WEBVTT - Are Feral Children Real? 0:00:00.520 --> 0:00:03.040 Hey, everybody, we are going on tour in twenty eighteen, 0:00:03.200 --> 0:00:06.280 and where are we going? On April fourth, we're gonna 0:00:06.280 --> 0:00:08.480 be in Boston at the Wilburg. You can get tickets 0:00:08.520 --> 0:00:11.640 at the Wilber dot com, Chuck. And then on April fifth, 0:00:11.640 --> 0:00:13.960 we're gonna be in DC at the Lincoln Theater and 0:00:14.000 --> 0:00:16.360 you can get tickets for that at ticket fly, that's right. 0:00:16.400 --> 0:00:18.520 And then we're going to two new cities, right yep. 0:00:18.600 --> 0:00:20.920 On May twenty second, we're gonna be in Saint Louis. 0:00:20.960 --> 0:00:24.160 You can get tickets on Ticketmaster. And on May twenty third, 0:00:24.200 --> 0:00:26.239 we're gonna be in Cleveland and you can get tickets 0:00:26.239 --> 0:00:29.080 there at playhouse Square dot org. And then there's one more, Chuck, 0:00:29.200 --> 0:00:32.080 that's right. We're gonna wrap it up in Denver, specifically Inglewood, 0:00:32.120 --> 0:00:35.199 Colorado at the Gothic Theater on June twenty eighth, and 0:00:35.280 --> 0:00:38.120 possibly adding a show on the twenty seven. Stay tuned 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:40.960 for that, yep. And you can get ticks at axs 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:43.640 dot com. So come see us live. We'll have a 0:00:43.680 --> 0:00:48.120 good time. Come on out. Welcome to stuff you should 0:00:48.200 --> 0:00:58.040 know from HowStuffWorks dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:58.080 --> 0:01:02.040 Son Josh Clark's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, I almost forgot 0:01:02.040 --> 0:01:04.120 my name for a second. There's Jerry. It is a 0:01:04.160 --> 0:01:13.319 little weird. Jerry Jerome the Germster Roland kaboom, how you 0:01:13.360 --> 0:01:23.919 doing fine? Jerry stops snorting. I have a complete whip 0:01:23.959 --> 0:01:27.760 flash over this topic. Ok of what and you know 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:33.240 why I have? I have just doing this topic after 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:37.160 what the story is behind it? Yeah, I still kind 0:01:37.160 --> 0:01:43.040 of like shudder. So should we even talk about her twitching? Yeah? No, 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:47.199 here's the story is. And I think it was two 0:01:47.280 --> 0:01:52.680 years ago now, rightly, yeah, two years ago in March, 0:01:52.800 --> 0:01:56.960 it'll be two years At south By Southwest in Austin, Texas. 0:01:57.480 --> 0:01:59.520 We were going to do a live podcast, which we've 0:01:59.520 --> 0:02:03.400 done there before. It's always been great. Yes for this one. 0:02:03.440 --> 0:02:07.080 We had a bar that we were doing it in 0:02:07.120 --> 0:02:09.200 that was set up with a lot of events all 0:02:09.280 --> 0:02:13.160 day long, and we thought, Okay, no big deal, we'd 0:02:13.200 --> 0:02:18.040 like bars, we're closer to the booze, no props. But 0:02:18.120 --> 0:02:21.160 what they failed to do and failed to tell us 0:02:21.280 --> 0:02:23.720 was that they did not clear the room after the 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:28.920 hippie jam band beforehand, and so what ended up happening 0:02:29.040 --> 0:02:32.720 was we ended up doing a live podcast in front 0:02:32.720 --> 0:02:37.760 of a noisy, crowded bar full of drunks, with about 0:02:39.040 --> 0:02:42.560 seventeen stuff you should know, fans upfront trying to listen, 0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:46.400 turning around and shushing the people at the bar. And 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:48.839 it was about as fruitless as a shift could get. 0:02:49.080 --> 0:02:51.240 And this is the part I feel though worst about 0:02:51.280 --> 0:02:54.840 a couple of hundred real deal stuff you should know, 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:57.480 listeners standing out on the sidewalk in the hot sun, 0:02:57.560 --> 0:03:01.880 unable to get in. Yeah, it was all around maybe 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:06.560 our third worst show, but I know VidCon is up 0:03:06.600 --> 0:03:09.000 there in the top