Bigfoot Encounters

Monster Mania
Scare stories of weird assailants sweep India - again...

Throughout July and August, many areas of Uttar Pradesh - Lucknow, Jaunpur, Mirzapur Sitapur, Varanasi, and elsewhere - were in fear of the so-called "monster-man" known as muhnochwa, literally "someone who claws the face" or "face-snatcher."

The surreal descriptions of the assailant bore many resemblances to the "Monkey-man" in Delhi last year [see FT 148:8, 149:71).This year's entity was rumored to have long hair blood-shot eyes and claws like a tiger. Others described it as resembling a flying octopus, a flying tortoise, a "football-like object", or a mechanical device, but most witnesses agreed it was "brightly lit".

By early August he/it was reported to have attacked nearly 100 people, plucking the flesh from his/its victims. Weddings were cancelled and people stopped sleeping outside their homes at night despite the summer heat.On 5 August, hundreds of people in Mirzapur blocked traffic for hours to protest against what they perceived as inadequate government counter-measures against the muhnochwa threat. Police asked the Kanpur-based Indian Institute of

Technology to investigate a video recording of a supposed monster-man sent in by a resident of Mirzapur. Their report had not been issued at the time of writing.One of the early muhnochwa victims was Pikkhi, a married woman in Balua Tarao, who had the flesh ripped off her face, neck and arms.

College student Jai Prakash Paswan, another victim from the same village whose face and arms were badly scratched, claimed to have seen red and green lights emitting from his assailant's body.One variation was the so-called "crawling ghost" of Biswan in the Sitapur district.

This entity tended to attack women from behind, scratching their bottoms. Women began walking around with "padded posteriors". Twenty complaints had been logged by early August. "The incidents are for real," announced Sub-Divisional Magistrate Akhilesh Singh.In August 2001, a two-legged creature with a monkey's face was said to have attacked 10 people in Rupas village, near Patna in Uttar Pradesh.

In July this year, the Patna press was full of reports of attacks by an ape-like animal. Some alleged the creature "jumps and sparkles red and blue lights." Others described it as resembling a machine, operated by remote control and "handled by anti-social elements to terrorize people."

A sadhu with a flowing beard was beaten up on suspicion that he was the creature. Witnesses agreed the creature was "black" and "ape-like" with "sharp claws", but some said it was over 1.8m (6 feet tall) with red eyes, while others said it was about 60cm (2 feet tall.)

A government spokesperson said many of the reported muhnochwa incidents had a mundane explanation, including attacks by wild animals forced to approach human settlements by the continuing drought.

A woman in Hardol who claimed to have been scratched by the muhnochwa outside her house had in fact suffered a fall; and an 11-year-old boy who died in Jaunpur was not a muhnochwa victim, although the cause of death was unknown.

As with the monkey-man scare around Delhi last year many officials blamed "mischief-mongers" or asserted that the attacks had been invented to force the authorities to suspend power cuts during the small hours.

In February this year (2002) residents of slums along the Sabarmati River near Ahmedabad in north-western India reported many sightings of a 'monkey-man' aged between 25 and 30 years, dark skinned with curly hair dressed in black and wearing a mask. "I saw him from the back," said a young witness called Abdul Hamid. "He had a sword in his hand and when I raised an alarm, he jumped to another roof and then on to a tree."

Two youths, Mehboob and Farooq, chased the stranger along a riverbed, but he seemed to disappear into thin air. The youths then began "behaving abnormally" and were sprinkled with holy water Mohammed Salim said that on more than six occasions the monkey-man had disappeared after being chased. Bashir Malbari, a pawn shop owner had not seen the monkey-man, but had heard him running on rooftops. "I feel someone is practicing hypnotism in our slum," he said.

Convinced that the mystery figure was supernatural, residents, sometimes police officers, mounted vigils. Most of the sightings were made between midnight and dawn. An old man called Pyaare Khan said that 40 years ago a haivan (demon) appeared every time there was a funeral in the Shahpur area. Two decades ago, a magician moved around Nehru Bridge with a skull in his hand. "I think this is a reincarnation of one of those two evil spirits," he said.

Copyright Fortean Times, October 2002

Back to Bigfoot Encounters Main page
Back to Newspaper & Magazine Articles
Back to Bigfoot Encounters "What's New" page

Portions of this website are reprinted under the Fair Use Doctrine of International Copyright Law as educational material without benefit of financial gain.
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
This proviso is applicable throughout the entire website.