monkeys chase hundreds of slightly smaller reesus monkeys away from the government buildings. And really instead of solving the issue, some believe this only increased the aggression of the Reese's monkeys going forward. So might have just exacerbated the problem. Animal rights groups and primatologists believed the fundamental problem was that humans were constantly encroaching on the animals natural habitats and destroying their resources. Aha. So over the years, these monkeys have been forced into the urban areas for survival because beginning in the late 1980s, a combination of deforestation, water shortages, and the illegal trappings of wild primates for medical research set off a migration of monkeys into these urban centers. In the 80s, about 30% of all India's monkeys lived within cities.

[00:27:21]But by 2001, that percentage jumped to 60%.

[00:27:28]And it continued to rise after this.

[00:27:31]Although monkeys might only have the intelligence of roughly a human toddler, they still love climbing the social ladder. This includes being aggressive and showing others that they can harass people without repercussion. So, knowing that these large droves of potentially aggressive monkeys roam free in New Delhi among dense human populations, could the monkey man simply have been several restless Reese's monkeys causing trouble?

[00:27:59]Maybe. I think there's a bit more to build off of here, but this has all been important. Either way, since the height of the monkey man hysteria in 2001, the Indian government has relied on things like sterilization, feeding bans, relocation, and forest sanctuaries to control the monkey population.

[00:28:18]Reportedly, over 6,000 monkeys have been relocated to a wildlife sanctuary in the last 5 years. Although monkey attacks and raids are still often reported in very high numbers, and many advocate for more widespread contraception policies.

[00:28:34]And as the monkey population increases in city centers, the city of New Delhi's human population has more than doubled since 2001 to over 34 million people.

[00:28:58]All right, guys. There are some deeper answers to uncover here because in 2003, only a couple years after the monkey man phenomena, the Indian Journal of Medical Sciences tried their best to explain what the monkey man was. And I know a lot of you may have just heard me say Journal of Medical Sciences and immediately fell asleep, but come on, just stick with me here. This is this is big stuff.

[00:29:29]They published their findings titled a study on mass hysteria monkey men question mark victims in East Delhi. So this is this mass hysteria theory. It's considered probably the most widely accepted theory when it comes to the monkey man. And we'll get into a little bit more but but here's why this is the most widely accepted theory. The study defined mass hysteria as the occurrence in a group of people of a constellation of physical symptoms suggesting an organic illness but resulting from a psychological cause with each member of the group experiencing one or more of the symptoms. I know 50 of you just fell asleep when I said that. The key characteristic of mass hysteria is the lack of physical pathogen.

[00:30:17]The other features are this sudden onset of dramatic symptoms with both rapid spread and rapid recovery. A triggering stimulant identified by the victim as a toxic gas or chemical, bug bites or environmental pollutants. Victims who were not sick until they see another victim become ill. Underlying psychological or physical stress that can be caused by hot weather, crowding, boredom, or other factors. and victims perceived lack of emotional and social support. The study claimed that all of the above were observed in this outbreak. Around 2/3 of the victims were male, most were between 20 and 30. 94%, this is very important, 94% were from the poorest sections of the city and they were subjected to poor sanitation and high levels of pollution. 89% were of low socioeconomic status and many were not well educated. The study also stated this. The most interesting find among the victims was that 11 persons claimed to have witnessed experienced a monkey man-like creature that led to injuries while seven persons told that they did not see any creature but sustained injuries just out of fear or a fall. Twothirds of the accidents happened at night where chances of accidents are higher, especially without light. And you know, on top of that, there was a history of power failure in twothirds of these cases. As for the injuries, many of the abrasions were very minor and on the outer forearms, which could have been made by really any blunt or pointed objects. Medical professionals also witnessed at least one patient trying to lie about the origins of their wounds. They could tell the injuries were far older than the man had stated since they had already scabbed over, but that man insisted he was recently attacked by the monkey man.

[00:32:11]The studies went on to explain, "Factually, none of the victims actually saw the alleged monkey man. Everyone described an imaginary figure giving vague descriptions. Further, the victims also did not refute the chances of being injured accidentally.

