July 30, 2024 • 40 mins
In Malay folklore, the Orang Minyak is an supernaturally agile, humanoid creature coated in an oily, slippery substance. It is primarily known for abducting young women at night. There are other, similar creatures in folkloric beliefs across the planet -- boogeymen meant to warn children against disobeying their parents or social mores. But something about the Orang Minyak is different: Since the 1950s, it's been a prime suspect in numerous assaults and attempted crimes, with authorities and bystanders both claiming there was something supernatural about these crimes.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So fellow conspiracy realist. Back in twenty nineteen, we got
super into this thing called the Orang Menyac Nola. You
remember this one. We were talking about this.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Yeah, well it came up recently in our monkey Man
episode in some of our cryptids of India talking about
some mysterious folkloric creatures from that part of the world,
and Malay folklore speaks of a creature called the Irang Miniac,
which is supernaturally very I don't know, fleet footed, humanoid, furry, oily,
(00:36):
slippery boy who apparently is really into abducting and doing
not nice things to young women.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Yeah, And in our investigation in tonight's classic episode, we
look at not just similar folkloric beliefs and how folklore
can be weaponized or used as a tool to encounter
the surrounding environment. We also look at the specific case
of I love they said, slippery Boy, of the slippery
(01:07):
boy around Minyac, who has since the nineteen fifties been
a prime suspect in numerous allegations of assault and other
attempted crimes. And the weird thing is Malay law enforcement
has often agreed there was something supernatural afoot.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Yeah, definitely check out our recent series on the cryptids
of India and if you want to check this one
out first as kind of a primer before you jump
into that series.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Let's roll it.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 5 (02:03):
Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
name is Noa.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
They call me Ben. We are joined as always with
our super producer Paul Mission controlled decands. Most important. You
are you, You are here and that makes this stuff
they don't want you to know. Generally speaking, most of
us when we tune into the show, we have some
sort of at least surface level familiarity with the subject
(02:28):
of the episode. You know, everybody knows that JFK, for instance,
was assassinated, right, People are familiar with that.
Speaker 5 (02:35):
Everybody knows.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
I'm pretty sure that's a safe thing to say. People
know that. For millennia, folks have chased after allegations of aliens, extraterrestrials,
and identified flying objects. But today's episode explores a subject
that may well be unfamiliar to most of us. Until
quite recently, the four of us had never heard of
(02:58):
this phenomenon. It's a story that deals with a strange
and unsettling intersection between folklore and crime, and this is
the type of crime that requires a disclaimer or trigger warning.
Today's episode contains descriptions of mature themes and sexual violence,
(03:19):
not graphic descriptions, but they do occur in the story.
Speaker 5 (03:23):
Yeah, a lot of people are familiar with with something
that we're going to talk about today that's similar or related.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Let's say, Yeah, this is a weird segue and this
is a little weird. Next thing in the notes is
most folks are familiar with the ranglutan doctor.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Zayas, doctor Zayas, doctor Zeias, doc. That's what I always
think about it.
Speaker 5 (03:41):
Yeah, orangutans, the orange looking greater apes. They're fantastic. My
son loves them, and the name translates to old man
of the woods and they look at yeah totally, I
mean really, yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
There are three species of great apes. At least now,
there are three species of great apes found in Indian
and Malaysia, and the most famous fictional orangutan is doctor
Zais of Planet of the Apes fame. But there's another,
much less lovable orangue in the mix. It's called the
orang megyac. In the Malay language. This name means the
(04:17):
oily man.
Speaker 5 (04:18):
Ew.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Yeah, it's one. It's only one of many similar mythical
beasts in the region. There are. It turns out there's
there's a whole posse of orang variations.
Speaker 5 (04:30):
Yeah. There's the tailed man, or orang ekor or ekoruh.
This is a race of men and women who have tails. Again,
a mythical race of men and women that have tales.
There's the Orang gadang.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Which is great to say, orangdang.
Speaker 5 (04:46):
That is the big man. This is to me, this
feels similar to a big footish with a sasquatch kind
of kind of creature. The big Man is like a
ten foot tall beast with long hair. He's either a viking, orangutan,
or just a bigfoot.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
There's also the arangbati, or a flying man. This creature
stands about five feet tall and it has these black,
leathery wings. This one is best known for living in
dormant volcanoes. Oh man, And that's this just a taste
of the various arrangus. But in folklore, the arrangue Megnac
(05:25):
is a supernatural creature and it is known for abducting
and attacking women in the night. Descriptions of this creature vary,
and they vary widely. Sometimes it's described as just a
naked dude. Sometimes it's a man wearing black swimming trunks.
Sometimes it's only a vaguely humanoid figure, occasionally covered with
(05:46):
hair and so on. It's occasionally described as being a
human warlock, or the victim of a magical curse, or
the willing practitioner of a magical right. Sometimes it is
said to be human at all. And it's kind of
tough to get a physical description of this creature except
for one thing.
Speaker 5 (06:07):
Yeah, and it's a bit odd because it's described in
so many varying ways that it feels like there could
be many of this thing, this irang Mignac, that is
not just a single creature out there, so if you
think about it in that way. The height and weight
have been described with a huge range from super skinny
to obese, from tall taller than a normal man to
(06:31):
much smaller, diminutive. The eye color can alternate between yellow, gold, red,
even sometimes just jet black eyes.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
And these descriptions are complicated by a recurring claim that
only a certain type of human being can see these creatures,
specifically people who have not had sexual intercourse virgins. Yes, yeah,
and you'll hear all these legends about this type of
creature that's the result of a spurned lover that has
(07:02):
gained powers because he has solicited the services of a bomo,
which is a Malayan witch doctor, or a contract with
a creature from the spiritual world. I want to pause
there for a second and point out that the phrase
witch doctor is commonly seen as a pejorative. You know,
I think in a lot of ways it's dismissive of
(07:23):
people's spiritual or cultural practices. But in this case, that's
the way it has been self described as well. So
their term not ours, but whether they have made a
contract with a boma or a creature entirely from the
spiritual world, the pact itself is insidious and infernal. The
(07:47):
idea is that it's the old trope so common in
so many stories throughout legend, mythology and folklore. What would
you do? How far would you go for the love
of your life to obtain their favor? In this case,
the contract is brutal, The idea is that this person
(08:08):
must or this creature must sexually assault x number of
people by X number of days, and in doing so
will have completed their end of the contract, and then
the person that they are seeking to fall in love
with for the rest of their life will fall in
love with them. An alternate version would be that the
(08:30):
minac is themselves a perspective Beaumont, and will be completing
their schooling. That's like the final right of passages, this
series of horrific acts, and that's similar in some ways.
I guess the danger of the inherent crime or right
of passage it reminds it could remind some of us
(08:52):
of the Scullmants, which was the secret Devil's academy for
witches and warlocks famous in European folklore. And the way
that the Skullmance is often described is that a certain
number of students enroll each term or each year, and
that at the end of that term or year, they
all have to race out the door, and the last
(09:15):
one to get to the door belongs to the devil. Oh,
I know, high stakes, very high stakes. And you thought
the l S the l SAT was stressful, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
I'll tell you a factor that I love about the
descriptions of this thing that always comes back to it
being coated in some sort of shiny, greasy material. And
that's howvades capture I literally slip slick, slipping out of
the clutches of his pursuer, its pursuer.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Yeah, the old greased pig strategy exactly.
Speaker 5 (09:43):
But the unnatural speed thing is also up there, Oh
for sure. If you're greasy and speedy. I mean, we all,
we've all made not all of us. Many of us
have heard of the old greased up pig thing and
how difficult it is, and a pig that's going fast
it's all greasy.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Yeah, I feel like that's the thing a lot of
people have heard of but not seen in real life.