three, right, Yeah, I'm just putting 0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:11.480 a phantom show in to hold the number two slot 0:03:11.480 --> 0:03:14.160 because I'm sure there's one I've blocked out too. Just 0:03:14.200 --> 0:03:16.360 so you guys know, VidCon and was bad because we 0:03:16.400 --> 0:03:20.200 did a show in front of about seventeen people maybe, 0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:24.240 and we worked with eleven of them, although we did 0:03:24.240 --> 0:03:28.960 get to meet Taijon day that day. Oh true. So anyway, 0:03:28.960 --> 0:03:31.960 we did feral children in front of a crowded, noisy 0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:35.080 bar full of drunks, and you and I we've been 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:37.080 doing this for so long and we have such great 0:03:37.560 --> 0:03:43.240 you know, unspoken eye contract eye contact chemistry. Sh don't 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:46.760 speak it that I remember looking over at you, and 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:49.960 our eyes both said skip through as much of this 0:03:50.080 --> 0:03:52.800 as possible. Let's get the heck out of here as 0:03:52.800 --> 0:03:54.760 soon as we can. I cocked it. We did it 0:03:54.760 --> 0:03:56.960 in like twenty two minutes. I believe it was supposed 0:03:57.000 --> 0:03:59.320 to be at least forty five. We were talking like 0:03:59.360 --> 0:04:02.160 the guy from the old FedEx ads from like the 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:06.880 early eighties. Oh man. It was truly truly a miserable experience. 0:04:07.360 --> 0:04:09.440 So it's taken a full two years until I could 0:04:09.480 --> 0:04:12.120 wrap my head around actually doing this again. Yep. So 0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:14.480 here we are. We're gonna do it, Chuck, and it's 0:04:14.520 --> 0:04:18.440 gonna be great because it's just the three of us today. Yeah. 0:04:18.440 --> 0:04:21.760 And that's also where we had that too drunk guy, 0:04:22.839 --> 0:04:25.760 Oh yeah, remember him. That was a bad jam all around, 0:04:26.279 --> 0:04:27.920 and that's where I lost my hat. That was the 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:32.080 worst trip ever, what's really bad. It really just sucked 0:04:32.760 --> 0:04:35.479 all the way around. We considered burning Austin to the 0:04:35.520 --> 0:04:38.800 ground on the way out of town, but I did so. 0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:40.680 We're glad we did because we've been back to Austin 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:42.920 a couple of times and we're always happy to be there. Now, 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:46.279 this is not Austin's fault. No, but we just didn't 0:04:46.279 --> 0:04:48.360 want to have any memories of it. Aye, I hear you. 0:04:49.279 --> 0:04:53.280 So we're talking fearal children. And even if you were 0:04:53.320 --> 0:04:55.360 at that show, this is probably really the first time 0:04:55.360 --> 0:04:58.320 you'll hear it, So it doesn't matter, and we're gonna 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:04.599 start in Moscow. In the late nineties, there was a big, 0:05:04.640 --> 0:05:08.080 big problem that had developed from the dissolution of the USSR, 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:12.640 namely that the fabric of society had largely disintegrated in 0:05:12.680 --> 0:05:15.240 a lot of ways, and one of the results of 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:18.240 this was that there were a lot of families that 0:05:18.279 --> 0:05:21.000 were broken up for one reason or another, and a 0:05:21.040 --> 0:05:24.080 lot of very young children from what I see, something 0:05:24.200 --> 0:05:28.800 like two million of them living on the streets of Russia. 0:05:28.920 --> 0:05:32.000 In Moscow, of course, being the biggest city in Russia, 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:37.320 it had the largest problem. And one of those kids 0:05:37.760 --> 0:05:45.400 was a little boy named Ivan Mushikov and nailed it sure. 