33: The Monkey Man of New Delhi | Red Thread
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You lay atop a bolted sheet metal roof under the cold light of the moon. You can't quite make out the moon as it drifts in the endless bounds of space just beyond the smog-covered sky you find yourself under. But you know it to be there by the small amount of light that is brave enough to penetrate the polluted veil. You're all alone, yet you're surrounded by millions of others who are on their own roofs, attempting to find the very same escape from the ovens below that you were.

Living here means constant power outages and rolling blackouts that leave the homes feeling like saunas more than anything else. And so you find yourself on that metal roof, trying to fall asleep.

As you feel the embrace of sleep, you feel a scratch. You absentmindedly swat at your leg with your hand while your eyes remain closed. They find nothing. Then comes a jarring biting feeling, teeth finding flesh. You kick out with your leg, half as an attack and half because of shock. You open your eyes. In the distance, your eyes find only a figure.

monkey question mark but it's wearing a helmet question marks and it's as tall as a human even more question marks this can't be it flicks a mischievous grin at you before it presses a button on its suit yes it's wearing a suit or armor it's hard to see it disappears before your very eyes you are an Indian man who has just witnessed the monkey man of New Delhi and this is the red thread

Are you engaged, Caleb? You already are. You are an Indian man. That's a great intro to a story. Just setting up. You are an Indian man. You just witnessed the monkey man of New Delhi. Paragraphs and paragraphs of pretense just for you are an Indian man at the end of it. I love that. That's good.

Alright, well you'll love this. I am your host Jackson. Welcome, welcome everyone. It's good to see you again. Or, you know, if I've never seen you before, hi. This is a weird episode for you to click on first. But, you know, I respect your game. Someone out there, someone out there. Yeah, someone's clicking on this to come here for the monkey man and I respect that. You found the right place because with me, I have two experts in the field. Caleb...

He's an expert on monkeys And Isaiah, he's an expert on men So together they might Just be the expert on the monkey man I guess we'll find out in this episode That is true, I do know a lot of them You do know a lot of men Are you an expert On delis?

Ooh, yeah. I guess I could... Wait, no, I could be, so then together we form the perfect monkey man research. Exactly, yeah. I do like that. Big time deli guy. Between our knowledge of men and monkeys and sandwiches, we'll be unstoppable. God, I love sandwiches.

All right, so let's find out about the monkey man. Show notes written by my girlfriend. They're linked in the description. You can find them below and read along with us as per usual. Big thanks to her for doing the legwork on this. Really appreciate it. You guys, Caleb, Isaiah, how familiar are you with monkey men? Vaguely. Vaguely familiar. I'm more aware of the monkey man than I am of the unfortunate story we talked about last week.

Oh yeah, this is going to be an enormous tonal shift, by the way. How are you feeling after all that, Caleb? I'm feeling grateful that my mom didn't never play that stuff on the TV when I was a child. She just kept me sheltered, apparently. I'm grateful. That's good. We had weird parents. We had weird parents who showed us that kind of stuff. Yeah, our parents would be like, can you believe this murder? And I'm like, hi, I'm a child. I'm 10. I'm 10.

I'm 10. But sure, yeah, mom, that's crazy. This is a complete shift, left field kind of turn, though, Caleb. Nothing as depressing as last week. Inherently so, right? Monkey men, they're just goofy. They're just fun. Yeah, monkeys are fun, dude. There's nothing sinister about them. Yeah, that's how they get you. They look goofy and fun. And then sure enough, boom, you're dead.

Boom. Okay. Rabies. We got to right away distinguish between monkeys and apes and stuff, like the big boys that will literally tear you apart. Old worlds, old world monkeys, apes, great apes.

They're pretty terrifying, yeah. Like, monkeys are really scary. People don't give them the clout they deserve, as far as that goes, but they are terrifying creatures. Yeah, dude. Like, you see monkey memes, like, return to monkey and shit like that, and it's just like, look at that monkey sniffing its own finger after it's stuck it up his ass or whatever. You know, just dumb shit like that. But then...

They're fun to laugh at, but put yourself in that situation and you're literally going to be decapitated within one hand movement from that ape. They are so monstrous. Kayla, my wife, she works at a primate research facility and they just periodically go on these murderous rampages against each other. They're nightmares.

Well, it's just pure testosterone, right? Running through the, particularly the males, obviously. Oh, yeah. And they fight all the time. They'll randomly have, like, these power flips where, like, they kill the alpha and stuff like that. They're terrifying creatures. Yeah, a man monkey is nothing to laugh at. It's very terrifying. Did you say a man monkey? I wouldn't laugh at the woman monkeys either. They're probably going to destroy me as well. I don't think I could...

win that fight you guys know the the simple difference between chimpanzees and bonobos the simple difference the simple difference you know there there were the same species at one point were they and then the congo the congo river uh bonobos at one point at a certain point they were split up and then they began to evolve on either sides of the congo and bonobos they fuck and they suck and chimps kill each other and rip each other limb from limb

So bonobos, bonobos, like pleasant monkeys to be around. Um, I think more pleasant for sure. Their society that they have created is more pleasant to watch for sure. Whereas chimps are like fighting and warring and evil.

So bonobos are like the dudes you can go kind of have a drink with, chill out. Yeah, basically. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're just chill dudes. And then the other side is like literal warfare. Yeah. The bonobos are meat. What the fuck? What was the difference on the river? Like what was on the left side and the right side that determined that?

I don't know. I didn't really... I saw that and I was like, oh, that's pretty cool. And then I just didn't read it anymore. That was the extent of your interest in it. Yeah. Most of the time, stuff will adapt to its environment in resource competition. Yeah, but how drastic can the environmental shift be from one side of a river to the other? Surely there's not that much variance. I mean, pretty drastic. One side of the river to the other dictates countries nowadays. It could mean a lot. Yeah.

Monkeys don't understand countries. They understand food. They understand, ooh, I'm going to kill this thing and eat it. They understand that. Monkeys are weird. I just want to know what the difference was in the environment. I am trying to find. I know I talked about the monkey man in the conspiracy iceberg, but I can't find, not the conspiracy iceberg, the cryptid iceberg, but I can't find what tier I put it on, right?

or anything i swear it was in there somewhere you're gonna have to re-tier it right now then i'm gonna have to re-tier well after the episode i will at the end yeah once i have all the facts yeah of course okay once the facts are in front of you once i have all the information all the monkey man didn't they just put out a game about this yes

Did they? I didn't find... I didn't see that in the research. Isn't there a game that just came out? It's like called... No, there's a movie. There's a movie. There's a movie. There's a movie. Black Myth Wukong. It's a movie from India. Oh, that was... Oh, oh, oh. I guess it's Monkey Man, but no. What is that game about? I see pictures of it, and it looks like...

Like an old samurai game, like a FromSoft game or whatever, but it's got a monkey person. Yeah, it looks like a monkey. That's exactly what it is. From New Delhi. So it's a Chinese game, like a Souls game, where the main character is... I think Wukong is like a Chinese deity, right? Shit, I don't know. I have no idea. I know that there's like the Yarin and stuff like that, that's like a Chinese Bigfoot type thing. But...

Oh wait, I was so wrong. It's from a classical Chinese novel, Journey to the West, Sun Wukong. Oh, Journey to the West. Yeah, that's like a classic epic sort of like an odyssey of characters traveling and stuff. If I remember right, that was actually like the inspiration for Dragon Ball, I'm pretty sure, as well.

as well as a ton of other stories and stuff like that. Yeah, probably in spite a lot. When did it come out? Actually, that would make sense because of, like, you know, Goku being, like, you know, like a simian, like, monkey man hybrid creature. You know, the Saiyans and stuff like that. Journey to the West came out in 1592, so, yeah. Jesus! That's old. Yeah, it's like one of those super impactful books. Kind of like Dante, like the Divine Comedy or something. Yeah, or the Iliad. The Epic of Gilgamesh.

Yeah, yeah. That's a bit too old, but you've got the spirit. Now they're making funny monkey games out of it, which is cool. I like that. That's a unique idea, adapting Journey to the West into a Souls game. That's pretty cool.

Well, I think they just took the character, maybe. I don't think they followed the... I don't know. I don't know enough. It says it's inspired by the book. It might be. I don't know. I haven't played it yet. I've seen people praising it. Why are we even talking about this? This has nothing to do with it. It's got a monkey. I'm sorry. I derailed it. I'm sorry. I derailed it. We're just going to keep going off on tangents to anything to do with monkeys. It's the guest's fault. Hey, guys.

Yeah, this is the guest. Do you remember the monkey, the gorilla? I think it might have been a gorilla that was a research study at a zoo and they gave it a pet cat to play with. And it actually became really attached to the cat. And it was like a signing experiment. Was that Coco? Yeah, I think it was Coco.