Speaker 5 (10:01):
Oh really, yeah, grown up because I saw no, I'm
just kidding, I in Texas, exactly.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
I saw it in Uh. I saw it in my
earlier years, and uh it was gross. Turns out that's
a messy, gross pursuit.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
I'd imagine it's either I don't like pigs or I
don't like grease enough. But you're right, nol, This, this
shiny greasy substance is the one common factor and that's
why it plays into the name on a forensic note,
which will be important later. It would be pretty safe
for us to assume that someone covered in some kind
of oily substance would leave fingerprints everywhere, right, or footprints,
(10:45):
especially if they're nude and barefoot. But from what we find,
apparently they don't. Apparently that's part of the supernatural aspect
of their being.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
So it's supernatural grease, is what you're saying.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
That's yeah, that's the alleged thing is interesting because it
will also cake on people's skin when it touches them
it's victims or something, but it won't. It won't cake
or leave a residue on floors, walls, doorknobs, window panes,
and so on. And now that we've got an okay
description as that is as best of a description of
(11:20):
an orange maniac as you will find. But let's talk
about its.
Speaker 5 (11:25):
Behavior, and we'll get to that right after a quick
word from our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
So the physical description of this thing sounds at the
very least woefully unhygienic, but its behavior is terrifying because
you see, unlike other monsters from folklore that primarily seem
to harm human beings in an attempt to feed on them,
or maybe to protect some specific location a sacred grove,
(11:55):
a hidden spring, and on and on. The orang miniac
is no and specifically for sexually assaulting its victims, typically female,
often thought to target virgins exclusively. And this minac, according
to the story, has the ability to paralyze its victims. Ooh,
(12:18):
so similar to the sleep paralysis descriptions of a succubus
or an incubus. It has the ability to physically stop
people from moving, and it finds them sometimes at night
when they're asleep, but sometimes also when they're awake, so
it can't entirely be attributed to sleep paralysis, right, And
(12:40):
there are ways you can protect yourself from a maniac
should you feel that one may be targeting you.
Speaker 5 (12:49):
Yeah, so the first thing you gotta do, or maybe
the best thing, is find yourself a good old fashioned sorcerer.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
You know a couple of sorcerers, don't you, Matt, I'm
sitting next to one. Well, that's true, you're talking about Ben.
Speaker 5 (13:01):
Yeah. You could also arrange male clothes as in mL clothes,
in some kind of barrier around your bed, so almost
like a salt circle. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or you
could just wear men's clothes to bed. That seems like
a better idea of rather than getting a whole bunch
of men's clothes and putting around the bed.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
I do that all the time. Yeah, I do not
laundry pile.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
That is. Another solution would be to bite your left
thumb hard and cover it in a magically treated cloth
or fabric, something that has been blessed or sanctified somehow.
This is called a batik batik, and it's only supposed
to work while an assault is taking place, so timing's key.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
I'm imagining that you would need to bite it so
hard as to draw blood.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
I would assume I hadn't found that, but I am
at Usually, if you have to do some sort of
magical ritual involving a bite, it does have to pierce
the flesh, I would think.
Speaker 5 (13:58):
So.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
You know, according to stories, a few superstitious people, when
they were worried that a Mignac might be in their area,
even began wearing sweaty clothes, with the thought being that
it would look like they had just had some sort
of sexual activity.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (14:14):
Uh. And then there's one last thing here. It says, Uh,
have a big old knife. That's what it says.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
You call that a knife?
Speaker 1 (14:23):
That says a knife? All right.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
It's just such a good line.
Speaker 5 (14:27):
Just you know, get that old slippery Mignac with that
knife and you're good to.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Go, right right. So in other words, just kill it, yeah,
with the.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Weapons, but you can't.
Speaker 5 (14:37):
It's this otherworldly creature like there, and there's a lot
of unknown still in the.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Stories at least.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Yeah, So it's weird because it's it's similar to the
early stories of a lot of folkloric beings. You know, before,
before we had mass media, regional stories of vampires would
widely very you know, whether you're in Greece or whether
you're in Bulgaria or Syria or something.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Because the seed of the story is sort of like
it's where it starts, and then everyone goes, I don't know,
is it parallel thinking? Is it like one story that
gets translated and kind of moved around like I'm wondering.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
I guess it's more telephone Yeah, in this case, because
the name might be familiar, or there will be parallel
thinking in that there will be two very different creatures
with two very different idiosyncrasies. But they're all after your
blood or your liver or whatever.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
What occurs to me here, though, is when we talk
to David Bakara about Sasquatch and Bigfoot and all that
and so many reports of them moving very very fast
and running around on all four is like, you know,
the whole story he told about one going under a truck,
I believe, and like, you know, running alongside it.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
This occurs to me. This creature is almost like a
more rapy, creepy bigfoot.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Geez, yeah, you know not No, it's known specifically for
that oil, but there are reports of tall ones. It's
weird because there's so many variations, and we see again
that these variations did not get codified into a single
common description until mass media. Because the mignac was around
(16:12):
in folklore in Malaysia for a long, long, long long
time and as well as you know, it had transmitted
through that telephone game to Thailand, to Singapore to other
areas in the region, but it wasn't really It's sort
of like how Santa Claus always looked different until the
Coca Cola commercials. It wasn't really a singular recognizable thing
(16:37):
until it experienced a cultural resurgence in the late nineteen fifties.
In nineteen fifty eight, three different films about Iraan Minyac
they hit the theaters. One was in a Burst of
Creativity Irod Mignac, the other was Supa Arod Mignac, and
then Sarangan Arod Mignac. The sample plot is this, We'll
(17:00):
just take one and Supa Irongmniac or Curse of the Oily.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
Mad My favorite subtitle of any movie ever.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Great title, right. The irang Miniac was a man who
was cursed in an attempt to win back his lost love.
So it's it's kind of like if one do a
pop culture comparison and take out the egregious sexual assault
involved in the film. It's sort of like Todd McFarlane's Spawn.
(17:27):
In Spawn, the protagonist is not a very good person.
They're Special Forces soldier kind of guy. They die, they
go to hell. They make a deal with an infernal
creature because they want to go back and win the
love of their life and be a better person. I
think the guy's name was Al Simmons. So he gets
(17:48):
the deal from the devil. Then he comes back to
the world, but he comes back as a servant of evil,
and he still tries to get back with his you know,
with his wife. The devil offered to help this man
in Simba Arang Mignac and give him powers of the
black arts, but only if the Mignac worshiped him and
(18:09):
assaulted within a week twenty one virgins.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
Very specific, very specific.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Yeah, you have to wonder if there's some numerological significance there.
In other versions, it's a little more like the cabinet
of doctor Caligari. Do you guys remember that one ye man.
That's still a spooky one. But that's where the Iraq
Mignac becomes more like almost like a gollum or like
a somnambulist who's controlled by this evil authority, whether that's
(18:42):
a Boma, sorcerer Caligari, it's a hypnotist. But you know,
the comparison holds true. And so for decades here we go.
I love the Bigfoot comparison. We're drawing here because for
decades people have been divided in their opinion in this story.
Is the Irong Minnac a gay man? Just a fictional
device used to enforce compliance to social norms? Don't go
(19:05):
out late at night? Don't go out late at night alone,
you know what I mean. Don't go drinking and drugging
in the woods.
Speaker 5 (19:13):
Be careful around men that are not related to you.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Especially if they're kind of oily.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Yeah, and that's that's where a lot, honestly, that's where
a lot of these sorts of stories originate to get
people to from cradle to the grave, obey the rules
of their society, or usually in an attempt to keep
people safe.