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:50.400 And Ivan was six in nineteen ninety eight, they estimate, 0:05:50.560 --> 0:05:52.560 And he was a little different from the rest of 0:05:52.600 --> 0:05:55.600 the children living on the street at the time because 0:05:55.640 --> 0:05:59.880 he was what you would was widely considered and actually 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:03.680 example of a feral child, because not only was he 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:05.719 living by his own wits, from the age of four 0:06:05.760 --> 0:06:08.680 to six on the streets. He was leading a pack 0:06:08.720 --> 0:06:11.560 of stray dogs that protected him as well, and he 0:06:11.839 --> 0:06:18.080 had been fully absorbed into their pack, into their society. Yeah, so, 0:06:18.200 --> 0:06:22.320 as the story goes, like you said, he left home 0:06:22.360 --> 0:06:25.560 at four and was basically just another one of the 0:06:25.600 --> 0:06:30.000 begging children on the streets until he started to feed 0:06:30.560 --> 0:06:32.600 a little bit of the food he would get to 0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:39.159 these dogs, and the dogs they trusted him, they befriended him, 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:41.240 and you know, you hang out with dogs long enough 0:06:41.240 --> 0:06:43.800 and give enough food, all of a sudden they say, hey, 0:06:44.000 --> 0:06:47.200 you know, we're pals. And they literally took him in 0:06:47.360 --> 0:06:50.880 as one of their own and would show him, would 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:54.480 guide him to the warm places to sleep at night, underground, 0:06:54.560 --> 0:06:57.400 your heated pipes and things like that. They and they 0:06:57.440 --> 0:06:59.680 lived together for a couple of years to the point 0:06:59.720 --> 0:07:03.280 where the cops could not get close to this kid 0:07:03.360 --> 0:07:07.360 because of these dogs. Right, So they finally apparently baited 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:12.440 some traps and got the dogs just systematically away from Ivan, 0:07:13.080 --> 0:07:16.680 and they finally had him cornered, and he snapped and 0:07:16.760 --> 0:07:20.080 growled and barked at the social workers who were advancing 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:22.480 on him to get him and to take them off 0:07:22.520 --> 0:07:24.800 of the streets and into a group home, and they 0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:27.200 were finally successful. But they said, like, this kid was 0:07:27.240 --> 0:07:30.440 acting like a dog with its back against the wall, 0:07:31.640 --> 0:07:34.560 and they got their hands on him. They put him 0:07:34.560 --> 0:07:38.119 into a group home, and he was actually a success story. 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:45.760 He managed to become enculturated into human society as a 0:07:45.800 --> 0:07:49.240 result of just being taken over by the state. But 0:07:49.440 --> 0:07:53.280 he is one of these He stands as one of 0:07:53.320 --> 0:08:00.320 the very few documented examples of a feral child. I mean, 0:08:00.320 --> 0:08:03.880 there have been stories all throughout history people have been 0:08:03.880 --> 0:08:07.920 fascinated with this notion, whether it was Mowgli in the 0:08:08.000 --> 0:08:13.040 Jungle Book, or stories of baboon girls and ostrich boys 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:16.200 and bird girls. And then you know, they give them 0:08:16.200 --> 0:08:18.240 these names because that's who they eventually take up with, 0:08:19.080 --> 0:08:23.000 and they're very compelling stories. But and in fact, I 0:08:23.000 --> 0:08:26.160 think at one point there's a taxonomist named Carl Andaeis 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:30.520 who he's credited who created the tree of life. He 0:08:30.880 --> 0:08:35.080 actually established a whole separate category Homo ferus, which was 0:08:35.160 --> 0:08:39.800 literally a different variety of human being because they didn't 0:08:39.800 --> 0:08:42.640 even think at one point that they counted as humans. Yeah, 0:08:42.679 --> 0:08:45.320 there was a time when this is all very much 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:49.840 discussed and talked about what exactly feral