Yeah, and then the cat died, and the monkey got super depressed, which is super sad. Like, it just constantly signed, I'm sad, over and over again, like, for the next few months. And nothing has made me relate more to monkeys in that story, because it's so sad, and human in a way, which I guess monkeys are. Okay, so...

I figured out why I could... We have not started the story yet. I apologize for all the adults who have absolutely no idea what any of the stuff we're talking about is. Monkey! We sound like lunatics. Monkey! I don't think I covered it in the cryptid iceberg yet. I think it was the mass hysteria iceberg that I covered it. That would make sense. That would definitely make sense with what happens. I think that's more correct.

I think we should probably, it's been about close to 15 minutes in this episode now without even touching the topic. All I'm saying is most of the time, this is the part everyone loves. People love the ridiculous. The yap sesh.

The yap sesh. That's everyone's favorite. This is what the red thread is, right? What are you coming for, really? If not just the fucking stupid tangents. I'll also say this. So there is, again, to just take the tangent further away, there is this YouTube channel called Darbo that has become a bit of a meme.

Over on Creepcast, because anytime we upload a Creepcast episode, within a couple hours, he will have a Funniest Moments compilation of that episode posted. And the other day, he started doing the Red Thread. Oh, sick. He started like Red Thread Funniest Compilation. So it begins of people just like not caring what we're talking about and just the memes, the mind corruption. Yeah.

Do those clips in the Garbo videos have anything to do with the topic we're talking about? Like the actual information we're relaying? Of course not. Of course not. What kind of question is that? Yeah, exactly. What do you think? Take a guess. We need more moments for Garbo or whatever he's doing. It opens with me yelling at you about fried chicken. Okay.

That's how the red thread will be remembered. Oh, sorry. Sorry. Caleb, you weren't there. It's not something a guest would know about. We've told him. It was pretty much the first thing we told him, I'm pretty sure. I forgot about it. I'm a new guest each episode, so my memory only goes back for one episode.

Wow, thanks for having me on the show, guys. Yeah, thanks for the invite, guys. Last minute, I appreciate it. You know? No worries. I love being included in stuff. Every episode, we're like, there will be a new exciting guest next week. It's just me with different facial hair and different shirt. Different disguises. Yeah, exactly. You come in just dressed slightly differently. Yeah, that'd be great.

Hey guys, hope you don't mind me cutting in here to tell you all about Godslap. It's an exciting day because the next arc of my comic book series, Godslap, has just launched. For those of you that don't know, Godslap is a series created by myself and Charlie slash Critical, formerly of Red Thread, that is all about nuts-to-butts action and the wacky shenanigans of our main character, Aeas, and his friends who find themselves the targets

of a maniac by the name of Defista. Issue 6 has just launched and with it comes our craziest arc yet filled to the brim with new characters who'll knock your socks off. No spoilers of course, but this arc goes off the wall with how crazy stuff gets. There's no better time to jump in either with Godslap Volume 1 launching as well at the same time which has all five

That's five of the first issues combined together in one awesome collector's edition that includes a red foil handprint logo on top. So it's a very special edition. It's the best way to get into the new series that many are calling the best comic book series created ever.

Question mark? Yes. Exclamation point. On top of that, you can get issues one to five, as well as the brand new issue six together in a God Slype catch-up bundle, discounted, of course, meaning you get everything right now for a very affordable price. Not to toot our own horns, of course, but we are very proud of what we've created here. There's awesome action, incredible drawings, funny character-driven moments,

Godslap has it all. Check it out now at Badeg.co, that's Badeg.co, C-O, to grab yourself a copy and begin this exciting new arc with us as we expand the universe and story of Godslap. Thank you to everyone for checking it out. Links will be in the description.

The support has been incredible with this series that we've spent the last two years working on. We're excited for all the stuff we've got coming next and we can't wait to show you what we've been cooking up. It would mean so much if you guys checked it out. It really would. It's been a lot of work and very excited for this new issue to come out because it's a milestone for us and we couldn't be prouder. So thank you very much again for making it a possibility. And now back to Red Thread. All right. That's funny. Isaiah, take it away. Take it away, bud. I'll kick us off with this. All right. So...

It all started in, all right, I'm going to go ahead and say, I'm going to mispronounce some of the stuff. I apologize. It all started in Ghaziabad. Is that how that's pronounced? Yeah, sure. Sure. A suburb in New Delhi. You pronounce that right? Yeah. Battling the unbearable summer heat, many of the poorest of the city resorted to sleeping out on roofs and terraces with the goal of finding a cool night's sleep.

Little did they know, however, that something was lurking in the shadows, something that seemed to attack exclusively in the early hours of the dark morning. The menace would scratch and bite victims before quickly running into the night, presumably to find a new victim. The residents came to believe that it was a hybrid of some kind, a monstrous creature intent on causing mayhem and harm.

Ultimately, when given descriptions to police, it would become known as the Monkey Man because of its description: half man, half monkey. Very creative. Wow. Well, hey, what can we call this thing that's half man, half monkey? I know, the Monkey Man. Great. Very creative, guys. I say call this thing "asshole." That's what it sounds like so far. Yeah, he's biting and shit? Yeah. He's a dick. No, fuck that. Not a nice guy.

Surprisingly, the monkey assailant was never found by the police and it remains a mystery to this day. So here we go with the initial incident and I'll take this section. It was the 10th of May 2001 when the initial reports began to flood the police. The painage reports were incomprehensible sightings or witness testimonials of someone or something attacking residents in the middle of the night.

No one was able to provide a good description of the attacker, as, due to the city's ever-growing population and insufficient power supply, there were frequent power outages and rolling blackouts which covered the metropolis under darkness for long durations of time.

There's no light in the middle of the night, save for the faint glow of the moon, making it incredibly difficult for those reporting the creature to define what they had seen. It's so cute, the kind of things that would happen before 9-11. Yeah. Life is different. What does this have to do with 9-11? All of our cryptids were fun monkey men. Exactly, yeah. And now it's just like, oh, this cryptid is a predator missile that drone strikes your house, if you mention it. Yeah.

Yeah, 9-11 really knocked the creativity out of us as a species. The whimsy. It did. Yeah. Yeah, everything's about 9-11, actually. The first attack is said to have actually happened in April in a retroactive report that was discovered later. It described a man who was sleeping on his rooftop when something awoke him around 2 in the morning. Half asleep, dazed, and startled by the commotion, he sluggishly realized he was being scratched on his arms and legs.

When he finally realized what was happening, he sprung up to escape, but not before taking stock of what it was that was attacking him. He described a figure, monkey-like in appearance, fleeing into the darkness. Nothing came of this and there was no attack or any reports of an attack for two weeks until a nearby neighbor was targeted.

It was a very similar situation. A man sleeping on his rooftop woke up at 3.15 in the morning while being attacked and scratched by the same creature.

All he reportedly managed to see of his attacker was his alleged strange monkey-like appearance. So I'm going to, let me pose something real quick. What if, hear me out, it's just a monkey? Don't you dare say that. This whole time I've been trying not to laugh because I'm like, this is so, it's like, I don't know, fucking CSI type, you know,

CSI Miami like a the culprit was half man half monkey it was probably just a monkey just a monkey it's so funny it's such a funny premise that there's a half man half monkey they run up to people and steal stuff off of them all the time I mean the simplest answer is usually the correct one right that's what they always say yeah I don't know why they jump from monkey attack I mean you're sleeping on a roof like

You're adding the elements ostensibly. So a monkey attack is probably likely. Think about this. The first guy, it says he described a figure monkey-like in appearance fleeing into the darkness. And then the second guy says all he managed to see of his attacker was its alleged strange monkey-like appearance. You know what has a monkey-like appearance? A monkey. Exactly. And you know what's funny too is...

It's biting people. It is literally a monkey. That's what this is so far, is a monkey. What you would expect the monkey to do as well. It's everything monkey related. Yeah. Where's the man part? I need man part. It's just hot out and people are bored. So they want a story, a better story. So there's a monkey running up and jumping at people, biting them in their legs, and then running off. I mean...

I feel like I've seen videos of this happening in India in broad daylight as well, like monkeys attacking just random people. I feel like it's just what monkeys do, which is weird because why would this then kind of snowball into this kind of mass hysteria in India where I would imagine things like that would be somewhat common enough for them to realize that that is what it is immediately. You know what I mean? Why would they then go to this fantastical element of it being a monkey-man hybrid out of the...

out of nowhere. Yeah. People love making shit up.