Speaker 5 (19:35):
Right.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
But then we have the debate that's so similar to
Bigfoot or the Yetti, which is there is a contingent
of people who've always argued that these are real, actual
flesh and blood organisms. So is it some kind of
cryptid that may now or at one time have existed
in the wild. This is an interesting This is an
(19:56):
interesting question because we know that Malaysia and indones So
both have been home to a tremendous biodiversity in the past,
and a lot of those creatures have since gone extinct. Yeah,
so it could be it could be similar to the
Austrolopithecus theory about you know, early early human like creatures
(20:19):
encountering this gigantic ape. Oh yeah, or it could just
be made up to keep people from going out and
being unsafe at night, or has it become something more.
This last question is crucial because while this creature may
well be considered little more than a grizzly fairy tale,
today the crimes attributed to it are tragically and undeniably real,
(20:46):
and they are happening as we record this.
Speaker 5 (20:48):
Bet.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
I remember you told this to me outside of the office.
We were hanging out briefly, and I was like, I
cannot believe this is true. And the story and itself
is good, would be enough to make an episode on
its own, but this twist is out of control.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Unfortunately that's the case. What are we talking about. We'll
tell you after a word from our sponsor.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 5 (21:18):
So before the movies ever came out in nineteen fifty eight, there,
you know, was an occasional sighting and crime like actual
crimes reported to the authorities about things that have been
done or crimes that have been committed by some orang
Minnac or the rang Minyac. And you know those those movies,
(21:39):
those films, they heralded this other cultural event. Reports that
would come in about attacks or about sightings or about
at least some encounter with the irang Minyac.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Yeah, these reports were not just hey, there's a dirty,
grease coded guy kind of slinking around the local car
wash or something. These were reports of sightings and of
attempted sexual assault, and there were tons and tons and
(22:14):
tons of these. The reports skyrocket through the nineteen sixties
and the nineteen seventies. Remember that those films come out
in nineteen fifty eight, and there were I believe one
or two other Orange Maniac films that came out in
the seventies. Let's see oh Oily Maniac from nineteen seventies six.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Oh, that's fantastic. And we have to remember too, it's
like over here in the States, a lot of these
folklore type things that are United States centric. It's very niche.
The people that will be like, this is a thing,
let's attribute real events to this creature. Culturally over here
and we're talking about it's much more I think, accepted
as a real thing as opposed to like a legend.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Yeah, there's a conversation that's a lot more divisive between
the skeptical part of the population and the people who well,
I don't want to say are credulous but the people
who saw something firsthand believe they experienced it. The reports
still continue, as we said in the modern day. In
(23:16):
November of two thousand and five, the Malaysian National News
Agency reported that a Kuala Lumpur hospital was shaken by
news that an arrange mignac or oily man was on
the prowl on its premises trying to assault nurses. And
we have the story about this because one thing we
have to note for the purposes of this story, the
(23:38):
nurses live on site.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
So at three am on Tuesday of that week, a
nurse in her thirties who was in the nurses quarters
it was sort of almost like a hostel on the
hospital grounds, was believed to have been sexually assaulted by
a man armed with a knife and whose body and
face was covered with oil. A police spokesperson said the
(24:02):
man had entered the nurses room in the dormitory and
threatened the woman before tying her up, binding her hand
to feet, and then undressing her. This is hard, it's
hard to describe. He said that a security guard of
the hostel became aware of the nurse's situation at around
five am when he heard her screaming for help, and
(24:24):
then the guard untied the nurse.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Who this was her room exclusively. She did not have
any flatmates, So.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
That was attempted. Fortunately it was not. It doesn't sound
like it was successfully completed.
Speaker 5 (24:38):
But it is weird that there is no report of
him seeing anyone or any like. I'm not seeing a
lot of the evidence of oil.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
And the nurse in this story claims that it was
at a wrong Mignac in two thousand and five. Yeah,
this continues. In Christmas of twenty twelve, The Star Online
reported there were mooltultiple sightings over the Christmas holidays. One
eyewitness even described its behavior. They saw it moving.
Speaker 5 (25:08):
Yeah, this is a quote crawling up the stairs of
the house, just like Spider Man. When it reached the top,
it suddenly jumped onto the roof. I don't think a
human could do that. It then just disappeared.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
And the person who's reporting this, the eyewitness, says, we
can laugh and joke about this, but this is serious.
All the families here have young girls. Yeah, so this
sounds like a person saying, I get that this might
sound provencial, or this might sound like a rural superstition
to people reading this story, but we are actual people
(25:45):
who live here.
Speaker 5 (25:45):
We're genuinely concerned.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Yeah yeah. In twenty sixteen, The Star also reported a
woman claimed that she had nearly been assaulted by an
orang Mignac at a petrol station gas station toilet was
via the Harry and Metro. She gave her name, Ili
Sharia Modea. She was thirty years old. Told police she
(26:07):
put up a struggle because a man dressed only in
red underwear entered the entered the restroom while she was
in there. I was in one of the stalls when
I heard the door to the main toilet entrance open
and close. Had a bad feeling decided to leave when
I saw the man clad in underwear. He tried to
push her back into the cubicle the bathroom stall, but
(26:27):
she fought him off and ran out of the toilet,
shouting for help. The guy ran away toward the back
of the gas station. The police confirmed this happened. The
police confirmed that she said there was an arrangue. Minyac
and police, we should note, are actively cited in these investigations,
(26:47):
sometimes in a skeptical way. In twenty seventeen, in August,
police debunked an arrangue Mennac story or they denied it.
In Malacca, there was a village the two villages Malacca
Tenga and just Sin and the Assistant Commissioner, Afnesar Ahmad
was asked about these messages that were circulating over social
(27:10):
media over the past two days. There were attacks that
were rumored to be perpetrated by arang Minyac and he said,
quote such unfounded claims will cause unnecessary anxiety among villagers.
Will act against those who spread such lies. So he said,
We're we're going to not only deny this stuff, but
(27:30):
if you're spreading this stuff, we're going to shut you down.
To at this point in the story, the creature had
supposedly entered five homes in the area and attempted at
the very least the attempted acts of assault. And this
leads us to the question, this is something we had
talked about off air two. What's going on? You know,
(27:53):
the reports have declined since the sixties and seventies, but
there's still occurring. That last story is from twenty seventeen,
that was not very long ago. Is there something like this?
Oh okay, something's happening right.
Speaker 5 (28:07):
Yeah, okay, So to me that the story of the
woman in the bathroom with a man clearly wearing red underwear.
To me, that one is easily just a human male,
at least in my mind, a human male that is
a monster and attempting to rape a woman in a
(28:28):
bathroom stall. That's what it sounds like to me. But
then it has that cultural surrounding of what a rapist
essentially is.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Well, and my question too is how how do the
cultural kind of stars align that this they are able
to successfully blame it on this urban legend, Like I
wanted to bring that up earlier, like, how do you
think do you think in general culturally there's more of
a willingness to accept myth as reality than there is
over here. I'm wondering what you think is leading to
(28:58):
this being a legitimate thing to blame these crimes on.
Speaker 5 (29:03):
Right.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Also, well, we have to remember that one person's myth
is another person's matter of fact. You know, depending on
where they live. There are people who will assure you
that everyone in the United States is deluded because they
believe in myths like democracy or capitalism, which is not
the same hopefully as a supernatural creature breaking into people's
(29:25):
houses at night. But it's also not perfect. It's weird
because we have to wonder. We have to wonder how
much of it is willing you know, like you said,
a suspension of disbelief, a willingness to attribute mundane tragedies
to supernatural causes. It Also, you guys have heard about Iceland,
(29:47):
right and their belief in elves or fairies. If you're
familiar with this. Our super producer Paul Michig Control Decad
traveled to Iceland and I can't remember if we talked
about it. We've got to figure this out off air.
