The Slatest

No, the Indian Girl Found in the Jungle Wasn’t Actually Raised by Monkeys

A screenshot of a video filmed of the girl who was supposedly found living with monkeys in northern India.

The Independent

It was a story destined for virality and filled Facebook feeds around the world. Indian police said they had found a girl, believed to be anywhere from 8 to 12 years old, who was naked and living with a group of monkeys in northern India. The monkeys supposedly tried to protect the girl when cops went to grab her. “We spotted her playing among apes. As we tried to go near the girl, the monkeys surrounded her and some of them pounced on us,” one cop said.

Officials immediately said she acted like an animal and the comparisons were seemingly inevitable—“Jungle Book redux” is how one Indian newspaper put it. And many followed suit, comparing the girl who wasn’t able to speak with Rudyard Kipling’s Mowgli from the famous novel.

The truth though turns out to be more depressing. Officials and doctors now say the girl, who has mental and physical disabilities, was likely abandoned in the forest. Despite the initial stories, it seems the girl was actually found by the road and not deep in the forest. And while there were monkeys around, rangers “never found this girl living with monkeys,” an official said.

The girl was found in a forest that is regularly monitored by rangers and closed-circuit cameras, making it highly unlikely that she could have gone unnoticed for very long. Plus, she has rapidly improved and changed her behavior since she was hospitalized, leading doctors to believe she was actually raised by people. “Initially she was crawling but now she is walking normally—so she hasn’t been in the jungle since birth,” another official said.

Police are still searching for her parents.