They do, yeah. I will... Okay, I realize that we're having too much skepticism on our Conspiracy Theory podcast. I'm going to have to vouch for it. For the rest of the episode, I have to play the monkey man. How does it relate to 9-11, Isaiah? He was flying the plane. Well, clearly... That's why we never saw him again after that. He was in the plane. He was flying. Unrelated, the monkey man was in the cargo of the flight that...

Some kind of Freudian revisionism instead of everything relating to mom and sex. It just relates to 9-11. It relates to 9-11, yeah. I'll never forget. So, all right. The monkey man. Okay. If it was just a monkey, then people who saw monkeys for their entire life living in New Delhi would say it was a monkey. But instead, they described something with a monkey-like appearance implying that it probably wasn't a normal monkey.

Well, there's definitely a big difference between a monkey and a man, just in terms of stature, right? One is tall and one is very small. I don't know how big monkeys are. They're not very big. Yeah, in the cities. But from the videos I've seen, they're fairly small, like maybe knee height at most. Dog size. At the biggest. Yeah. So, big difference between that and a fully grown man. I don't know. I think if they did it just say monkey, then it might not have just been a monkey. Yeah.

Well, they might have seen a man who was nibbling on their legs, I guess, with the kind of appearance of a monkey from far away. Maybe like a very hairy man. Yeah, hairy guy. Or, or, or, or, or, or, or, as some would say, a monkey man. Oh, fuck. Yeah, exactly.

Full circle. I guess I'm back on the side of the belief now. I'm convinced. It was the only way that they could best describe it. And because they're around monkeys and stuff, they've seen monkeys so much that it's an apt comparison. An easy way to describe it. You know what that guy looks like? A monkey. Monkey, yeah. So now that we're all in agreement that it's real...

There was no cooldown period on the next attack. In fact... That makes it sound like it's an ultimate in a video game. It used its special move. In fact, the next attack would come the very next night. Another man was sleeping in his hut when he was attacked severely enough that he couldn't work for 21 days. This...

me about to clock in i was attacked by a monkey man i must take huge 21 days off i'm injured so i couldn't find actual reports on how like what the attack consisted of there like what kind of attack from a monkey would lead you to be being able to not work for 21 days i have no idea that's crazy like a broken leg maybe i don't know

The strange tales of the Monkey Man began to snowball and spiral from here with an almost innumerable amount of witness testimonies of the Monkey Man at work. The media did what the media does best, even in India, by sensationalizing the witness accounts and bolstering the more unbelievable details so as to stoke the panic that was already brewing and bubbling in New Delhi.

Headlines like Indians attacked by monkey man and monkey man attack were common. People were quite frankly, very quickly becoming incredibly fearful of the apes crusader.

roaming the rooftops at night okay you had too much fun you had too much fun with that one i had way too much fun with this that's pretty good i do like it uh monkey monkey man attack though the headline of that article does sound like an anime or a video game or something yeah yeah that's a good headline i'd be scared i wouldn't sleep i'd immediately believe it yeah if i saw an article in a newspaper saying monkey man attack i'd be like i'm not a trash

I was just going to say the headline Indians attacked by monkey man would be much scarier outside of India because then it implies that the creature is also racist. Well, I mean, the first thing I said, the first thing I picked up was that he was an asshole. So I wouldn't be surprised. Right. Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised. What were you about to say, Caleb? Have you ever seen what? Have you guys ever seen this picture that's in the document here? It looks like the same area. There's a video of a large cat.

running around attacking people like swiping at them on rooftops and I believe it's in India and it's just swiping at people in India yeah

I feel like that's familiar. I think I have seen that, actually. Yeah, pretty crazy. I have not. Crazy shit goes down there. Have you seen the monkeys people train? It may not be New Delhi, but I think it's somewhere in India. Have you seen the monkeys people train to pickpocket people? Yeah, I love that. That's pretty funny. I want one of those. I would give anything to have one of those. A little pickpocketing monkey. A little thieves guild ape. A thieves guild ape. Yeah, a little thieves guild guy. Hang out with him in my skooma den. Yeah.

Would you like me to continue, or does someone want to take the going bananas part? I'll do that. I'll do that part. You've got to say the chapter names as well. Going bananas, building terror, and strange descriptions. I messed up the words. This could be about 9-11, that title, building terror, and strange descriptions. Another Nicholas revision.

Terror was spreading. Many of the people in the city at the time were spending their nights wide awake, unable to sleep in fear of being the next target of the monkey man of New Delhi. I'm scared. I'm going to sleep about that. This is so funny to me. I'm envious. I wish this was real life. I mean, I'm trying to put myself in their perspectives, right? Like, you

you know, a common Indian person in New Delhi, you know, if I was sleeping on the roof each night, yeah, this would probably scare me. Honestly. You know, what's, what's different about this too, from a lot of other cryptids is that this has got a lot of reports of people just getting it like maimed a little bit. Very few cryptids just maim people, you know?

Yeah, they just kind of show up. Yeah, they normally kill or like kidnap or something along those lines. Not just like slap the shit out of you. That is very monkey-like behavior. I mean, but a lot of the cryptid like, you know, testimonials or eyewitness accounts and a lot of the other cases are literally just the thing showed up, I saw it, and that was it. Yeah. There's no real interaction a lot of the time. It is funny to imagine like a cryptid running up being like, I like your cut. Just bam. Yeah.

Alright, where was I? I'm unable to figure... Monkey Man in New Delhi. As the media ravenously tore into the story, the locals themselves were spreading warnings in every sighting they could find, essentially creating a mass hysteria of paranoia and over-the-top persecution of every event. The hotspot area for the Monkey Man sightings was being monitored by news reporters who were trying to get a glimpse of the creature, like Spider-Man. Take me a picture of Spider-Man!

There's journalists vans just parked around this block, just waiting, waiting for the monkey man. We need to get monkey man pics. It reminds me of my favorite episode of the Simpsons. The one where Mr. Burns is an alien. Oh yeah. I love that episode. Yeah. That is my favorite episode. I think of all time. And it reminds me of that, how everyone was just on the hunt for this alien.

Not just that. Vigilante mobs of people with bats and sticks were roaming the streets looking for the monkey man. The monkey man was known to target isolated individuals on rooftops, so grouping up together and avoiding the rooftops seemed like the only way to survive.

Just everyone crowded onto a roof with bats ready to fight it off. This monkey has attacked two people and they're treating it like a zombie apocalypse. But one guy couldn't work for 21 days though, Jackson. True, yeah.

He got fucked up. Why didn't you just say three weeks? 21 days is so funny. I just can't imagine this is like, this seems like a very, not, I don't want to say foreign thing necessarily in terms of the, you know, it takes place in a foreign country, but foreign is in the idea that it's very foreign to me. Like if something...

It just happens to take place in a foreign country. If something started attacking my local town, I don't think that everyone would be... Yeah, roaming around with sticks. Yes, that just seems very odd. It seems very strange. Yeah, you would leave it to the authority. You would implicitly trust the authorities or whatever to handle it. Because your rational side of your brain would be like, well, it's clearly an escaped tiger or something. I think it's also a more...

like city thing that happens a lot because I hear cases of like weird mass hysteria happening when people are grouped closer to each other. And I think it's because there's so much like social structure built on the interaction or built on the actions of like what the guy next to you does that you don't really see in other environments.

Well, it's like with kind of like that group think implicit in crowds and groups. You know, like when you're out and about, you've seen videos of like someone will start running and then the entire crowd starts running because they're just following, you know. You're like going out to a crowd to start running. Yeah. See who will follow you. Yeah. It's like, it's kind of like that group think or mob mentality that kind of, you know, is fostered in the city environments. Yeah. Go out and start running and screaming run.

yeah say everyone for yourself every man for yourself like like joshua block on tiktok that's what he does he's out there i mean if i saw that if if i if i went to a city and i saw just someone start running screaming i'd probably join in like i would for sure dude anyways

The public was understandably terrified. Even with no evidence or actual sightings of Monkey Man, it was growing into paranoia. There were hundreds of calls to the police during this time, and these calls barely ever included any details of actual attacks, but were usually from people who had seen shadows and heard noises that they had assumed was the Monkey Man. It's kind of crazy how quickly this snowballed.

It reminds me of when LA, not to keep cutting you off, Caleb, but it reminds me of when LA had a power outage and people kept calling the police because they saw, they could see the stars for the first time and they reported that something was wrong, like there was something in the sky. UFO up there! UFO! They were scared of the stars? Wow. That is actually so sad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's pretty sad. That's crazy.

Yeah, tragically, two people lost their lives as a result, a direct result of the Monkey Man. They weren't actually attacked by the Monkey Man, but their deaths came from the panic caused by the creature.

