Raised By Wolves

Edwin tells us horrifying, yet true tales of children being raised by animals throughout history. 

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Hosted by Michelle Newman and Edwin Covarrubias. Episode edited & sound designed by Sarah Vorhees Wendel of VW Sound

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
So Mike Tyson's taking it seriously,like, Yeah, who's one of those
other ones that'll knock him out,you know, like one of those other
weird celebrities like Sean Penn. I'drather be punched by Sean Penn. Granted
it's still a punch to the face, but it's not the guy who probably
could kill you. Welcome to ScaryMystery Surprise, where we talk about scary

(00:23):
things that surprised us around the Internet. I'm Edwin and I'm Michelle. You've
heard of a wild child? Michelle? Uh huh, Yeah, of course,
I've never used the term. Honestly, I think you're more likely to
use like a wild child, likethey're out of control, like they're smoking

(00:45):
cigarettes, staying out at night.That wild child? Is it still common?
It's common? I mean I don'tknow what is a wild child now
in theory? In Troubled Teen anyway, Yes, today I'm going to be
telling you about these bizarre cases ofchildren that acted like animals and not troubled
teens. Feral children. Did youever watch that movie? Now? No,

(01:12):
I don't really recommend it, butJodie Foster plays a feral child with
a twin language yeah, Okay,I don't know if it needs to be
added to a list. It's likeI think it needed to be watched at
a certain time, and that timewas like nineteen ninety five. I don't
know. I'm not four or againstit. Okay, maybe there's better things

(01:36):
with your time. Well, Imean, I found a bunch of bunch
of bunch of these cases, butI want to start off with one of
the most famous ones ever, WildPeter. We'll start about going near Help
Benson in Hanover, northern part ofGermany. Okay, way back in seventeen
twenty four. Again, I don'tknow what this was like, but I'm

(02:00):
a very acousticy, very dusty,smoky also imagine a kind of rowdy.
I don't know. Germany always givesme that vibe where like maybe it's rowdy
beer like people are excited and drunk. By the way, Hanover, this
place is near Hamelin. Yes,indeed are pied Piper of Hamelin. Uh

(02:22):
huh, so it's nearby anyway,Some villagers spotted this naked, brownish creature
with black hair out there in thewoods, and it took them a little
bit to figure out that this thingwas actually a kid. About twelve years
old. But basically they caught himand they kept seeing these strange things about
Peter, like, for example,he walked in all fours. He could

(02:44):
not learn the language, no matterhow much they tried. The weirdest thing
is that he ate trees, notlike bite off the tree, but like
he would rip off the bark andlike eat the sap of it. Huh.
I don't know what animal does that, but I guess he must have
learned it from somewhere. Also,like interesting that was able to sustain him.
Yeah, apparently he also ate flowersand like things, you know,
plants and things like that. Butthey eventually taught him to eat vegetables and

(03:07):
fruits, which was kind of likehis go to things. Yeah. Anyway,
he was taken to Great Britain inseventeen twenty six because they wanted to
see him and stuff like. Thiswas kind of messed up. I imagine
it as like they wanted him asan attraction like, oh, come see
this, let's come see the fairalchild that eats bark. Yeah, and

(03:27):
the public was going crazy about him, like they wanted to see him,
kind of like Justin Bieber in twentyten or something. Like that definitely not
justin Bieber twenty twenty four. Yeah, and I was just like, oh,
yeah, that's Bebes. Caroline,Princess of Wales committed to taking care
of him, like she kind oftook up that role of like, yeah,

(03:49):
I'm gonna watch out for this guy. She wanted to teach him,
you know, to speak and totell his story, but no it didn't
work. He couldn't learn to reador write, which I try to look
up why, and it makes sense. The first five six years of your
life is when you can do allthese things and watch you know, what
your parents do, and you mimicthat she got a teacher to help them

(04:11):
figure out all this stuff. Butno matter what, even the best teacher
in the world dinner work. Yeah. There's a few things about him,
like there was actually a condition calledPitt Hopkins syndrome, a condition identified only
in nineteen seventy eight, almost twohundred years after Peter's death, which are
evident in the Kirby Cupid's bow lips, his short stature, coarse curly hair,