I have heard that people will attribute construction problems and
things to elves in Iceland, and surely a lot about
(30:09):
that is with a nod and a wink, But there
was some There was some poll I read wherein the
residents of Iceland who participated self reported to believe in
in elves, to actually, no fooling believe in them. And
you have to you have to wonder if you're in
(30:29):
an environment where you may be relatively isolated, our knowledge
of what is or is not true is largely going
to be based on our own experiences and interactions.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
Yeah, you can.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
You can read about a country like Bhutan, for instance,
for your entire life. You can see pictures that say
they're from there. But there are people will argue that
you don't know something for sure unless you experience a firsthand.
I don't particularly subscribe to that or ascribe to that rather,
but there are people who who believe that. So maybe
(31:06):
maybe they're saying, I believe this because I saw something
inexplicable and the closest thing to my knowledge in my
like data banks that resembles what I know that I
physically saw is this thing called in the wrong minnac
So maybe.
Speaker 5 (31:23):
They believe it.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
And also I want to walk back what I said,
just ever so slightly, Like I mean, you know, you
could say that Christianity is a myth and that people
outside of the United States look at that as being
a widely accepted belief as bonkers, and like like, how
could you believe in this magical creature of Jesus Christ?
Speaker 3 (31:40):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
It's just all about It's all about your perspective and
where you're coming from. What is a myth versus what
is a belief system? And I just think it's interesting.
You know, we blame things on religion all the time,
you know, so it's really not that different.
Speaker 5 (31:53):
You know.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
It's true.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
Legally we do have things called acts of God. Yeah, like,
all right, sorry, we don't have to pay you for
this because it was an act of God.
Speaker 5 (32:05):
I think that should be changed to nature's Yep.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
So you heard to hear, folks, you heard it hear first, folks,
Matt Frederick. Regardless though, then this, this is a conversation
that can get very deep and very complicated very quickly, right,
regardless of what you think and know. To be absolutely clear,
we are not we are not making a one to
(32:31):
one comparison between the irong maniac capitalism, Christianity and democracy.
Those are ideologies, but there's still they're beliefs, right, Yes,
there's still beliefs at this point. Though regardless value feel
about any of those things, it looks extremely likely, I
would say overwhelmingly likely. In fact, I would say I
(32:53):
have certitude about this. I am certain that at multiple
times genuine sexual rhymes were either dismissed or actively covered
up through attributing this to a supernatural creature.
Speaker 4 (33:10):
No, it wasn't.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
It wasn't that guy who has had like four or
five other previous run ends with the law. It was
the Iraq Mignac.
Speaker 5 (33:20):
Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree with that which you assert, Ben Bold.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
I mean there's always the notion of public panic too, right.
I'm not saying that people are always intentionally trying to
cover up a crime using this. There's always a notion
of an outbreak, like a moral panic. They're called. Yeah,
and I know in our previous work with reports of
(33:47):
serial killers, for instance, one thing that we've seen happen
every single time, Every single time there is an active,
identified serial killer that has not been apprehended, or even
after the most likely suspect is apprehended, police departments and
law enforcement agencies will be inundated with the weirdest calls.
(34:10):
People who confess to be in the killer because they
want attention, people who are certain they've seen the killer,
people who have some sort of like very very low
effort count to Monte Cristo revenge scheme, who reports someone
they don't like at worker in their personal life as
the killer. That happens so often. And then this also
(34:33):
has a little bit of a cultural divide. Is someone
saying there's a language divide, right, That's a better way
to say it. Is someone saying that when they're saying
I was attacked by a ring minac. Do they mean
I was attacked by this supernatural creature or do they
mean I was attacked by this creepy dude covered in
slime or oil? In this case, regardless public panic aside,
(34:58):
it looks like several cre took advantage of a longstanding belief.
And as we record this, these people got away clean
with their crimes. They dressed up right, I mean this
is and not to sound dismissive, they disguised themselves. They
participated in cosplay for the purpose of crime. This is
(35:21):
similar to saying, for instance, let's make let's make it
part of folklore that Bigfoot is, in addition to being
real known for robbing banks, and then let's all dress
up as Bigfoot and start robbing banks.
Speaker 5 (35:39):
Brilliant.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
And then it was never it was never us.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
It was a group of big feet.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Big feet. But this, this is the case, and this
is something at this point we haven't we haven't cracked
the case on. We know that the police clearly hate
this idea. It's not helpful for an investigation.
Speaker 5 (36:00):
No, not at all. At least again, I keep going
back to the red underpants thing because at least that's
a good description of the person, and hopefully a witness
saw that person. If you just describe it as a naked,
oily human being that is this other creature, that's not
a lot to go on for law enforcement. That's definitely unfortunate.
(36:24):
You can only hope that people out there very soon
will begin to understand that there are awful human beings
that exist in the world that will do terrible things,
and those are the ones that you need to blame
it on, not some myth.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
It's interesting because there are other reports. Asia One reported
that as recently as twenty twelve, in some regions of
the area, people overwhelmingly did believe in the wrong MINNAC,
especially in Kumpung lack Samana. It's apparently very difficult to
(37:02):
find a resident who doesn't believe in IRANGMNIAC or feel
like they have seen it. This was a place where,
remember we talked about the spike in reports. Over Christmas
of that year, two hundred people went out into the
street patrolling the area. They carried machetes, axes, sticks, whatever
they can find, and spotlights. So people actually went out
(37:26):
on a search for this thing.
Speaker 5 (37:28):
And you know, there's something else here, because when we
were describing what an Irang Mignac is or could be,
with all the various descriptions up at the top of
this episode, one of the major versions of this is
a spurned lover, a human being that is a spurned lover, right,
So it's even if there is some kind of supernatural
(37:49):
or the belief of supernatural power working through this human being,
it is a human being. And I think it as
long as that is kept. Perhaps I know that's not
the only description, but if that thought is kept, then
hopefully some of these some of these human monsters can
be apprehended and this could be stopped, and at least
(38:09):
in the minds of people, they could have that framing
of seeing something very real, even if it is supernaturally enhanced.
So yeah, I guess I don't know what else to say.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
Well, you know, at this point is where this is
where the story ends. It's tremendously fortunate that these reports
have precipitously declined, but it's tremendously tragic that they still continue,
you know what I mean. And this is where we
want to hand this story over to you. Thank you
(38:43):
so much for listening. Let us know if there are
any similar things like this in your neck of the
global woods, whether that's Peru, Pennsylvania, Paraguay, Paris, even places
that don't begin with a peace, and we're asking this.
We're asking for this because it may surprise you to
(39:06):
learn how many stories, maybe not this sinister, maybe not
this disturbing, but how many stories like this the supernatural
impinging on modern life. How many stories like this exist
and are not well known. I you know, as a
matter of fact, write to us and let us know
if you heard of the Irangmignac before you listen to
(39:28):
this show.
Speaker 5 (39:29):
You can find us on Instagram, where we are a
conspiracy stuff show, or on other places where we're conspiracy stuff.
You can and that's the end of this classic episode.