And I'm going to try my absolute best just to let you guys know, I'm going to try my best to not laugh because this is, I know people actually died. If someone actually died. This is crazy though. This is crazy that the monkey man, the idea of the monkey man caused death. That is crazy to me. Yeah. Uh, I didn't actually do it, but it happened.

In early May, a woman who was eight months pregnant at the time was startled when she heard noises in her home. A neighbor who must have also heard strange sounds yelled, the monkey man, the monkey has come. Knowing the stories being spread, she began to frantically flee down a flight of stairs and the woman lost her balance and fell down the stairs and was injured so badly that later she sadly passed away.

I should reread that. This is crazy. It's crazy. It's like a scene in Final Destination or something. How? How did this all happen? How did someone yelling... It's like the butterfly effect. How did someone yelling the monkey has come lead to the death of a pregnant woman? Are you sure that's real? Did that actually happen?

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's documented. I didn't do the research for this. My girlfriend did, but she was pretty good with research. Well, I do remember. No, I remember when I did my research for that there were two deaths associated with the monkey man. So, yeah. I feel really bad because the whole time I was trying not to laugh when I read that and...

I started laughing hysterically at the end. But it's no person died, though. It's tragic that she died, but the absurdity of the line, the monkey has come, is still funny, even though the results of it were not funny. We're not laughing at her passing away. We're not laughing at her death or anything by any means. It's a tragedy. It's just the context. It's just the absurdity of the entire scenario, yeah. I feel stupid.

If I had died because I fell down some stairs...

I'd want people to laugh at my death if it was something like that, honestly. Like, I died from The Monkey Has Come. Yeah, it seems like an Adam Sandler movie bit or something. Like the Zohan or something like that. Oh, well, you've ruined it. I mean, that's what it really does. There's someone screaming, The Monkey Has Come. I mean, The Monkey Has Come. Yeah, then they fall... Like, slapstick humor kind of thing where Adam Sandler then runs away and falls down some stairs when a laugh track ensues. Yeah, it's like... I just... I don't know. I don't know. I'm fucking stupid, I guess. Um...

Knowing of the stories being spread, she began to frantically... Okay, yeah, there you go. A few weeks later, a man in Noida, a city near New Delhi, died when he fell from a building trying to escape what he believed was the monkey man. He had been... I can't do this. Someone else want to read this?

You're going to get canceled. I'll do it. I'm really going to get canceled because the monkey man is so stupid. It's so inherently stupid. My entire channel is reading about people dying and then being like, well, that just happened. So I'll take this one. Okay, thank you. I've walked these streets before.

Can we talk about how desperately they must have been trying to flee where they actually are, you know, falling to their deaths?

It had to be scenarios of groups of people standing around and then someone's like, there it is! And everyone just rush, panic. Yeah. Well, yeah, and also I'm sure that obviously the infrastructure is really poor in New Delhi. You see pictures of the places they're living and yeah, if you try running across the rooftops or whatever, I'm sure you're more than likely going to fall at some point. It's not like they're made with safety rails or anything like that. It's not OSHA compliant. Yeah.

Not every day there's a monkey man biting people in the leg. Yeah, but yeah, I'm just saying you had to, you really, truly, I think, had to believe in the monkey man's existence to flee that hard.

Yeah, and again, like I said, if you were to set down an individual, I mean, this is just crowd mentality. If you were to set down an individual and explain to them in detail the evidence for and against and be like, okay, do you honestly believe it's a monkey man? Most people would say no, but you put them in a crowd of people who are panicking and screaming because someone saw something.

And then like stuff could happen. I mean, it's like, that's like the entire idea of mass hysteria, right? That, you know, one person sees something. So everyone sees something and it just builds off of that. It happens everywhere. The dancing plague.

Dancing plague. Yeah, true. The dancing plague. I think we've got to also remember, though, not to entirely put our Western mindsets in this environment. It's honestly possible that they individually in New Delhi did believe in the existence of this thing because they had a different kind of upbringing and lifestyle and all those kinds of elements that made them more predisposed, a different culture that made them more predisposed to believing this kind of stuff.

Yeah, that's a really good point. It's possible. It's possible, but I guess what I mean more so is that there's maybe not specifically like the monkey man, but there are equivalents of it in other cultures and stuff like that as well. It's definitely happened in other cultures. Like Caleb just said, the dancing plague. Yeah. Very good example. Yeah, or like I forget. There was some TV show that aired in Spain back in the early 2000s

And there was a section in the... Like an episode of a TV show. It was like a kid's soap opera or whatever. Where a bunch of characters got sick. So the following days in school, a ton of kids got sick. And there was no discernible cause. And it was determined to be mass hysteria because they had seen it on the television show. And had soma-somatically...

Is that right? Psychosomatic? Whatever the word is for it. Psychosomatic, that's it. Had adopted the symptoms that they saw on the television show. So yeah, stuff like that happens everywhere. Like kids in wheelchairs after watching Drake and Degrassi. Yeah, exactly like that, Caleb. I have no evidence of that. But yeah, it's just an equivalent of that. Although it's rare that you can tie actual deaths to it like you can in this case.

Yeah, were the symptoms, so when they believed that they had the symptoms through watching that TV show, did they actually exhibit the symptoms? Yes, they would. The stuff that could be exhibited by the body without outside influence, so things like a cough, a fever, stuff like that, but there wasn't any actual pathogen detected.

The body is so weird. The mind is so weird. The mind, yeah. We still understand so little about it. The subconscious mind. Yeah, it's very strange. You can trick people into having something that they just, uh, and they'll just, like, have it. They'll just, like, their body will manifest it. It's wild. It's so crazy. I mean, you can trick people into believing the monkey man, too, so...

We can do all kinds of magic with our brains. I'm on the monkey man of Delhi right now on the Wikipedia and it says there's, it resulted in 60 injuries. I don't, uh, two by some reports, three people die. So yeah, there could be more deaths even as well.

And again, that's not actual death caused. I mean, the monkey man didn't bite them so hard they died. Yeah, that's what you say. Have you seen the picture of this guy? This monkey man guy? We're going to get to it. It's in the doc. Oh yeah, it is.

All right. Caleb, you can continue now. We're done with the dying people. Okay, thank you, Isaiah. Thank you very much. I don't know what came over me. Something is severely wrong with my brain, I think. I'm starting to wonder. It's understandable. But now, all of the hilarity of those two deaths are behind us. The deaths aren't funny. It's the monkey man.

why do we have to make these disclosures whatever whatever you say caleb wink wink surely this should be like pretty obvious right like we shouldn't have to say that it's pretty obvious well i think so you're right it is pretty obvious we all know what caleb finds funny here beyond the unfortunate deaths accidental deaths the people of new delhi themselves were also beginning to cause a lot of damage it

A lot of people were randomly attacking people they suspected were the monkey man. Another layer of comedy, unfortunately. That one you can laugh at. That one's fine to laugh at. That's crazy. Of course that happened. It's just hilarious. That's just good comedy. Oh my gosh, just the idea of like you're just like checking out of the grocery store and a whole crowd of people's like, there he is! It's the monkey man! Get his ass!

He's slightly more hairy than usual. Yeah. Wow. That's awesome. A lot of people randomly attacked and attacking people because they suspected they were the monkey man. One mob of around 150 people actually attacked an innocent man on the streets because they thought he was the monkey man. 150? Why is he doing this?

people were all like, this is a great idea. Let's beat the fuck out of that guy. That's so many people to beat up one person. Where was the sign-up page for that? Did they have meetings beforehand? Was this like an ag, like a 4-H thing? Was it like one dude walking down the street and then two more joined in and then three more joined in? That kind of thing? It just grew that way? What happened?

They all have like a pamphlet of what the monkey man looked like, which we'll get to. And they've looked at it. And then they looked at the guy. And they looked at it. And then they looked at the guy. Close enough. And then they all in unison, like a bunch of synapses, fired at once. Yeah. It's him. It's him. Get him.

Maybe, hold on, or, or, or, perhaps more likely than 150 people attacking a random person, have we confirmed that this guy wasn't just the monkey man? Yeah, I mean, yeah, go ahead. He didn't attack again after that. After. Maybe he was a, maybe he was in fact a very, like, a monkey-human hybrid. He was like Bigfoot.

Maybe he was an innocent monkey man too. Maybe he wasn't the one committing the crime. Classic case of monkey man racism. Yeah, you can't do that. You can't just look at a monkey man and assume he was killed. They beat the man up before realizing he was innocent. At what point did they realize he was innocent? When he was like, I'm not the monkey man! Stop! Or...