children were who 0:08:49.920 --> 0:08:53.520 they represented in One of the competing theories is that 0:08:53.559 --> 0:08:57.319 they were like basically like sasquatch. Like if we found sasquatch, 0:08:57.320 --> 0:08:59.079 you'd be like, oh, there's we need to expand the 0:08:59.120 --> 0:09:02.319 tree of life to inclin. Dude, these cousins to homies 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:08.400 Homo sapiens. That's right. So Romulus and Remus were Another 0:09:08.520 --> 0:09:11.920 very famous story too that Romulus, the founder of Rome. 0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:16.320 He and his brother Romulus and Remus were cast out 0:09:16.440 --> 0:09:20.640 by their uncle, their wicked uncle, and they were raised 0:09:20.800 --> 0:09:25.040 by wolves, I believe, according to legend. So yeah, there's 0:09:25.080 --> 0:09:29.960 this long standing legend of children of wild children, feral 0:09:30.040 --> 0:09:34.360 children being raised. But for the most part, it has 0:09:34.400 --> 0:09:38.600 existed in legend. It's not like there's all these great 0:09:38.600 --> 0:09:43.600 well documented cases. There's just enough documented cases. There's just 0:09:43.760 --> 0:09:48.520 enough tantalizing evidence that science has remained interested in this 0:09:48.720 --> 0:09:54.040 idea of what are feral children that it's just kept 0:09:54.320 --> 0:09:57.440 it's kept it going, and still to this day we 0:09:57.520 --> 0:10:02.920 don't really have enough evidence to say definitively feral children 0:10:02.920 --> 0:10:06.640 are this, or more to the point, feral children tell 0:10:06.720 --> 0:10:10.880 us this about ourselves, about human development, But there are 0:10:11.080 --> 0:10:15.520 documented cases. Ivan Mushakov is not the only one. Yeah, 0:10:15.559 --> 0:10:17.600 and this could happen in a lot of ways. What 0:10:17.640 --> 0:10:20.880 would cause a child to become separated from their family 0:10:21.120 --> 0:10:24.520 and end up with a pack of monkeys or wolves 0:10:24.840 --> 0:10:29.360 or ostrich It sort of depends. It was one girl 0:10:29.520 --> 0:10:35.439 name Emiyata Emiyati who survived a boat capsizing. It killed 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:38.960 her friends and left her stranded in nineteen seventy seven 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:42.160 in the Sumatran forest. Eventually, she was found in the 0:10:42.200 --> 0:10:48.320 early eighties living with orangutangs orangutung. I think she was 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:50.959 living alone. She was mistaken for an orangutang. Oh I 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:53.160 thought she had taken up with them. No, that was 0:10:53.200 --> 0:10:56.240 what I saw. That actually makes her kind of different 0:10:56.280 --> 0:10:59.840 as far as feral children concerned. She was living by herself. Oh. Interesting. 0:11:00.400 --> 0:11:05.640 Other ones have been taken in by everything from pigs. 0:11:06.280 --> 0:11:11.280 This girl in China, Wang Shingfing was discovered living with pigs. 0:11:12.280 --> 0:11:15.839 She had been nursing on a pig, later fed as 0:11:15.840 --> 0:11:19.280 a pig. And that's one of the more depressing cases 0:11:19.320 --> 0:11:23.360 of straight up abuse from parents. Yeah, her parents were 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:26.720 unable to raise her. They were both cognitively impaired and 0:11:26.880 --> 0:11:30.080 they basically left her with the pigs out back, and 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:34.599 the pigs ended up raising her for years. There was 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:39.280 another girl, and this is if this is even more depressing, frankly, 0:11:39.679 --> 0:11:42.880 there was a girl named Jeanie that was a pseudonym. 0:11:43.440 --> 0:11:45.200 Obviously I don't know what her real name was, but 0:11:45.280 --> 0:11:49.200 she's very well known as Genie, who was raised back 0:11:49.240 --> 0:11:53.640 in the nineteen thirties or forties, I believe, locked in 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:57.480 a closet for the first ten from age two to 0:11:57.559 --> 0:12:02.880 age twelve, she was kept away from hum in society. 