(04:39):
drooping eyelids, and thick lips.Today, there's a depiction of Peter
in a large painting of King Georgethe First's court hanging on the east wall
of the king staircase at Kensington Palacein London. Well, you know what
he did pretty well for her beingI don't know, just lost in the
woods for this first twelve years ofhis life, you know. Yeah,

(05:01):
he actually lived until about seventy.Wow. His grave is just outside the
main door to the church in SaintMary's Church in North Church. And there
was something about the heritage, sometype of association like trying to make it,
you know, so that it's partof the cultural history of the area.
So in my books, he madeit. This is probably one of

(05:23):
the most famous ones that came across. I think this one is the one
that freaked me out as a kid, because I saw a little illustration of
it in some book. When wethink of people being raised by animals,
what animal do you think of?A wolf? According to an article on
useless information dot org, where weget all of our facts basically a sponsor

(05:44):
of this podcast, here's other story. But Reverend Joseph Singh was out on
a trip back in September of nineteentwenty. It was a missionary slash hunting
trip through the Jungles of India,and suddenly some of the locals told him
that there there were ghosts around andthat one of them looked like a beast
with the body of a human,and so they asked a reverend to please

(06:08):
do an exorcism where the ghosts were. So he was like, all right,
I'll go, and then when hewent up, he saw that it
was just a huge ant hill.These things are huge. I looked up
in Nant Hill by the way.This thing was like ten to twelve feet
tall, so it was like alittle mountain and it had holes in it
and stuff, so like, there'ssomething there, there's something there. So

(06:30):
they built up this little thing sothey could go up to the trees and
look out to it instead of goingstraight up to the ant hill. And
they actually saw something move in there, like something was crawling. And then
suddenly they see a head popping outand it looked like a dog. It
was turned out to be a wolf, and then more little wolves started kind

(06:51):
of crawling out thinking they were safe, and then when they saw that there
was basically a hunter looking at them, this jumped out towards one of them
and was shot and died. Andthey say that this was the mom wolf.
As they kept looking towards the anthill, they saw two girls like

(07:15):
they were probably maybe three years oldand the other one six years old,
and they were covered in dust.They acted like wolves, and the two
girls were named Kamala and Amala.Okay, so these girls walked in all
fours and they kept trying to crawlback into the wild like. They kept
trying to go back. This iswhat they I mean, it's their life,
right, they want to go backthere. They liked being awake at

(07:38):
night. They would pee and poopthemselves like anywhere. They liked raw meat
and panted like dogs. A yearlater, Amala got sick, and then
Kamala got sick. All this timethey were trying to teach them how to
act like civilized humans, but nothingwas working, and Amala died that September.
Suppose that she was born nineteen eighteenand died in nineteen twenty one,

(08:01):
almost three years after she was rescued. Kamala was able to stand up,
so yeah, pretty cool, andonly one hundred years later she became Vice
President of the United States. OhMan supposedly seeing the reverend didn't want the
story to get out. Maybe hewas involved in some different way, like

(08:22):
maybe the story didn't add up.This is my own suspicion here. He
didn't want the story out and hedidn't charge for admission for people to go
see kind of like the freak showstyle. He was like no, but
he always accepted donations for the orphanageshe ran, so he would still get
some benefit off of it. Maybenot for him directly, but they did
manage to teach Kamala a few thingsthough, like she learned fifty words and

(08:46):
one of the techniques that they usedwas to hang her upside down to increase
her brain power. I mean,these guys weren't scientists or teachers at around
fifteen years old. In nineteen twentynine, Kamala died and two years after
that, Reverend Singh was told toretire, basically forced to retire December of
nineteen thirty one, and since hehad almost no money, one of his

(09:09):
superiors told him to publish what hehad written about Kamala and Amala, which
he had been documented kind of throughjournaling, but like in the lazy way
he would get like random sheets ofpaper write things about it, but still
was very document is like one ofthe first documentations of feral child's being found
and what they tried and try toreteach them something. But still it wasn't