That's exactly what the monkey man would say. Yeah, exactly. Beats him with baton. I guess his whimpering cries on the ground were very un-monkey man-like. Too many ouchies. Please stop hitting me and not enough ooh, ooh, ah, ahs. Good one. That was good as well. Monkey noises. Come on, monkey. You gotta sell it. Give me some monkey noises. That sounded like a monkey man being beaten. It's all about the inhale with monkey sounds. Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh.

Yeah, you do it good. The monkey man never left. Yeah, that's good. That's really good. I believe I think we got into it a few times when you were at the house, Isaiah. Everyone started hitting the monkey. We did that for like 10 minutes straight and Chris was just so... She walked into the room and just left. I didn't see her for like the rest of the day. She was

The monkey man never left any trace behind, making it impossible to track and also impossible to prove it was real. As previously discussed, the lack of lighting in the city for long stretches of time during the night created a perfect environment for the monkey man to attack while concealed. And also the perfect environment for it to legs victims to go absolutely bananas with their descriptions of their would be Simeon assailant, which is what they did.

This resulted in descriptions of the creature being wildly varied. Your girlfriend is having way too much fun with this script. Go bananas. Yeah. This is insane. She's allowed to have fun with it. Yeah, of course. This is me as an Indian man describing the... I'm not going to do an accent, by the way. Why'd you say it like that? Because we're an Indian man in this whole video, right? It's a quote. That's how you set it up. Oh, wait, what are you...

Oh right, yeah, yeah, yeah. You wanna do an accent, Caleb? Is that what you're implying? No, no, I don't. No, no, no, I don't. You're allowed to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're allowed to. Yeah, go ahead. The creature had its hands on my thighs when I woke up. It looked like a langur, Yunus said, who lives in the suburb of Krishnan Nagar last night. Did he die? No, I'm here. Okay. I'm just waiting for validation.

My mother picked up a broomstick and jumped out of the balcony. Are we going to leave that silence in? Because that was like my entire, because he said, I'm waiting for validation. Like a child. What did you want us to say? Good job. Yeah. Good job. You did great, Caleb. We're proud of you. We're all very, an eyewitness test testimony. Yeah, that's pretty cool. I mean,

That's pretty direct. So the monkey was in there, then the mother picked up a broomstick and it jumped out of the balcony. Again, nothing man-like. In fact, it says it looked like a langur, which is a type of monkey. So where's the man aspect of this? And it ran away when there was a broomstick. You saw a monkey. That's all this is. It didn't even attack, it just left. Someone who's seen a langur their whole life would just say it was a langur, but if it's a monkey man, then maybe it was a man that looked like a langur.

Oh, these langurs are the exact ones I've seen in videos where they're like little troublemakers. Yeah, langurs are bastards. You know what's cute is a Japanese snow monkey. I love those. Oh, yeah. Oh, those things are adorable. The babies make the little cooey noise and stuff like that. Those and like the little ones, like the top tamarins and stuff, they're mean, but they're like very cute and stuff like that. I'm very excited to see them in December when I go to Japan. Especially because like monkeys do this cute thing.

We're like when they want something or they're like being it's like a submissive thing they do when like they want someone to give them something or like pet them or whatever. They'll like lip smack. They'll go like like that. Yeah. See like the little babies do that when they come up to people. It's very cute. The babies are so freaking cute. They have such big eyes. Yeah. They're so adorable.

People love torturing them too. They're just like the devil's mischief. Why would you say that? It's like a whole thing on YouTube. There's a whole playlist of monkeys being tortured on YouTube. Have you guys heard about that? What, like actually tortured? Yeah, it's a phenomenon. It's an actual phenomenon. It's an entire rabbit hole of the internet dedicated to just harming monkeys and stuff. Is it similar to the genre on YouTube where they torture seafood before eating it and stuff like that? I'd say it's way worse.

I'd say it's normally what it is, is it's videos of other monkeys hurting each other or like in places where monkeys run rampant. It's like people like kicking or like hitting monkeys and stuff like that. And the comments are full of people who are like, yeah, that's right. Hit him, get him and stuff. Yeah, it's so weird. What? It's either like the way everything's framed around it. It's either like fetish content or it's like a hurt core thing.

Like they like the idea of something experiencing pain, maybe not fetishistically, but kind of like in a... Pathetically? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Almost like it's their... What's the word I'm looking for? Outlet.

Yeah, like it's an outlet like it's an outlet for something um good So also just be like they ate them and they see him a lot and they're just like hey We hate these monkeys I think I think it goes deeper than that out of everything I've seen about because a bunch of people like obsess over it like like I don't like like What's an example some of them like I don't like something like cockroaches or like bugs again the house and stuff like that Yeah, or like something like that, but I don't go out of my way to watch videos of them suffering right and

Typically, people in the monkey hate stuff. It seems like this is their hobby. They like watching monkeys get hurt. Monkeys are sad, man. I love monkeys, too. I think what it is, and this is what Tom talks about in his video, is it probably relates to some kind of either trauma or if not fetishistic content where they're kind of

Visualizing the monkey is almost the way of a kid being hurt, so maybe that individual was hurt as a kid and now they enjoy seeing it happen to something else. It's a very dark, very weird corner of the internet. I think it's probably just people trying to... Also, there's probably some that are just enjoying trying to be as edgy as possible, like skirting that line. Yeah. By posting six crying laughing emojis to a monkey getting its head stomped. Yeah.

Probably like the same people who genuinely watch gore for that kind of element as well. Like gore videos and shit like that. I watch gore. I'm hard.

Yeah. People actually think that that's like a cool part of their personality is to watch people die. I wish people would go outside, man. I wish people would talk to people in real life about the shit that they talk about online and realize just how fucking weird the elements that they're into online are. Like, just please talk to someone in real life about it and see the look in their eyes as they lose all respect for you about whatever you are that you're into online because Christ, it's bad. Anyway.

Anyway, back to Eunice. So we could describe this picture. There's a screen grab from the video. This will be up on screen on the video version of this episode. It's a person's back, I think, with little bite marks over it. So there's definitely like...

supposed video evidence of the attacks but I mean there's no evidence that it came from a monkey well the aftermath of the attack yeah yeah yeah I don't know they don't look like it looks like a bite if it were anything and that's a big ass bite if that's a monkey that's a big old monkey that's a big ass monkey right there looks like a boiled me but bigger than any normal monkey you'd see almost like a monkey man holy shit you're right

At first, the monkey man was human-like with monkey characteristics. One man who first saw the monkey man described it as having pale skin, blue eyes, and he recounted that it had Chinese or Nepali face features. The reports existing after the initial and relatively grounded account constantly evolved.

Some reported the monkey man is eight feet tall, while others claimed he was only around four feet tall. Embarrassing. There are stories of the creature having glowing red eyes and being covered in black fur and being able to move around on all fours and jump impossible heights. The monkey man was also described as having long and incredibly sharp metal. Yes, actually defined it as being metal nails that would be used to scratch its victims.

If they were naughty. We are not done yet on the evolution. What's that? I said it's like Wolverine. There's nothing in your body that is metal. That's not natural. That's not natural characteristics of a living organism. It's almost like it was all made up. Yeah. Crazy. We are not done yet on the evolution of the monkey man.

Beyond this, whenever you do that, it pops up and I can't read it. Sorry. We're not done yet on the evolution of the monkey man. I'm trying to keep track of where you are. Beyond this edition of Metal Nails, the monkey man would go on to evolve even further.

Many eventually reported the monkey man to have, and I'm not joking, a metal helmet and sort of armor that had three glowing buttons on the chest. I can't read it. One button turned it from man to monkey. The second gave it crazy strength and the third turned it invisible, which experts believe had been the reason it was able to sneak off in the middle of the night.

He's editing it live! He's editing it live! What am I supposed to do? The monkey man is hacked in. I'm tapping the paragraph he's reading. I'm tapping the paragraph he's reading so quickly my name is flashing all over everything he's trying to read. I'm trying to make it as difficult as possible for Caleb to read this paragraph. Dude, look at this monkey man. What the fuck?

I think Isaiah is the monkey man that's so funny can we go back though because that was actually funny like they described it as having a metal helmet and a suit with three buttons on it the suit had it was like some fucking sci-fi technology he was wearing with three buttons that activate different powers on him so that's pretty cool

Dude's pimp. And then there's this artist rendition of the monkey man of New Delhi. And I don't know, I wonder what you guys describe it. It's a pretty bad rendition. It's a top-notch stuff. I mean, it's just a monkey with like three nipples and a helmet. Yeah, three nipples and a fucking helmet. I don't know. Yeah. Metal claws. I still don't, I don't know where the man part, is the man part the helmet? Yeah. What is it? It looks like a monkey. It just looks like a monkey. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways. Um,

These descriptions made their way to the official police artist who was asked to draw an impression of the figure to better warn the public. There were two images produced via an official government organization of the supposed figure, which makes it look real in my eyes. One was covered in fur and the other was depicted wearing its sneaking clothes, including a suave belt and boots adorned with a stylish sport helmet.