[00:32:28]And the study emphasized that the role of press reports and media was of utmost importance in the current outbreak. The press had given extensive coverage to the attacks and the study argued that the victims shown in the mass media becomes the role model that were followed by susceptible individuals and thus helped in spreading the outbreak.

[00:32:51]So all in all, this study proposes that the monkey man was not real and most likely the result of mass hysteria in a poor and undereducated region of New Delhi that also lacked proper resources.

[00:33:05]The victims were highly susceptible and they bought into the exaggerations of this creature in the sensationalized media. While the mass hysteria argument quickly became one of the most accepted theories even before the publication of this previous study, there have been some additional arguments. In a 2001 article in Skeptic magazine titled Monkey Man delusion Sweeps India, author Robert Bartholomew argued that most witnesses were quote clearly not hysterical in a clinical sense because most witnesses did not appear to be suffering from psychotic delusions.

[00:33:43]which I don't think that psychotic delusions are involved in the classifications of mass hysteria, but we're going to continue. Instead of mass hysteria, he argues that it was a case of social delusion. The Cleveland Clinic describes delusional disorder as a mental health condition in which a person cannot tell what's real from what's imagined. It's treated with psychotherapy and medication.

[00:34:07]Bartholomew argues that by dismissing these social delusions as irrational, many are ignoring the symbolic messaging regarding beliefs and stereotypes. I think this is an important point to make. As the author says, they are quote a part of the ethnographic record of humankind. He proposes that this monkey man incident is only solved by looking into the psychological fears that are being expressed. He argues that the monkey man stemmed from people's fears of getting attacked by the local monkeys because they were forced out of their homes at night because of the heat. I like this theory, but I am going to take it a few steps further. To piggyback off this idea that there is symbolic messaging and psychological fears at play, I found some additional research that could possibly unlock the mystery behind the monkey man. The Hindustan Times suggested that this monkey man panic was centered around poor people completely fed up with daily blackouts that lasted 10 hours and running water that was only on for 1 hour per day at times. If you recall, the 2003 study confirmed that the neighborhoods with the highest amount of sightings and injuries were often in very poor neighborhoods, including East Delhi.

[00:35:26]Remember how the locals believed that water and light could be weaponized against the monkey man? Water would short the creature's motherboard and light would blind his night vision sight. Well, think about it. What were the two things that many of these people didn't have access to throughout their day?

[00:35:48]Did the people of these underserved areas either consciously or unconsciously simply use the monkey man panic to create a desperate plea for basic human needs like electricity and water? Like I said before, folklore like the monkey man is often a mirror to a region's geography, history, and cultural identity. We know that monkeys had overrun the city around this time, especially due to the destruction of their habitats and climate change. And it was suggested that they had become more aggressive in recent years. We know this. Also, during the 3 weeks of mayhem, rolling blackouts were imposed by state-run power companies during some of the hottest days New Delhi had seen that year. It's also very important to note that access to fresh water was also strained in these same areas and it still is to this day. According to a Harvard study in 2023, government supplied piped water is unavailable to 18 to 26% of Delhi's population. And residents without in-home taps must rely on community taps, tanker trucks, tube wells, or bore wells. All of which provide insufficient and unreliable amounts of water. So many are actually forced to go out of their way and buy their water. And this can add up to about 15% of the income for these lowincome households. That is insane compared to only 1% of the wealthy households. A study from the Bureau of Indian Standards found that Delhi had quote the most unsafe tap water of all of India's 21 state capitals and New Delhi's groundwater is getting less safe by the day. Climate change has affected Delhi's natural water supply by reducing and contaminating the nearby Yamina River. Rising temperatures have also increased the demand for water. India's decentralized government has contributed greatly to this poor water policy and regions that are considered unplanned colonies that are just set up. They're mostly, you know, called slums do not benefit from many of the government promises. So, who is the most affected by this? I could give you a wild guess.

[00:38:06]Migrants, lowincome communities, women, and lowercast residents. This is really I can't even get into all this because this is only the tip of the iceberg with the inequality in India. According to the world inequality database in 2022 and 2023 the top 1% in India acquired 22.6% of the national income and that is the highest level recorded since 1922.