(09:31):
a scientific paper, right, itwas still just a collection of thoughts,
I guess journal entries. Four yearslater it was published and it was just
alright, nobody really cared for it. But then this doctor Robert Zing from
the US, an anthropologist, wantedto take a hack at it, and
that's when the story was questioned.The Reverend Sing said that these girls were

(09:54):
nocturnal and that their eyes gave offa blue glare, that the shape of
the teeth were longer. Basically,they're like, how is that possible?
What shade was it? Do youhave any documentation of it? See?
Now this is where the scientific methodbeing good right here, because see like
for your idea, scientists versus paranormalinvestigator, imagine something like that. Yeah,

(10:15):
that'd be great. This one articlefrom the time in the Kolkutta Statesman
told a different story about how Singwas taken to see the ant Hill after
two girls were shown to him whowere living in a cage. So he
kind of ended up tying two thingstogether. They're like, oh, by
the way, let me show youthis ant hill and then they showed them
also the two girls in a cage, and then he just kind of what

(10:35):
a pet day he had, orhe like went to a giant ant hill
and he saw two girls in acage and apparently killed the wolf. Well,
so I have never heard in anynature documentary. I have never seen
wolves come out of an ant hill. That is bizarre to me. Yeah,
there's a lot of weird things becauselike some of one of his versions

(10:56):
of the story was like that hesaved them. The other one, you
know, he was shown these twogirls in a cage. There's a reason
why he didn't want to share this. Yeah, he might have just wanted
to keep a story together or juststay out of it as much as possible
after maybe figuring out that he mayhave lied a little bit or whatever.

(11:16):
Yeah, you mean he was putin charge of two random feral girls.
Yeah, there might have been somethingelse going on in there. Yeah.
All the records that are from thisstory are basically from him, So he
could have just said anything. It'sa tough story to believe, believe was
still creepy ass. Heck, whenyou think about it, I found this

(11:37):
article of stories that pretty much haveall types of animals in here. This
case from Uganda, this villager calledMillie Seba who was in search for firewood
and found a little boy with apack of monkeys aw like Tarzan, Yeah
kind of. They actually found outwho he was. It was a boy,

(11:58):
John Sasebuna, who was lost innineteen eighty eight at the age of
two when his father murdered his motherand disappeared. Wow, that went somewhere
way different. That got dark.And this happened recently, like he actually
revisited the monkeys and they made thisphoto op where like he went back to
kind of where he was found andeverything. And there's also this other case

(12:22):
of a gazelle boy. This anthropologistfrom Beasque Country was traveling alone the Spanish
Sahara which is called Ria Deoro innineteen sixty when he met these people,
the Nomadi nomads, who told himthat they had seen this boy running on
his own or whatever. He wasgalloping like jumping across the fields. And
he was like, well, that'sweird. I want to see this where

(12:45):
isy, you know, And theyeventually found him. The boy walked on
all fours like sometimes he would standup and then he would keep you know,
running in all fours. When hewould hear a noise, he would
do that. He was basically agazelle. She try to catch them with
the helicopter. Uh Jesus, hewas so fast. He was fast.

(13:05):
He was a fast kid. Therewas no record of him ever being taken
away from the gazelle's he was justhe lived among them. This last case.
I remember seeing this in the news. Actually her name was Auxanna Malaya
born on November nineteen eighty three,and she was found when she was eight
nineteen ninety one, living with dogs. She barked and crouched like a wild

(13:30):
dog, sniffed her food before sheate it, and she would smell things
from like far away. She couldsee things like have those kind of like
instincts that dogs have. But thething is that her parents were alcoholics and
they were unable to care for her, so they just kind of, you
know, living in the poor area, she just went out with the dogs
and in the streets and that's whereshe lived, in a kennel behind her

