The slums of East Delhi are filthy and overcrowded. Hundreds of people are compelled to sleep outdoors. Streets are usually dark, as the streetlights remain unrepaired. In some areas running water is available only one hour a day. It was into this unwholesome place a strange figure bounded on the night of May 13th 2001. Four to five feet tall, it walked upright like a man but was covered in hair. It had red glowing eyes and an ape like face. The entity was christened ‘Monkey Man.The creature leapt from building to building and attacked its victims with raking claws and sharp teeth. Panic swiftly spread through the filthy, overcrowded slums. The police received accounts of fifty attacks on the night of May 14th alone. The merest mention of the creature could send whole areas into a frenzy of panic. In stampedes to escape the creature two people fell to their deaths from rooftops and stairs. One was a pregnant woman.
As accounts grew in number the sightings became more widespread across the city. Police patrols turned up nothing and the poverty stricken people took the law into their own hands. Banding together like hordes of villagers in a Hammer Horror film they took to the streets to hunt the phantom ape.
In all this confusion, false identifications were made. A four-foot-tall wandering Hindu mystic named Jamir was beaten up by residents of the nearby suburb of Noida, before being handed over to police.
A van driver in Delhi was set upon and given multiple fractures in the early A.M. hours of Friday, May 18, by people who thought him to be the Monkey Man. Three thousand extra men in Delhi were assigned by police, as of May 21, to track down the Monkey Man. Police also offered a reward equaling around 600 pounds (in rupees) for the creature's capture. The reward was never paid to anyone as the creature eluded all it’s hunters.
The terror spread even to Assam were the hairy monster was called the Bear Man. Then just as suddenly as it came the monkey man vanished. The following year, in Uttar Pradesh, another urban beast scare erupted. It manifested a weird light the size of a football was reported. It was known as "muhnochwa" or "face scratcher".Assam, a resident of Wazirganj (district) in Lucknow, said: 'I was asleep at home on Tuesday (August 6, 2002), at around 2:45 a.m. I woke up with a start to find a bright red blinking object attacking my face and trying to pull me away. I screamed. But before my husband woke up, it vanished into thin air and left scratches on my face.'
Seven people were killed in the riots that came in the wake of the attacks. Once again investigations found no trace of the attacker. Many put the whole Monkey Man and Face Scratcher down to mass hysteria. The resentment of the poor bubbling over and mixing with a superstition riddled populace created the creatures from nothing. Perhaps there were a few attacks by real monkeys that sparked the panic. Indeed those who claimed to have bite or scratch marks from the creature were found to have bites of rats, dogs and other common animals. Some wounds were even self-inflicted! But these cases are not restricted to the third world.
In the 1830s London was terrorized by a figure remarkably similar to the Monkey Man, his name was Springheeled Jack.The first sighting may have occurred in September of 1837 in London, England. A businessman was returning home from work late at night when a mysterious figure vaulted over the railings of a nearby cemetery. The railings were at least 10 feet high but the creature effortlessly leaped over the wall and landed directly in the path of the strolling man. The creature was described as having pointed ears, large glowing eyes, and a large pointed nose.A short time later, Spring Heeled Jack was said to have attacked a group of people - 3 women and 1 man. All ran but Polly Adams, who was left behind. Spring Heeled Jack tore off the top of her blouse, grabbed her breasts, and began clawing at her stomach. The attack knocked Polly unconscious where she lay until being discovered by a policeman patrolling his beat.
In October of 1837, Mary Stevens, a servant, was returning to her employer's home on Lavender Hill. While passing through Cut Throat Lane in Clapham Common, Spring Heeled Jack sprang from an alley, tightly wrapped his arms around her, kissed her on the face, and began running his hands down her blouse. When Mary screamed, Spring Heeled Jack ran from the scene. Local men were alerted by the screams and quickly arrived on the scene. They searched for the assailant to no avail.The next day, Spring Heeled Jack struck again at a location very near Mary Stevens home. He sprang in front of a passing carriage causing the carriage to careen out of control and crash. Witnesses at the scene claimed that Spring Heeled Jack escaped by springing effortlessly over a 9 foot wall.
A few months later, January 1838, London's Lord Mayor Sir John Cowan declared Spring Heeled Jack a 'public menace'. A posse of men were formed to search for the individual responsible for the attacks. It was during this time that the great Duke of Wellington, who was now 70 years old, joined in the search. Some sources indicate that the Duke may have had several close encounters with Spring Heeled Jack. Unfortunately, Spring Heeled Jack was never found and in fact, intensified his attacks In February of 1838 18 year old Lucy Scales and her sister Margaret were walking home from their brother’s house in the Limehouse area. It was 8.30 in the evening amend Lucy had walked ahead of her sister. As she came to the entrance to Green Dragon Alley Springheeled Jack loomed from the shadows and spat blue flames into her face. She fell to the ground and suffered a fit as her assailant leapt over her sister and landed on a roof before bounding off into the night.
Two days later he attacked another 18 year old girl in her own home in Bearhind Lane, a quite back street in the district of Bow. Banging upon Jane Allsop’s door at just before nine he shouted “I’m a policeman, bring a light we have just caught Springheeled Jack in the lane.”The candle she brought illuminated a weird face with glowing eyes and an insane grin. The monster spewed blue flames into her face and began to claw at her clothes. He screamed for help and managed to struggle free. He attacked again scratching at her face with sharp claws. He sisters managed to drag him off and pull the victim back indoors. Jane said that he wore a strange, tall helmet, white skintight clothes and a black cape.Soon after the fiend tried the same stunt in Turner Street of Commercial Road but this time the servant boy who opened the door quickly slammed it as he saw the monster’s glowing eyes by the light of his lamp. Jack let out a terrific scream of fury, heard all over the neighborhood, and bounded away. The boy recalled seeing the letter ‘w’ embossed on Jack’s cape.
This led some to conclude that Springheeled Jack was none other than the Marquise of Waterford, an eccentric Nobleman with a love of dangerous pranks. It was theorized that he had springs fitted into his boots for the purpose of terrorizing the city. However the Marquis died after falling from his horse in 1859. Jack was still manifesting long after this.In August 1887 he attacked a sentry at Aldershot North Camp. He leapt ten feet over Private John Regan and spat blue flames in his face.Jack was never caught but strangely entered popular culture as a sort of Victorian superhero. He was a popular character in the ‘penny dreadfulls’ of the time that generally showed him as fighting crime like an early version of Batman!
What are we to make of such characters? Are they based on exaggerated attacks by monkeys and mad Irishmen or are they the product of people both physically and mentally overcrowded?
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