[00:38:34]And the top 1% owned over 40% of all the wealth in the entire nation.

[00:38:45]So I am serving you up the raw hard facts in a banana suit. But with all this considered, can we really just boil the monkey man incident down to a few hundred people suffering from mass hysteria? Maybe. But clearly there's much more going on here. And I've even heard some people write this whole thing off as just, you know, quote, stupid poor people being too open to superstitions, which I think is just an incredibly narrow and ignorant take. Because really, if you're good enough at interpreting basic storytelling, that's what we're doing here, then you should be able to see that the terrifying monkey man is really a symbol of the fear and inequality the people of New Delhi are subjected to on a daily basis.

[00:39:32]Um, but why not just say it like it is?

[00:39:34]You might be wondering, why go through all the monkey man stuff? Because the media and the general population at large, we've become so numb to the news coverage of things like unclean water and a lack of basic needs around the world. We just honestly, as sad as it is, and I don't want to be cynical, we just don't care anymore. And the sad reality is we're obviously much more interested when it comes to a roller skating intergalactic humanoid monkey man with supernatural powers. That is the sad reality. Now, I don't necessarily think there was some form of collective effort or planning that was put into the creation of the monkey man.

[00:40:19]I think it just naturally came to a head and people did perpetuate whatever this was that became an urban legend. And I don't think every person contributing to the reports or injuries were thinking literally if I do this maybe I could get access to fresh water and electricity.

[00:40:35]But I do think the monkey man stands as a reflection of the socioeconomic and ethnographic conditions of the forgotten poor people of New Delhi. So that is my lived up wokeified take on the monkey man.

[00:40:53]Do you agree? Is there something else to consider? Is there something that I missed? Uh if you disagree, you know, go comment. Let me know what you guys think. Let me know. Do you think it's actually just a monkey man? Cuz I'm I'm open. I'm all ears for that take as well. But wow, that's the monkey man. The physical media pick for this episode is Talk to Me, the directorial debut of The Filipoo Brothers. This movie is insane. At face value, it's really just a horror movie about contacting the dead. Just like at face value, the Monkey Man story is just about a weird, terrifying crypted. But both act as a metaphor for problems in the current day. Because in the case of Talk to Me, it's a metaphor for things like addiction, whether that's substance abuse or really, if you watch the movie, it's really about our addiction to our phones, especially how social media has affected younger generations. And even though I do think the Philipp brothers, they they just had their second movie come out not too long ago, Brer Back, much better movie in my opinion. But this first movie is so awesome because it's one of the few horror movies in recent memory that brings current-day problems into a movie without being too corny or trit. I don't think it's easy to handle things like social media or smartphones without the risk of immediately pulling the audience out of your narrative because it it risks being too on the nose or or hitting too close to home maybe because social media is still something we're just currently grappling that we haven't figured out quite uh and it's just like we're constantly surrounded by it all the time. We all accept and know that it has this profound negative effect on us yet we boot it up like every single day and some of us like like myself has I have to use it for work. Um I mean we're on social media right now. This is this is it. So I can't be too much of a hypocrite here. So I was just really impressed with how they pulled this all off. And besides all that really it's a horror movie. It's also just has incredibly horrific imagery. uh not in really like a violent gruesome way at times, just honestly genuinely scary images. So, if you're into horror movies, uh especially horror movies with some social commentary, I highly recommend you check this one out. Talk to me. The Philipp brothers directorial debut.

[00:43:28]Remember guys, go subscribe on Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts, also on YouTube. Um, and if you really want to support the show, go hit up the Patreon.

[00:43:40]Like I said, thank you so much to all you guys who have already contributed.

[00:43:44]It means so much to me, and I hope you guys seeing me in a banana suit uh delivering you highquality storytelling reinforces your subscription to that Patreon. You're going to keep getting the best of the best here. Never doubt it for a second. And always remember to ask yourself this when you're looking straight into the red glowing eyes of an intergalactic monkey man.

[00:44:14]Ask yourself, do geese see God?

[00:44:21]Think about it.