Both were incredibly adorable. They look like Sunday cartoons. Saturday morning cartoons. They look like mascots. I wish this was real. I could actually see them as the mascots of the New Delhi Olympic team or something. Something like that. A very cute mascot. The guy just fell off his bicycle and he's got his hands up. He's like long legs. He's about to get arrested by the popo.

Yeah. I can take this next part. This is no more monkey business. The police reaction with paranoia spreading like wildfire throughout the community and many cases of village. Jesus already fucked it up.

Many cases of- Five seconds and it just ran into the ground. That word is fucked. Vigilantism. Vigilantism. Vigilantism. And mob justice, the police had to get involved in a meaningful way that didn't just revolve around creating adorable drawings of what I assume eventually became an Olympics mascot or something.

They came in swinging in what would be a massive show of force that would keep even King Kong at bay. They dispatched more than 3,000 police officers to where the creature was most reported at night in an attempt to catch it. Like how, how does a police organization actually commit that much manpower to this? Well, so I think one thing we have to remember is that there's a fucking lot of people in New Delhi. So like 3,000 people would be like if 10 people from my town went out and did it, you know? True.

Yeah, I guess. It's still so many people. New Delhi is very populated. I know that. Population. 33.8 million.

Not impressed. Okay. They also made sure that these areas had constant power throughout the night so that there was enough light in the streets as it was reported that the creature was temporarily weakened by light and also water, like the aliens from Signs. Love that. It's a great movie. I love that movie. This was actually a big deal. Police, admitting that they didn't know what the creature was, offered up to 50,000 rupees to anyone who could capture it. This equaled about 1,000 USD.

So, I mean, if you were like a monkey man bounty hunter who wanted to make a quick $1,000, you were in a prime position to capitalize on that offer. I don't know how they'd prove it, how they'd prove you caught the actual correct monkey man, but I guess- Get picks. I guess there was a process.

Imagine that.

They issued strict warnings to the public as well, demanding the public stop spreading fake warnings or misleading information about the monkey man. Ultimately, though, we have to understand that the police were chasing something that they had no clear identification of beyond those cute little mascots that we talked about previously.

Furthermore, they had very little reliable information to go on as well due to the mass hysteria now gripping New Delhi. Beyond that, they couldn't exactly just stop because they had already opened the can of worms by giving it an ounce of legitimacy. So yeah, I think by even commenting and drawing the monkey man and then sending out 3,000 troopers to deal with the menace. 3,000 to stop the monkey menace. Yeah, I definitely made it worse, right? Yeah. Also, let's talk about how there's 33.8 million people in Delhi, New Delhi.

That's a lot. There's 33.8 million people in one city.

Are you serious? India is very densely populated. So 3,000 people, that'd be like the state of Texas sending 3,000 people. New York is 7.5 million, right? So that's like four times at least the population of New York City. Oh my word, I didn't realize it was that big. Yeah, and it's extremely densely packed. And also a really bad place to live. Hold on, I'm seeing right here...

Okay, the city is 9.4 million. The metro area population is 33.8 million. Wow, that's incredible. That is a lot of people. Yeah. Unrelated to Monkey Man, but continue. Monkey Man moment. I will say that, like...

Imagine being a person who feels the monkey man's real or you have a paranoia about it and then the police are like, don't worry, we're sending 3,000 police officers. That would fuel it way, way worse. That would make me more comfortable. I'd be scared as shit. Thank God I voted for them. They're out there protecting me. I'd be fucking terrified if I was a guy in New Delhi.

believing in just sleeping every night on the roof because it's hot during the day i'm just trying to get some cool i'm afraid i might get fucking bit by a drive-by it's not a good existence yeah it's not a good existence but also surely they had to be slightly comforted by knowing that the police were out there protecting them from monkey men i guess i'd be more happy with that 150 man strong mob of just fucking vigilantes

They actually beat somebody up. They got shit done. Yeah, they got shit done. They got it done. Yeah, they started whooping ass. They clocked in. They didn't wait for proof or nothing. They got beating. No, they're ready. Yep, they got to swinging.

So the police department doubled down. Alongside officers, they also sent special units like the Anti-Terror Squad to try and investigate what was happening. Their task was to capture the monkey man. There were no rules of engagement. Just capture him, do whatever needs to be done. But they were also unsuccessful and didn't find any evidence of the monkey man either. Hmm, how strange. I wonder why. Yeah. And this was the Anti-Terror Squad as well. I'm sure they took it very seriously. The New Delhi Navy SEALs. Yeah.

There was some arrest made in suspicions of the individuals being the monkey man, but there was never any concrete evidence, but more circumstantial evidence and nothing came from any of the arrests. The police eventually dismissed theories that the monkey man was a supernatural being and put everything down to mass hysteria, fear, and some individuals taking advantage and possibly causing trouble amidst the chaos. They ended up closing the case.

Within like a month as well. Like it was very quick. Everything happened within the same kind of month long period. Isaiah, would you like to take the next segment?

Unpeeling the mystery. Unpeeling the mystery. Again, we're gonna have to put her on leave on sabbatical until we get this reined in. The level of puns here is too much. She's clearly taking this very seriously. She's definitely treating this like a serious case that two people definitely died in and should be treated with respect. Not saying things like, hate crusader, going bananas, unpeeling the mystery.

Well, to be fair, she was more respectful during the death paragraph than Caleb was. I'm just reading what's in front of me, Bert. Between her and Caleb, we are immediately getting cancelled. Like, shut straight into the earth. This is mad. I'm sorry. It's all over. The story of the monkey man came from a developing area where people lived in an incredibly dense and hot city environment. Many of the reports came from poor areas of the city, 89%,

They had limited access to power and light during the night, let alone clean and healthy living. They held high superstitions and the small spark that started the Monkey Man grew into what is most likely mass delusion. This can be seen most easily with the tragic events of people dying in accidents after thinking that the Monkey Man was nearby.

These deaths and the fear that was pervasive at the time would fuel every single slightly odd encounter experienced by the population, almost self-confirming on a societal level what was being reported. That happens all the time with mass hysteria cases. Like, a thing will be happening for a really long time, but then people will be like, okay, what if you recontextualize it as this thing? Yeah.

They almost want to believe it at that point, right? Yes. What's the big one? I forget where it was. The windshield pitting epidemic. I think it was in Seattle. So there was a news story. I think it was like in the paper or something that someone had their windshield. Like they found these little pits in it, like these tiny chips. And it was believed to be because someone like threw a rock at the car. It was some minor instance like that.

Well, after that, everyone began calling the police being like, oh, the same thing happened to me. There's a chip in my windshield and someone else called. There's a chip in mine. And all these like micro cracks and windshield were now being attributed to some kind of like mass vandalism attack or like maybe hail that is being unreported at night.

People had all these crazy theories around it, when in reality, it's just a lot of car windshields have a little chip in them that no one ever notices until they try to fit it into some greater conspiracy that's going on. And it seems like the same thing happened here.

People need something grander to believe in with those kinds of things. As soon as they notice something, like you said, they recontextualize things to fit the narrative a lot of the times. What is that one that happened? There was one mass hysteria incident that was a similar thing where people, like everyone at Wurz, had the same issue with

Just because someone else... I mean, that's how pretty much all of them are. Yeah, that's all of them. Oh, the Mad Gasser. The Mad Gasser of Mattoon, as it's called. It was this instance where a...

Someone had reported, this was in Wisconsin, I think, or Michigan, some northern state. Illinois, apparently. Illinois, Illinois. Someone had said that they saw a guy outside spraying chemicals all over their property. And then a ton of people called the police, like, I saw someone outside of my property, or someone was walking on my property, and they all said it was this guy who's spraying poisonous gas around people's houses. It was just like someone saw something they didn't know. Maybe someone was spraying pesticide or

or something and then every like lawn worker every like road worker anyone who was near someone's house was reported as being this mad gasser it was completely normal events that were now recontextualized as being something greater because they're more vigilant about it on their mind it's at the front of your mind so you're going to see it they see it and then they paint it they put it in that box did you guys ever have the clown epidemic a couple years ago in 2016 yeah

Well, not in Australia, but I saw it online. I remember it. Yeah, I mean, like here in the United States, that was a huge deal. Everyone had like clowns attacking and stuff like that. Did that actually happen, though? Like, did they actually get attacked? Well, they weren't attacking. What I think it was is there were a few stories of people like being kind of threatening or like, you know, like YouTube prank channel type content, like chasing someone with a fake knife or whatever.