If you have any thoughts or questions about this episode,
you can get into contact with us in a number
of different ways. One of the best is to give
us a call. Our number is one eight three three
(39:51):
std WYTK. If you don't want to do that, you
can send us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 4 (39:56):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 5 (40:01):
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
So fellow conspiracy realist. Back in twenty nineteen, we got
super into this thing called the Orang Menyac Nola. You
remember this one. We were talking about this.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Yeah, well it came up recently in our monkey Man
episode in some of our cryptids of India talking about
some mysterious folkloric creatures from that part of the world,
and Malay folklore speaks of a creature called the Irang Miniac,
which is supernaturally very I don't know, fleet footed, humanoid, furry, oily,
(00:36):
slippery boy who apparently is really into abducting and doing
not nice things to young women.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Yeah, And in our investigation in tonight's classic episode, we
look at not just similar folkloric beliefs and how folklore
can be weaponized or used as a tool to encounter
the surrounding environment. We also look at the specific case
of I love they said, slippery Boy, of the slippery
(01:07):
boy around Minyac, who has since the nineteen fifties been
a prime suspect in numerous allegations of assault and other
attempted crimes. And the weird thing is Malay law enforcement
has often agreed there was something supernatural afoot.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Yeah, definitely check out our recent series on the cryptids
of India and if you want to check this one
out first as kind of a primer before you jump
into that series.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Let's roll it.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 5 (02:03):
Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
name is Noa.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
They call me Ben. We are joined as always with
our super producer Paul Mission controlled decands. Most important. You
are you, You are here and that makes this stuff
they don't want you to know. Generally speaking, most of
us when we tune into the show, we have some
sort of at least surface level familiarity with the subject
(02:28):
of the episode. You know, everybody knows that JFK, for instance,
was assassinated, right, People are familiar with that.
Speaker 5 (02:35):
Everybody knows.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
I'm pretty sure that's a safe thing to say. People
know that. For millennia, folks have chased after allegations of aliens, extraterrestrials,
and identified flying objects. But today's episode explores a subject
that may well be unfamiliar to most of us. Until
quite recently, the four of us had never heard of
(02:58):
this phenomenon. It's a story that deals with a strange
and unsettling intersection between folklore and crime, and this is
the type of crime that requires a disclaimer or trigger warning.
Today's episode contains descriptions of mature themes and sexual violence,
(03:19):
not graphic descriptions, but they do occur in the story.
Speaker 5 (03:23):
Yeah, a lot of people are familiar with with something
that we're going to talk about today that's similar or related.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Let's say, Yeah, this is a weird segue and this
is a little weird. Next thing in the notes is
most folks are familiar with the ranglutan doctor.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Zayas, doctor Zayas, doctor Zeias, doc. That's what I always
think about it.
Speaker 5 (03:41):
Yeah, orangutans, the orange looking greater apes. They're fantastic. My
son loves them, and the name translates to old man
of the woods and they look at yeah totally, I
mean really, yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
There are three species of great apes. At least now,
there are three species of great apes found in Indian
and Malaysia, and the most famous fictional orangutan is doctor
Zais of Planet of the Apes fame. But there's another,
much less lovable orangue in the mix. It's called the
orang megyac. In the Malay language. This name means the
(04:17):
oily man.
Speaker 5 (04:18):
Ew.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Yeah, it's one. It's only one of many similar mythical
beasts in the region. There are. It turns out there's
there's a whole posse of orang variations.
Speaker 5 (04:30):
Yeah. There's the tailed man, or orang ekor or ekoruh.
This is a race of men and women who have tails. Again,
a mythical race of men and women that have tales.
There's the Orang gadang.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Which is great to say, orangdang.
Speaker 5 (04:46):
That is the big man. This is to me, this
feels similar to a big footish with a sasquatch kind
of kind of creature. The big Man is like a
ten foot tall beast with long hair. He's either a viking, orangutan,
or just a bigfoot.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
There's also the arangbati, or a flying man. This creature
stands about five feet tall and it has these black,
leathery wings. This one is best known for living in
dormant volcanoes. Oh man, And that's this just a taste
of the various arrangus. But in folklore, the arrangue Megnac
(05:25):
is a supernatural creature and it is known for abducting
and attacking women in the night. Descriptions of this creature vary,
and they vary widely. Sometimes it's described as just a
naked dude. Sometimes it's a man wearing black swimming trunks.
Sometimes it's only a vaguely humanoid figure, occasionally covered with
(05:46):
hair and so on. It's occasionally described as being a
human warlock, or the victim of a magical curse, or
the willing practitioner of a magical right. Sometimes it is
said to be human at all. And it's kind of
tough to get a physical description of this creature except
for one thing.
Speaker 5 (06:07):
Yeah, and it's a bit odd because it's described in
so many varying ways that it feels like there could
be many of this thing, this irang Mignac, that is
not just a single creature out there, so if you
think about it in that way. The height and weight
have been described with a huge range from super skinny
to obese, from tall taller than a normal man to
(06:31):
much smaller, diminutive. The eye color can alternate between yellow, gold, red,
even sometimes just jet black eyes.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
And these descriptions are complicated by a recurring claim that
only a certain type of human being can see these creatures,
specifically people who have not had sexual intercourse virgins. Yes, yeah,
and you'll hear all these legends about this type of
creature that's the result of a spurned lover that has
(07:02):
gained powers because he has solicited the services of a bomo,
which is a Malayan witch doctor, or a contract with
a creature from the spiritual world. I want to pause
there for a second and point out that the phrase
witch doctor is commonly seen as a pejorative. You know,
I think in a lot of ways it's dismissive of
(07:23):
people's spiritual or cultural practices. But in this case, that's
the way it has been self described as well. So
their term not ours, but whether they have made a
contract with a boma or a creature entirely from the
spiritual world, the pact itself is insidious and infernal. The
(07:47):
idea is that it's the old trope so common in
so many stories throughout legend, mythology and folklore. What would
you do? How far would you go for the love
of your life to obtain their favor? In this case,
the contract is brutal, The idea is that this person
(08:08):
must or this creature must sexually assault x number of
people by X number of days, and in doing so
will have completed their end of the contract, and then
the person that they are seeking to fall in love
with for the rest of their life will fall in
love with them. An alternate version would be that the
(08:30):
minac is themselves a perspective Beaumont, and will be completing
their schooling. That's like the final right of passages, this
series of horrific acts, and that's similar in some ways.
I guess the danger of the inherent crime or right
of passage it reminds it could remind some of us
(08:52):
of the Scullmants, which was the secret Devil's academy for
witches and warlocks famous in European folklore. And the way
that the Skullmance is often described is that a certain
number of students enroll each term or each year, and
that at the end of that term or year, they
all have to race out the door, and the last
(09:15):
one to get to the door belongs to the devil. Oh,
I know, high stakes, very high stakes. And you thought
the l S the l SAT was stressful, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
I'll tell you a factor that I love about the
descriptions of this thing that always comes back to it
being coated in some sort of shiny, greasy material. And
that's howvades capture I literally slip slick, slipping out of
the clutches of his pursuer, its pursuer.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Yeah, the old greased pig strategy exactly.
Speaker 5 (09:43):
But the unnatural speed thing is also up there, Oh
for sure. If you're greasy and speedy. I mean, we all,
we've all made not all of us. Many of us
have heard of the old greased up pig thing and
how difficult it is, and a pig that's going fast
it's all greasy.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Yeah, I feel like that's the thing a lot of
people have heard of but not seen in real life.