(13:54):
house. So it's depressing, butalso like speaks to the goodness of dogs.
Also once again, where these dogswere like we'll raise your child.
Robert would clearly try to raise anewborn baby. I think there was a
whole news report thing and if youguys, if anybody out there is interested

(14:16):
in finding out more Alexanda Malaya,they try to do a full segment on
her and trying to meet up withher father. Again, it was awkward,
an awkward encounter. Oh, Ibet they try to make a story
out of it, but there wasI mean, this was the story already,
like they didn't need to expand iteven more. Where did it happen?
Ukraine? Oh okay, that's whatI thought. She now like she

(14:39):
talks about her experiences that she can, you know, she managed to learn.
I'm assuming she's a massive dog lover. She likes dogs. She actually
takes care of animals. Now,oh good. They have videos of her,
you know, walking on all foursdrinking water out of a faucet,
Like I don't like seeing it.What I mean, yeah, it's an
extreme case of abuse. In twothousand and six is when they did the

(15:01):
they met up with her father becauseshe was on sixty minutes and then her
father was like, oh that's mydaughter or whatever. That's when they were
reunited. Wow. And this girlsaid, I want to see them with
my own eyes because I've been toldto have no parents but actually do have
them. And then the encounter happened, and it was it was awkward.

(15:22):
They actually have a screenshot of thething. Basically they're both standing for the
frame and like the caption just says, I have come. But they're standing
like awkwardly looking at each other,like yeah, of course, what are
you going to do? Hug themthe people that abandoned you to dog?
Yeah, like no. The firsttime I read about this, I was
amazed because I used to think ofhow would it be to like live out

(15:46):
in the woods or like how bya river? And I know I grew
up on Tarzan and like the JungleBook, uh huh. I want to
be raised by Blue the bear andthat I think the panther's a good guy
in that right, I don't rememberor like like you know, have a
brother that's a monkey named Cheetah likein Tarzan. For me, I think

(16:08):
thinking of Pokemon and being out inthe wild with a backpack just starting fires
and like you know, campfires andsleeping out in the woods and figuring out
on your own was really cool.And plus I used to have a bunch
of like fishing magazines that I wouldtake from the dentist because they had a
stack of them that they're just say, yeah, take them. Because I

(16:29):
was so into it. It wasall into outdoors and stuff and I was
like, this is kind of cool. It creeped me out when I saw
that there might be kids out thereor children that are from the woods.
Like that got me. I wouldsay, if being a wild child is
a choice, being a feral childis not a choice. Yeah, those
children did not pick to be raisedby whatever animal took them in. But

(16:52):
thankfully an animal did take them infor some reason. I've seen videos of
animals, you know, like theNational Geographic documentaries. Whatever we see like
a tiger not eating a baby monkey, for example, they just kind of
let them be. You know,it happens sometimes if you're fostering animals or
too. You know, like ifan animal's just given birth and then like
another baby animal kind of appears,the hormones will mix and so like you

(17:18):
know, when a gorilla doesn't smasha baby that's like fallen into a into
a you know it's cage and azoo or all of a sudden a cat's
taking care of a duck or arat or something like that. You know,
like there's things where it's like hormoneskick in and it's like, oh
yeah, Like it makes sense thatlike if a little child stumbled upon like

(17:44):
an animal that had just you know, at the right time, it would
see it as it's child. Iguess we kind of do that with dogs,
right. Oh yeah, my sonRoberts just emerged from the womb or
wherever he was. I don't knowwhere he was. Well, guys,
if you want to be part ofmore riveting discussions like feral children, animals,

(18:06):
animal parenting, and we'll be postingthat on the Scary Mystery Club,
join us at the scarymistery club dotcom for Robert's parenting tips. He's on
the couch right now, burrowing intoa blanket, so you know they're going
to be good. Go check usout at Scary Mystery Club. We love
your support and you can get commercialfree episodes there. We'll see you guys

(18:29):
there. What are we going totalk about next? We're going to be
a surprise. Scary Mystery Surprise ishosted by Michelle Newman and Edwin Rubes.
This podcast was edited and sound designedby Sarah or He's Wendel a VW sound