And then a bunch of people got the idea to do it from there. Yeah, exactly. But I think there were a lot of reports that were made just because someone maybe saw someone in a park and was like, you know, it was dark out or whatever. And they're like, oh, that was it. That was one of the clowns or whatever. Yeah.

I would count that as a case of probably like mass hysteria. I think some of it was. I think some of it was people seeing like people they didn't really identify or maybe didn't attack them and then being like, oh, what if that was a clown about to attack me? And then they would just tell the story that way. At the same time, though, there were people agonizing on actually dressing up as clowns and doing that. There were a bunch of local sightings. I remember there's like a Facebook group back in Virginia and everybody's like, I seen a clown off 81. Yeah.

I seen the clown, he's real, fuck! It's like the new modern UFO sightings. Literally, yeah. I'll fight you warm down past round 11. Fuck!

That's funny. According to the Medium article, the Monkey Man of Delhi, a city gripped by mass hysteria, out of 397 reported attacks, there were only 51 that had enough details to perform an investigation. And out of those 51 cases, a majority of them were men between the ages of 20 to 30 that lived in the poorest areas of New Delhi. The social and environmental factors are important to look at when discussing the case of the Monkey Man.

It's normal to have a fear of the unknown, and in these situations where everyone lived densely together in small, hot homes packed on top of each other, the idea of something attacking you in the middle of the night is terrifying. The groups going out with weapons to hunt down the monkey man also added to this growing panic. When you're scared, your mind itself plays tricks on you, and you begin to overanalyze and lose whatever rationality you may have had before.

Many parts of the city were living in poverty, and the living conditions were overcrowded with limited access to basic health services and education. People's homes were more vulnerable to intrusion, which heightened the fear. India is also rich in traditions of folklore and belief in the supernatural, which can affect the way people interpret unusual events. This is all to say that it's believable why this story caught on in the way that it did in New Delhi.

Yeah, I think it's absolutely believable why this kind of, you know, transpired the way it transpired. Like, even if it was just initially like a rogue monkey that bit a dude on a rooftop, I can absolutely see how that snowballed into, you know, something greater than what it initially was. Mass Sociogenic Illness, or MSI for short, is a psychological phenomenon where a group of people, usually in a common shared environment, experience similar psychological symptoms with no identifiable cause.

It's often characterized by being triggered from stress, fear, or rumors. This can be applied to the Monkey Man case directly. First, there was the fear of this mysterious, unnatural, and almost supernatural threat. People quickly became stressed and anxious in every additional report or witness. As more people became aware of the Monkey Man and reports continued to snowball, the panic became more widespread.

We should touch on the injuries too because it is true that these did exist. After all, there are photos and documentation on the injuries. Scratches and bite marks were shown to local doctors who assessed whether they were real or not. The doctors, broadly speaking, found that the injuries were real but caused by an animal like a rodent or a stray dog.

In addition to that, when people were running away from the presumed threat, they were running into objects which would themselves cause scratch marks on their arms and legs. BBC News reported that the Indian Rationalist Association dismissed the monkey man as a case of mass self-destruction with people inflicting wounds upon themselves for attention. Mass self-destruction? That's a pretty cool name for something. That is a metal man name.

That's cool. Also, Indian Rationalist Association. That's going to be a fun organization. Let me check that one out. Are they still around? That's a really interesting name. The Rationalists. We're the Rationalists. We think. It sounds like those YouTube atheists from like 10 years back. You believe in a man in the sky. Like that whole thing. We think, therefore we are.

Widoway. An actual monkey man. Could the monkey man be a cryptid or some unknown creature? Probably not. Possibly. There are small monkeys that are often found around the city, often bouncing between houses and occasionally attacking people in the streets. There have even been many reports of monkeys running through offices in New Delhi, stealing food and mobile phones, and tearing up important documents conveniently.

These monkeys clearly know the city environment well and have adapted to it. It's not inconceivable to think that these were cases of monkey attacks that snowballed into something more bombastic. With all that being said, the people who saw and encountered the monkey man didn't recognize it as a monkey or even a person. So it could really be some sort of hybrid creature that we don't know of that will eventually return to the jungle after its weekend of fun. That eventually return. Are these people chasing this monkey in this image? Yeah.

Yeah, it looks like he's making a quick getaway. So we're going to put an image on screen. There's a monkey climbing a telephone pole with, I think, three Indian men in the distance running towards it. So maybe the monkeys were the ones that should have been scared. This is another mob forming, by the way, probably. This is a reenactment of what happened back in 2001. Yeah. Yeah.

You're right. This is a reenactment of 9-11. If the monkey is representative of the tower and the three planes. That's kind of weird. That's really deep. That's highly conspiratorial.

I like it. I believe it though. Conspiracies. Speaking of conspiracies, there are some that believe that the monkey man isn't just one creature, but a group of people electing to cause chaos and fear within these communities themselves, possibly even using disguises and what the kids called cosplay to appear more scary, ape-like and intimidating. What would be their goal though? Well,

Let's remember the environment of New Delhi. We've really harped on about it at this point, but it needs to be hammered home. This was truly not a nice place to live. Cramped, overpopulated, lacking clean water, inundated with pollution, frequent rolling blackouts, and a temperature so violent that the people felt the need to commonly sleep on their roofs as opposed to inside due to the risk of heatstroke.

Let's just say it wasn't a very nice place to live. To add insult to injury, all throughout this turmoil where the people were suffering day and night, the corrupt government played no hand in helping them and instead diverted the power from their neighborhoods to other more wealthy districts. So with that in mind, what would their motive be when hypothetically sparking a superhuman monkey man hybrid into life whose only weakness was light and water, two resources they desperately lacked?

Who wrote this shit? M. Night Shyamalan? Yeah, yeah. I like this theory, though, that it was actually some kind of coordinated effort by the people living in this district, this poor district of New Delhi, where they created this thing, this creature that attacked people in the darkness and was only weak to water and light. And so I said before earlier in the script, but the government's

Sorry, the police department actually diverted power back to this area during this whole crisis. So they did get their lights back and stuff like that. And they were handed out water and things like that. So they did get the things they needed. So maybe. What do you guys think? Um...

Seems like bullshit to me, to be honest. I do like it. I like the story a lot. It's a good fun one. I'm just saying, if these people have seen monkeys their entire lives and then they say this thing wasn't a monkey, it was a monkey-like creature, then they probably know what they're talking about. Who are we to say? What do you think about them possibly using it to get what they want? I think that's really cool and smart. Wait, say that again?

Like, they're the people of the district using the monkey man to get power put back, like, power redirected back into their neighborhoods. Because remember the rolling blackouts and stuff. I don't think the people who were falling off of groups and scratching themselves and saying a monkey man did it, I don't think they were coordinating this hard to get, like, to do five-dimensional chess to get power restored. No, what I'm saying is it initially started with that goal of creating this kind of

phenomenon which then snowballed into actual hysteria, which may have been what the initial people wanted. Yeah. Do you get what I mean? Yeah, I suppose. It seems a little convoluted, yeah, a little bit. But I like it. I don't know. I think it's more interesting, more an interesting theory than just saying the monkey man doesn't exist, they made it up. I like it for that aspect. Well, I don't know if they made it up. I think they were just really scared and they thought it was real. It's like the beginning of Shrek. Yeah.

Probably the more likely. There are other theories too, of course. One popular theory was that it could be a government experiment gone wrong that escaped from a local lab. I like this one. This one took you in immediately. This is the government. It was the US government too, probably. It was the CIA. Not the Indian government. Yeah.

Maybe the government was testing new technology and biological agents that led to the creation of the monkey man. There's no evidence of this, obviously, nor is the lab even specified. It's simply a wild theory thrown into the wind that people immediately latched onto because, well, why not? Like Caleb immediately just did. Yeah, I love it.

As soon as the government's brought into it, people are more willing to believe that it's a conspiracy. Right at the moment you got done reading that, I started choking. I think they're trying to kill me. We're getting too close. It's always the government. No, I agree with Caleb. It was definitely a monkey-human hybrid being experimented in a lab. Yeah, a chimera. A human-animal chimera. A third, potentially a third offshoot of the chimp-bonobo mystery.

The monkey man. The rare monkey man. The perfect specimen. The perfect specimen. This next chapter, we've been made a monkey out of, aftermath and conclusion. Since

Since the initial panic in 2001, there hasn't been any new sightings of the Monkey Man. In fact, the hysteria died down pretty quickly after May 25th of that year. The situation is widely regarded as an example of mass hysteria, and the Monkey Man has moved to more the urban legend and folklore category rather than an ongoing threat. Imagine if he was still an ongoing threat 23 years later. That'd be awesome. Like they were still seeing sightings of him and getting attacked in the night. That'd be terrifying.