Speaker 5 (10:01):
Oh really, yeah, grown up because I saw no, I'm
just kidding, I in Texas, exactly.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
I saw it in Uh. I saw it in my
earlier years, and uh it was gross. Turns out that's
a messy, gross pursuit.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
I'd imagine it's either I don't like pigs or I
don't like grease enough. But you're right, nol, This, this
shiny greasy substance is the one common factor and that's
why it plays into the name on a forensic note,
which will be important later. It would be pretty safe
for us to assume that someone covered in some kind
of oily substance would leave fingerprints everywhere, right, or footprints,
(10:45):
especially if they're nude and barefoot. But from what we find,
apparently they don't. Apparently that's part of the supernatural aspect
of their being.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
So it's supernatural grease, is what you're saying.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
That's yeah, that's the alleged thing is interesting because it
will also cake on people's skin when it touches them
it's victims or something, but it won't. It won't cake
or leave a residue on floors, walls, doorknobs, window panes,
and so on. And now that we've got an okay
description as that is as best of a description of
(11:20):
an orange maniac as you will find. But let's talk
about its.
Speaker 5 (11:25):
Behavior, and we'll get to that right after a quick
word from our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
So the physical description of this thing sounds at the
very least woefully unhygienic, but its behavior is terrifying because
you see, unlike other monsters from folklore that primarily seem
to harm human beings in an attempt to feed on them,
or maybe to protect some specific location a sacred grove,
(11:55):
a hidden spring, and on and on. The orang miniac
is no and specifically for sexually assaulting its victims, typically female,
often thought to target virgins exclusively. And this minac, according
to the story, has the ability to paralyze its victims. Ooh,
(12:18):
so similar to the sleep paralysis descriptions of a succubus
or an incubus. It has the ability to physically stop
people from moving, and it finds them sometimes at night
when they're asleep, but sometimes also when they're awake, so
it can't entirely be attributed to sleep paralysis, right, And
(12:40):
there are ways you can protect yourself from a maniac
should you feel that one may be targeting you.
Speaker 5 (12:49):
Yeah, so the first thing you gotta do, or maybe
the best thing, is find yourself a good old fashioned sorcerer.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
You know a couple of sorcerers, don't you, Matt, I'm
sitting next to one. Well, that's true, you're talking about Ben.
Speaker 5 (13:01):
Yeah. You could also arrange male clothes as in mL clothes,
in some kind of barrier around your bed, so almost
like a salt circle. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or you
could just wear men's clothes to bed. That seems like
a better idea of rather than getting a whole bunch
of men's clothes and putting around the bed.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
I do that all the time. Yeah, I do not
laundry pile.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
That is. Another solution would be to bite your left
thumb hard and cover it in a magically treated cloth
or fabric, something that has been blessed or sanctified somehow.
This is called a batik batik, and it's only supposed
to work while an assault is taking place, so timing's key.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
I'm imagining that you would need to bite it so
hard as to draw blood.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
I would assume I hadn't found that, but I am
at Usually, if you have to do some sort of
magical ritual involving a bite, it does have to pierce
the flesh, I would think.
Speaker 5 (13:58):
So.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
You know, according to stories, a few superstitious people, when
they were worried that a Mignac might be in their area,
even began wearing sweaty clothes, with the thought being that
it would look like they had just had some sort
of sexual activity.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (14:14):
Uh. And then there's one last thing here. It says, Uh,
have a big old knife. That's what it says.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
You call that a knife?
Speaker 1 (14:23):
That says a knife? All right.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
It's just such a good line.
Speaker 5 (14:27):
Just you know, get that old slippery Mignac with that
knife and you're good to.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Go, right right. So in other words, just kill it, yeah,
with the.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Weapons, but you can't.
Speaker 5 (14:37):
It's this otherworldly creature like there, and there's a lot
of unknown still in the.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Stories at least.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Yeah, So it's weird because it's it's similar to the
early stories of a lot of folkloric beings. You know, before,
before we had mass media, regional stories of vampires would
widely very you know, whether you're in Greece or whether
you're in Bulgaria or Syria or something.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Because the seed of the story is sort of like
it's where it starts, and then everyone goes, I don't know,
is it parallel thinking? Is it like one story that
gets translated and kind of moved around like I'm wondering.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
I guess it's more telephone Yeah, in this case, because
the name might be familiar, or there will be parallel
thinking in that there will be two very different creatures
with two very different idiosyncrasies. But they're all after your
blood or your liver or whatever.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
What occurs to me here, though, is when we talk
to David Bakara about Sasquatch and Bigfoot and all that
and so many reports of them moving very very fast
and running around on all four is like, you know,
the whole story he told about one going under a truck,
I believe, and like, you know, running alongside it.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
This occurs to me. This creature is almost like a
more rapy, creepy bigfoot.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Geez, yeah, you know not No, it's known specifically for
that oil, but there are reports of tall ones. It's
weird because there's so many variations, and we see again
that these variations did not get codified into a single
common description until mass media. Because the mignac was around
(16:12):
in folklore in Malaysia for a long, long, long long
time and as well as you know, it had transmitted
through that telephone game to Thailand, to Singapore to other
areas in the region, but it wasn't really It's sort
of like how Santa Claus always looked different until the
Coca Cola commercials. It wasn't really a singular recognizable thing
(16:37):
until it experienced a cultural resurgence in the late nineteen fifties.
In nineteen fifty eight, three different films about Iraan Minyac
they hit the theaters. One was in a Burst of
Creativity Irod Mignac, the other was Supa Arod Mignac, and
then Sarangan Arod Mignac. The sample plot is this, We'll
(17:00):
just take one and Supa Irongmniac or Curse of the Oily.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
Mad My favorite subtitle of any movie ever.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Great title, right. The irang Miniac was a man who
was cursed in an attempt to win back his lost love.
So it's it's kind of like if one do a
pop culture comparison and take out the egregious sexual assault
involved in the film. It's sort of like Todd McFarlane's Spawn.
(17:27):
In Spawn, the protagonist is not a very good person.
They're Special Forces soldier kind of guy. They die, they
go to hell. They make a deal with an infernal
creature because they want to go back and win the
love of their life and be a better person. I
think the guy's name was Al Simmons. So he gets
(17:48):
the deal from the devil. Then he comes back to
the world, but he comes back as a servant of evil,
and he still tries to get back with his you know,
with his wife. The devil offered to help this man
in Simba Arang Mignac and give him powers of the
black arts, but only if the Mignac worshiped him and
(18:09):
assaulted within a week twenty one virgins.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
Very specific, very specific.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Yeah, you have to wonder if there's some numerological significance there.
In other versions, it's a little more like the cabinet
of doctor Caligari. Do you guys remember that one ye man.
That's still a spooky one. But that's where the Iraq
Mignac becomes more like almost like a gollum or like
a somnambulist who's controlled by this evil authority, whether that's
(18:42):
a Boma, sorcerer Caligari, it's a hypnotist. But you know,
the comparison holds true. And so for decades here we go.
I love the Bigfoot comparison. We're drawing here because for
decades people have been divided in their opinion in this story.
Is the Irong Minnac a gay man? Just a fictional
device used to enforce compliance to social norms? Don't go
(19:05):
out late at night? Don't go out late at night alone,
you know what I mean. Don't go drinking and drugging
in the woods.
Speaker 5 (19:13):
Be careful around men that are not related to you.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Especially if they're kind of oily.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Yeah, and that's that's where a lot, honestly, that's where
a lot of these sorts of stories originate to get
people to from cradle to the grave, obey the rules
of their society, or usually in an attempt to keep
people safe.
Speaker 5 (19:35):
Right.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
But then we have the debate that's so similar to
Bigfoot or the Yetti, which is there is a contingent
of people who've always argued that these are real, actual
flesh and blood organisms. So is it some kind of
cryptid that may now or at one time have existed
in the wild. This is an interesting This is an
(19:56):
interesting question because we know that Malaysia and indones So
both have been home to a tremendous biodiversity in the past,
and a lot of those creatures have since gone extinct. Yeah,
so it could be it could be similar to the
Austrolopithecus theory about you know, early early human like creatures
(20:19):
encountering this gigantic ape. Oh yeah, or it could just
be made up to keep people from going out and
being unsafe at night, or has it become something more.