0:12:02.679 --> 0:12:05.719 So rather than being kept away from human society by 0:12:05.720 --> 0:12:10.520 being stranded in the wilderness or being raised by animals, 0:12:10.640 --> 0:12:13.520 she was left by herself and as a result, she 0:12:13.679 --> 0:12:17.120 developed a feral nature as well. So there's basically like 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:21.240 three categories that develop when you're looking at stories of 0:12:21.920 --> 0:12:25.439 feral children, and Genie would be one that's called isolated. 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:30.559 There's also or no, she would be confined. Imi Yati 0:12:30.600 --> 0:12:32.679 would be isolated where she was just stranded in the 0:12:32.679 --> 0:12:35.319 woods and lived by herself. And then the third category 0:12:35.480 --> 0:12:39.640 would be among animals like Ivan Mishchikov. Yeah, and we're 0:12:39.640 --> 0:12:42.560 gonna talk mainly about the ones who live among animals. 0:12:42.559 --> 0:12:45.320 Because the other two are just some of the you know, 0:12:46.000 --> 0:12:50.360 worst cases of abuse and neglect you could imagine. And 0:12:50.440 --> 0:12:52.520 it's not like the ones who live among animals are fun. 0:12:53.200 --> 0:12:56.840 But at least they have their pack of dogs and 0:12:56.880 --> 0:12:59.320 they're not like chained in a closet, you know, right, 0:12:59.360 --> 0:13:03.720 that's the the weird silver lining it. What would you 0:13:03.760 --> 0:13:07.200 want to be taken in? What kind of animal? Dogs 0:13:07.240 --> 0:13:13.800 would be pretty good? Yeah, yeah, you know, lots of apsos. Yeah, 0:13:13.800 --> 0:13:16.240 I could probably become the leader of that pack. I 0:13:16.320 --> 0:13:19.200 think monkeys would be pretty great. They would be. But 0:13:19.240 --> 0:13:22.200 they're also man. Those things will bite you. Well, they'll 0:13:22.200 --> 0:13:25.560 bite their own, do they It depends if you say 0:13:25.600 --> 0:13:27.920 something wrong. I would get along. They would they would 0:13:28.080 --> 0:13:30.400 just pick my nets and they would love me as 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:34.880 their own. In my jungle book story, do you wait 0:13:34.880 --> 0:13:38.640 a minute? Do you have knits now? Occasionally? Oh? Man, 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:41.520 should we take a break? Yeah, I think we should. 0:13:41.600 --> 0:13:43.640 All right, let's take a break, and we're going to 0:13:43.720 --> 0:14:10.640 talk more about feral children right after this, So Chuck. 0:14:12.120 --> 0:14:15.000 One thing that one of the big reasons that feral 0:14:15.080 --> 0:14:18.000 children has really kind of kept the interest of science 0:14:18.360 --> 0:14:21.720 over the years, especially starting in about the eighteenth century 0:14:21.760 --> 0:14:27.160 on is that they provide this the idea that they 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:31.000 provide a window into human nature. Right, They're like a 0:14:31.080 --> 0:14:34.760 natural laboratory. Nobody's gonna say, hey, get that kid away 0:14:34.760 --> 0:14:37.280 from its parents. It's one and a half years old. 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:39.960 Now throw it out into the forest, and then we'll 0:14:39.960 --> 0:14:42.080 come back and get it in twelve years and see 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:44.720 what happens with it. You just can't do that. Even 0:14:44.760 --> 0:14:46.960 back in the eighteenth century, they wouldn't have done something 0:14:47.000 --> 0:14:50.920 like that. It was just too unethical, right, Yeah, So 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:53.600 the idea that there are children that this actually happened 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:57.920 to through you know, no scientist's fault. They can be 0:14:58.000 --> 0:15:01.920 studied and they could answer conceivably some questions. And some 0:15:02.000 --> 0:15:05.560 of the questions are things like language acquisition, like do 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:10.040 we go through what's called a critical period where we 0:15:10.480 --> 0:15:13.280 either learn language or we don't, And if we don't, 0:15:13.520 --> 0:15:15.880 