He's just permanently there. They can't stop him.

It is still a cultural memory, especially to those who were there during the panic, but it has not continued on as an active phenomenon. It's somewhat interesting, really. To me, it seems like this is a modern version of Mothman or things like the Jersey Devil. You watch your mouth. You watch your mouth right now. It is, though. Do you want to talk about Mothman? Do you want to come at Mothman about that? It's the same thing. I will find you. I will come to Australia. Mothman was way older. Way older. How is it different to Mothman?

Because Mothman is definitely real and Monkey Man is also real, but he's a government experience rather than an agent of God. If I recall correctly, didn't you say that... Was it you or Charlie who said that the Mothman was a government creation as well? I think it might have been Charlie. You said interdimensional, didn't you? Yes. Yes. My theory is that Mothman's an interdimensional being that temporarily shifted into our reality then shifted back out. Yes. Correct. Hmm.

That's like a Chris Chan theory type thing. Yeah. The interdimensional drift. The interdimensional drift. All of our heroes all at once have become real. Chris Chan came up with, right, yeah. Well, unlike Sonic, Mothman is real and I love him. That's true. Fair enough.

I believe it. Unfortunately, it would appear that this is also how the monkey man of New Delhi will end as well. Just as a footnote of the better years, the early 2000s before 9-11. Yeah, there you go. Life was so, everything was so much more colorful. Everything was so much better. Yeah, it happened. We had monkey men. What could have been? What could have been?

His best years are behind it and now all we can do is reminisce on the time we shared together.

Well, that's the end. Any last minute thoughts? I think we all... Well, we've got to come up with some difference in opinion. I'm going to go the belief that it was actually a conspiracy, that the citizens of New Delhi came up with this in order to get more resources for the poorest parts of their town from the government. That's my opinion. I'm sticking to it. The feel-good conspiracy. The feel-good. The monkey dam is a hero. Yeah.

The people being smart. Yeah, some people unfortunately died in the plot, but they got the power back for a week at least, I think. They got 3,000 police officers to, I'm sure, do much justice.

Yeah, well, actually, crime rate did plummet in the area at the time. That makes sense. To a significant level, because there was more... How are you going to rob someone if you're afraid of a monkey attacking you randomly? Yeah, everyone was staying inside. It was like COVID, basically. Everyone was staying inside. There were police out on the streets. Apart from, of course, the mobs, which were also out there. So not everyone was inside. Those were heroes. Thank you. It's different. Soldiers on the front line. So, yeah, that's the theory that I subscribe to. How about you two? How far away is Wuhan?

Pretty close. I mean, let me check. Wuhan to New Delhi. It's going to be a short flight there. It's a conglomeration of multiple theories, I believe. You guys know what I mean. If the monkey man was to walk from Wuhan to New Delhi, it would take 1,400 hours to walk. But let's assume he can at least cycle. He could leap unfathomable heights, though. At least double his time. And he had a cool bicycle helmet.

Yeah, so he had to be... Okay, if he was bicycling, it would take like 150 hours. Maybe he was a space dweller. Maybe he could fly. Alright, well then it comes down to about 10 hours, so he's making it there pretty quickly. Yeah, I don't know. I think... I don't know. I feel like realistically what you're saying, Jackson, if it was like a convoluted thing that was created, then that makes the most sense, obviously. But if I'm...

To really lay my foot down, I say it's a government conspiracy. I think the government created the monkey man to destabilize India. Yeah, destabilize India. Just the same way that they artificially inflated Jackson Pollock's paintings and created modern art, essentially. This is a modern art thing. I see it now.

They were creating industry. They knew that the red thread would eventually exist and we needed an episode on something goofy. Exactly. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you, George W. Bush Sr. George H. Bush. Yeah. He put his name on this operation. Operation Monkey Man. Operation Monkey Man. Yet his war cabinet put together this brief. Operation Bombastic Ape.

Yeah, that's good. That's good. What do you think, Isaiah? Isaiah, take us home. You've been working on this theory. I can hear you. You're salivating to, you know, bust it open. Of course, of course. So...

The monkey man it was clear it began life as a monkey And then the Indian military was needing to make something stronger something better than a man. So they took the monkey and then they injected it with Stuff to make it more powerful just make it stronger and then it grew to these the super strong like monkey soldier proportions, but then it escaped and

That explains why it still had the test chamber helmet on its head. It was still strapped in. That also explains its strength, its quickness, its ability to work at night. What it was doing is it was trying to seek help because it was a monkey that was quickly developing a human consciousness, but it didn't know how to manifest that. So it tried to find people and wake them up, try to scratch at them to try to get their attention, but it was also afraid of man because man was the same thing that tortured it.

That's why it was simultaneously near them, but didn't know how to interact with them and then escape. And of course, the monkey man disappeared. It was likely destroyed by the military or perhaps I like to think it made its way into the jungle and found a life somewhere between the society of monkeys and the society of ours. Oh, that's a lonely life.

I said I like to think it found peace somewhere. No, yeah, but he's not part of human society. It is a testament to man's foolishness, to our lack of care for what we're doing.

Yeah, our lack of care for what we're creating. And also, I do like that your whole military angle does explain how it was able to see so well in the night, because obviously it would have night vision goggles. NVGs. GP NVGs. Of course. It's built in. It's built in, of course. Are there night vision goggles that glow red at all from the outside? No.

Not that I know of. But if it shined off like another light source correctly, then it may present itself as red. Because that could explain the glowing red eyes, maybe. I don't know. I'm trying to help you out. He got taken out by SEAL Team Sick.

Okay, so we have three different theories that are wildly different. Vote on which one you guys believe. Either mine, the people uprising and coming up with the monkey man. Caleb's, the US government initiated the plan to destabilize the region. Or C, Isaiah's military monkey man created in an Indian lab. Yes. Yep. Those are the options.

One of them's real. It has to be. Those are the only options. They're the only ones that make sense, really. A testament of our hubris. The monkey man is truly a tower of Babel. It definitely wasn't just a normal monkey that went on a biting rampage. Can't have been. Of course not. Can't be.

Alright, that's going to do it for this episode of Red Thread. Thank you very much for joining us. Really appreciate it. Thank you to my two very handsome co-hosts for joining me for this one. I hope you guys got something out of it. And I hope we'll see you next time. Oh, wait! You guys, shout out your stuff. You want to go first, Isaiah? Stuff? Yeah, buy Sour Boys. Go buy Sour Boys. Yeah, buy Sour Boys. Buy Sour Boys. And...

Yeah. Go view Wendigoon's channel. It's my new channel. There you go. And I also made a movie as well. Oh, you did? What was it? It's difficult really to say what it is. And it's easier to say what it isn't. What isn't it? It's not a bad movie. Let's just say it's...

It's very medium length. It's not... I literally don't know what I'm allowed to say or whatever is legal for me to say. It's really cool though. The movie that I made is really awesome. Yeah, the movie you made is really cool. I made candy and it's easier to say what it is than what it is. And the candy is very medium length if I were to say so myself.

That's funny. Yeah. That is pretty accurate. I think they'll do it. All right. Go check out the sourboys.gg, right? That's it? Sour.gg. Sour.gg? Yeah, just sour. Okay. Sour.gg. And also, are there tickets available still, Isaiah? Or is that over? To the tour? I think... I'm pretty sure LA is full up.

And then I think there's like maybe 30 seats left in Dallas, something like that, out of the 600-room theater, 600-person theater, I think. Something like that. If you want... So we're doing a limited...

sale for a poster. And if you get the poster, you can watch the movie early on Invis's website. Other than the Invis being the company the poster's made through. Other than that and the tour, if you don't want to get the poster now and you don't have tickets to the tour, the film will be out for free on YouTube on Evan Royalty's channel come end of October. I think the current plan is Halloween or the day before Halloween.

So wait on that to check out the film if you want, or if you want to watch it right now, if you support us by buying a poster, you'll unlock early access to the film at invis.tv slash collection slash SOTZ, which I'm sure we'll throw a link for that in the description. So yeah, basically you can watch it

early with the purchase of that. The film is still free, but we just figured for everyone supporting us, we might as well give you a way to see what all your money's being thrown into. And hopefully you enjoy it. Everything I've heard so far has been incredibly kind, and I'm very grateful for it. You guys have been fantastic. So thank you all very much. It means the world. Awesome. Alright, thank you very much for listening. Go support those things, and we'll see you next time with the Red Thread. Goodbye.

See you, everybody. Bye-bye.