This last question is crucial because while this creature may
well be considered little more than a grizzly fairy tale,
today the crimes attributed to it are tragically and undeniably real,
(20:46):
and they are happening as we record this.
Speaker 5 (20:48):
Bet.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
I remember you told this to me outside of the office.
We were hanging out briefly, and I was like, I
cannot believe this is true. And the story and itself
is good, would be enough to make an episode on
its own, but this twist is out of control.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Unfortunately that's the case. What are we talking about. We'll
tell you after a word from our sponsor.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 5 (21:18):
So before the movies ever came out in nineteen fifty eight, there,
you know, was an occasional sighting and crime like actual
crimes reported to the authorities about things that have been
done or crimes that have been committed by some orang
Minnac or the rang Minyac. And you know those those movies,
(21:39):
those films, they heralded this other cultural event. Reports that
would come in about attacks or about sightings or about
at least some encounter with the irang Minyac.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Yeah, these reports were not just hey, there's a dirty,
grease coded guy kind of slinking around the local car
wash or something. These were reports of sightings and of
attempted sexual assault, and there were tons and tons and
(22:14):
tons of these. The reports skyrocket through the nineteen sixties
and the nineteen seventies. Remember that those films come out
in nineteen fifty eight, and there were I believe one
or two other Orange Maniac films that came out in
the seventies. Let's see oh Oily Maniac from nineteen seventies six.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Oh, that's fantastic. And we have to remember too, it's
like over here in the States, a lot of these
folklore type things that are United States centric. It's very niche.
The people that will be like, this is a thing,
let's attribute real events to this creature. Culturally over here
and we're talking about it's much more I think, accepted
as a real thing as opposed to like a legend.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Yeah, there's a conversation that's a lot more divisive between
the skeptical part of the population and the people who well,
I don't want to say are credulous but the people
who saw something firsthand believe they experienced it. The reports
still continue, as we said in the modern day. In
(23:16):
November of two thousand and five, the Malaysian National News
Agency reported that a Kuala Lumpur hospital was shaken by
news that an arrange mignac or oily man was on
the prowl on its premises trying to assault nurses. And
we have the story about this because one thing we
have to note for the purposes of this story, the
(23:38):
nurses live on site.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
So at three am on Tuesday of that week, a
nurse in her thirties who was in the nurses quarters
it was sort of almost like a hostel on the
hospital grounds, was believed to have been sexually assaulted by
a man armed with a knife and whose body and
face was covered with oil. A police spokesperson said the
(24:02):
man had entered the nurses room in the dormitory and
threatened the woman before tying her up, binding her hand
to feet, and then undressing her. This is hard, it's
hard to describe. He said that a security guard of
the hostel became aware of the nurse's situation at around
five am when he heard her screaming for help, and
(24:24):
then the guard untied the nurse.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Who this was her room exclusively. She did not have
any flatmates, So.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
That was attempted. Fortunately it was not. It doesn't sound
like it was successfully completed.
Speaker 5 (24:38):
But it is weird that there is no report of
him seeing anyone or any like. I'm not seeing a
lot of the evidence of oil.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
And the nurse in this story claims that it was
at a wrong Mignac in two thousand and five. Yeah,
this continues. In Christmas of twenty twelve, The Star Online
reported there were mooltultiple sightings over the Christmas holidays. One
eyewitness even described its behavior. They saw it moving.
Speaker 5 (25:08):
Yeah, this is a quote crawling up the stairs of
the house, just like Spider Man. When it reached the top,
it suddenly jumped onto the roof. I don't think a
human could do that. It then just disappeared.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
And the person who's reporting this, the eyewitness, says, we
can laugh and joke about this, but this is serious.
All the families here have young girls. Yeah, so this
sounds like a person saying, I get that this might
sound provencial, or this might sound like a rural superstition
to people reading this story, but we are actual people
(25:45):
who live here.
Speaker 5 (25:45):
We're genuinely concerned.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Yeah yeah. In twenty sixteen, The Star also reported a
woman claimed that she had nearly been assaulted by an
orang Mignac at a petrol station gas station toilet was
via the Harry and Metro. She gave her name, Ili
Sharia Modea. She was thirty years old. Told police she
(26:07):
put up a struggle because a man dressed only in
red underwear entered the entered the restroom while she was
in there. I was in one of the stalls when
I heard the door to the main toilet entrance open
and close. Had a bad feeling decided to leave when
I saw the man clad in underwear. He tried to
push her back into the cubicle the bathroom stall, but
(26:27):
she fought him off and ran out of the toilet,
shouting for help. The guy ran away toward the back
of the gas station. The police confirmed this happened. The
police confirmed that she said there was an arrangue. Minyac
and police, we should note, are actively cited in these investigations,
(26:47):
sometimes in a skeptical way. In twenty seventeen, in August,
police debunked an arrangue Mennac story or they denied it.
In Malacca, there was a village the two villages Malacca
Tenga and just Sin and the Assistant Commissioner, Afnesar Ahmad
was asked about these messages that were circulating over social
(27:10):
media over the past two days. There were attacks that
were rumored to be perpetrated by arang Minyac and he said,
quote such unfounded claims will cause unnecessary anxiety among villagers.
Will act against those who spread such lies. So he said,
We're we're going to not only deny this stuff, but
(27:30):
if you're spreading this stuff, we're going to shut you down.
To at this point in the story, the creature had
supposedly entered five homes in the area and attempted at
the very least the attempted acts of assault. And this
leads us to the question, this is something we had
talked about off air two. What's going on? You know,
(27:53):
the reports have declined since the sixties and seventies, but
there's still occurring. That last story is from twenty seventeen,
that was not very long ago. Is there something like this?
Oh okay, something's happening right.
Speaker 5 (28:07):
Yeah, okay, So to me that the story of the
woman in the bathroom with a man clearly wearing red underwear.
To me, that one is easily just a human male,
at least in my mind, a human male that is
a monster and attempting to rape a woman in a
(28:28):
bathroom stall. That's what it sounds like to me. But
then it has that cultural surrounding of what a rapist
essentially is.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Well, and my question too is how how do the
cultural kind of stars align that this they are able
to successfully blame it on this urban legend, Like I
wanted to bring that up earlier, like, how do you
think do you think in general culturally there's more of
a willingness to accept myth as reality than there is
over here. I'm wondering what you think is leading to
(28:58):
this being a legitimate thing to blame these crimes on.
Speaker 5 (29:03):
Right.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Also, well, we have to remember that one person's myth
is another person's matter of fact. You know, depending on
where they live. There are people who will assure you
that everyone in the United States is deluded because they
believe in myths like democracy or capitalism, which is not
the same hopefully as a supernatural creature breaking into people's
(29:25):
houses at night. But it's also not perfect. It's weird
because we have to wonder. We have to wonder how
much of it is willing you know, like you said,
a suspension of disbelief, a willingness to attribute mundane tragedies
to supernatural causes. It Also, you guys have heard about Iceland,
(29:47):
right and their belief in elves or fairies. If you're
familiar with this. Our super producer Paul Michig Control Decad
traveled to Iceland and I can't remember if we talked
about it. We've got to figure this out off air.
I have heard that people will attribute construction problems and
things to elves in Iceland, and surely a lot about
(30:09):
that is with a nod and a wink, But there
was some There was some poll I read wherein the
residents of Iceland who participated self reported to believe in
in elves, to actually, no fooling believe in them. And
you have to you have to wonder if you're in
(30:29):
an environment where you may be relatively isolated, our knowledge
of what is or is not true is largely going
to be based on our own experiences and interactions.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
Yeah, you can.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
You can read about a country like Bhutan, for instance,
for your entire life. You can see pictures that say
they're from there. But there are people will argue that
you don't know something for sure unless you experience a firsthand.
I don't particularly subscribe to that or ascribe to that rather,
but there are people who who believe that. So maybe
(31:06):
maybe they're saying, I believe this because I saw something
inexplicable and the closest thing to my knowledge in my
like data banks that resembles what I know that I
physically saw is this thing called in the wrong minnac
So maybe.
Speaker 5 (31:23):
They believe it.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
And also I want to walk back what I said,
just ever so slightly, Like I mean, you know, you
could say that Christianity is a myth and that people
outside of the United States look at that as being
a widely accepted belief as bonkers, and like like, how
could you believe in this magical creature of Jesus Christ?
Speaker 3 (31:40):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
It's just all about It's all about your perspective and
where you're coming from. What is a myth versus what
is a belief system? And I just think it's interesting.
You know, we blame things on religion all the time,
you know, so it's really not that different.
Speaker 5 (31:53):
You know.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
It's true.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
Legally we do have things called acts of God. Yeah, like,
all right, sorry, we don't have to pay you for
this because it was an act of God.
Speaker 5 (32:05):
I think that should be changed to nature's Yep.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
So you heard to hear, folks, you heard it hear first, folks,
Matt Frederick. Regardless though, then this, this is a conversation
that can get very deep and very complicated very quickly, right,
regardless of what you think and know. To be absolutely clear,
we are not we are not making a one to
(32:31):
one comparison between the irong maniac capitalism, Christianity and democracy.
Those are ideologies, but there's still they're beliefs, right, Yes,
there's still beliefs at this point. Though regardless value feel
about any of those things, it looks extremely likely, I
would say overwhelmingly likely. In fact, I would say I
(32:53):
have certitude about this. I am certain that at multiple
times genuine sexual rhymes were either dismissed or actively covered
up through attributing this to a supernatural creature.
Speaker 4 (33:10):
No, it wasn't.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
It wasn't that guy who has had like four or
five other previous run ends with the law. It was
the Iraq Mignac.
Speaker 5 (33:20):
Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree with that which you assert, Ben Bold.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
I mean there's always the notion of public panic too, right.
I'm not saying that people are always intentionally trying to
cover up a crime using this. There's always a notion
of an outbreak, like a moral panic. They're called. Yeah,
and I know in our previous work with reports of
(33:47):
serial killers, for instance, one thing that we've seen happen
every single time, Every single time there is an active,
identified serial killer that has not been apprehended, or even
after the most likely suspect is apprehended, police departments and
law enforcement agencies will be inundated with the weirdest calls.
(34:10):
People who confess to be in the killer because they
want attention, people who are certain they've seen the killer,
people who have some sort of like very very low
effort count to Monte Cristo revenge scheme, who reports someone
they don't like at worker in their personal life as
the killer. That happens so often. And then this also
(34:33):
has a little bit of a cultural divide. Is someone
saying there's a language divide, right, That's a better way
to say it. Is someone saying that when they're saying
I was attacked by a ring minac. Do they mean
I was attacked by this supernatural creature or do they
mean I was attacked by this creepy dude covered in
slime or oil? In this case, regardless public panic aside,
(34:58):
it looks like several cre took advantage of a longstanding belief.
And as we record this, these people got away clean
with their crimes. They dressed up right, I mean this
is and not to sound dismissive, they disguised themselves. They
participated in cosplay for the purpose of crime. This is
(35:21):
similar to saying, for instance, let's make let's make it
part of folklore that Bigfoot is, in addition to being
real known for robbing banks, and then let's all dress
up as Bigfoot and start robbing banks.
Speaker 5 (35:39):
Brilliant.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
And then it was never it was never us.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
It was a group of big feet.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Big feet. But this, this is the case, and this
is something at this point we haven't we haven't cracked
the case on. We know that the police clearly hate
this idea. It's not helpful for an investigation.
Speaker 5 (36:00):
No, not at all. At least again, I keep going
back to the red underpants thing because at least that's
a good description of the person, and hopefully a witness
saw that person. If you just describe it as a naked,
oily human being that is this other creature, that's not
a lot to go on for law enforcement. That's definitely unfortunate.
(36:24):
You can only hope that people out there very soon
will begin to understand that there are awful human beings
that exist in the world that will do terrible things,
and those are the ones that you need to blame
it on, not some myth.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
It's interesting because there are other reports. Asia One reported
that as recently as twenty twelve, in some regions of
the area, people overwhelmingly did believe in the wrong MINNAC,
especially in Kumpung lack Samana. It's apparently very difficult to
(37:02):
find a resident who doesn't believe in IRANGMNIAC or feel
like they have seen it. This was a place where,
remember we talked about the spike in reports. Over Christmas
of that year, two hundred people went out into the
street patrolling the area. They carried machetes, axes, sticks, whatever
they can find, and spotlights. So people actually went out
(37:26):
on a search for this thing.
Speaker 5 (37:28):
And you know, there's something else here, because when we
were describing what an Irang Mignac is or could be,
with all the various descriptions up at the top of
this episode, one of the major versions of this is
a spurned lover, a human being that is a spurned lover, right,
So it's even if there is some kind of supernatural
(37:49):
or the belief of supernatural power working through this human being,
it is a human being. And I think it as
long as that is kept. Perhaps I know that's not
the only description, but if that thought is kept, then
hopefully some of these some of these human monsters can
be apprehended and this could be stopped, and at least
(38:09):
in the minds of people, they could have that framing
of seeing something very real, even if it is supernaturally enhanced.
So yeah, I guess I don't know what else to say.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
Well, you know, at this point is where this is
where the story ends. It's tremendously fortunate that these reports
have precipitously declined, but it's tremendously tragic that they still continue,
you know what I mean. And this is where we
want to hand this story over to you. Thank you
(38:43):
so much for listening. Let us know if there are
any similar things like this in your neck of the
global woods, whether that's Peru, Pennsylvania, Paraguay, Paris, even places
that don't begin with a peace, and we're asking this.
We're asking for this because it may surprise you to
(39:06):
learn how many stories, maybe not this sinister, maybe not
this disturbing, but how many stories like this the supernatural
impinging on modern life. How many stories like this exist
and are not well known. I you know, as a
matter of fact, write to us and let us know
if you heard of the Irangmignac before you listen to
(39:28):
this show.
Speaker 5 (39:29):
You can find us on Instagram, where we are a
conspiracy stuff show, or on other places where we're conspiracy stuff.
You can and that's the end of this classic episode.
If you have any thoughts or questions about this episode,
you can get into contact with us in a number
of different ways. One of the best is to give
us a call. Our number is one eight three three
(39:51):
std WYTK. If you don't want to do that, you
can send us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 4 (39:56):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 5 (40:01):
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
Show Links
RSSStoreAboutLive ShowsPopular Podcasts
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club
Welcome to Bookmarked by Reese’s Book Club — the podcast where great stories, bold women, and irresistible conversations collide! Hosted by award-winning journalist Danielle Robay, each week new episodes balance thoughtful literary insight with the fervor of buzzy book trends, pop culture and more. Bookmarked brings together celebrities, tastemakers, influencers and authors from Reese's Book Club and beyond to share stories that transcend the page. Pull up a chair. You’re not just listening — you’re part of the conversation.