then we've and we missed that window. We'll never be 0:15:15.920 --> 0:15:18.520 able to learn language even a native language, let alone 0:15:18.560 --> 0:15:20.680 a second language like you and me are having trouble 0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:25.840 with these days. And then another is well, basically any 0:15:25.880 --> 0:15:29.520 any way that they differ from a normal kid, like 0:15:29.560 --> 0:15:32.680 their behaviors there, the way they carry themselves, all this 0:15:32.720 --> 0:15:41.880 stuff you could say this clearly stands for nature or nurture. Bam, 0:15:42.040 --> 0:15:44.640 that's right. And when these kids are out, at least 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:48.120 the ones with the animals, they become as much like 0:15:48.200 --> 0:15:51.840 these animals and sometimes even physically as as they can. 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:54.720 They a lot of times, like even the dog boy 0:15:54.800 --> 0:15:57.880 would bark. There's another a dog girl that we'll talk 0:15:57.880 --> 0:16:01.880 about later, she would bark. Some would chirp like birds. 0:16:02.360 --> 0:16:05.000 Sometimes they would run on all fours like a dog, 0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:08.360 or clean themselves like a cat, and they would eat 0:16:08.480 --> 0:16:12.200 raw meat. They would sleep on the floor because of 0:16:12.240 --> 0:16:14.880 the way, like you know, going all fours, their bodies 0:16:14.920 --> 0:16:17.400 would actually change in a lot of cases, like their 0:16:17.480 --> 0:16:21.760 knees would become just super tough from running around on 0:16:21.760 --> 0:16:24.440 their knees, or their teeth would become sharp from eating 0:16:25.120 --> 0:16:30.760 bones like an animal. So sometimes they were super fast, 0:16:30.760 --> 0:16:33.520 sometimes they might and a lot of this stuff is anecdotal, 0:16:33.520 --> 0:16:37.600 but you've heard stories about them developing even like keener 0:16:37.640 --> 0:16:42.080 senses of smell that they're animals that they live with have, 0:16:42.240 --> 0:16:44.640 which is amazing. Yeah, there was a kid named Jean 0:16:44.720 --> 0:16:48.400 Delige who is five in Liege, Belgium, which is why 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:51.880 he's called John of Liege. But he and his whole 0:16:51.960 --> 0:16:54.840 village moved to the woods because war was taking place, 0:16:55.320 --> 0:16:58.040 and once the war subsided and they moved back to 0:16:58.120 --> 0:17:01.680 their village, Jean stayed and over time he became like 0:17:01.800 --> 0:17:04.920 a feral child, and he was known to be able 0:17:04.960 --> 0:17:08.760 to root out like truffles and stuff from the bases 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:11.919 of trees just with his nose. Again, it's anecdotal, but 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:17.159 it's a pretty good story. Yeah, And I mean some 0:17:17.200 --> 0:17:20.359 of them could climb trees like an animal, or sleep 0:17:20.400 --> 0:17:22.960 in a tree. Some could run on all fours faster 0:17:23.080 --> 0:17:27.240 than their counterparts could run on two legs. So the 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:30.480 really remarkable stories over time that have been collected. But 0:17:30.600 --> 0:17:33.159 again the problem is this, these are a lot of 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:36.680 these stories, like Jean Deligia's story comes from the sixteen twenties, 0:17:39.920 --> 0:17:42.119 so there are some modern ones, but there's plenty of 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:46.520 ones that came between this the eighteenth century, the seventeenth century, 0:17:46.880 --> 0:17:50.200 and like the nineteenth century or even early twentieth century. 0:17:50.640 --> 0:17:56.119 And the stories are almost invariably so fantastic that they 0:17:56.280 --> 0:18:00.280 defy belief. Yeah right, especially if you're a scientist. Start 0:18:00.280 --> 0:18:02.760 hearing about these things like so, wait, the kid could 0:18:02.800 --> 0:18:07.800 outrun a human, but on all fours. That doesn't make 0:18:07.800 --> 0:18:11.040 any sense. It's just basically not possible. And if there 0:18:11.040 --> 0:18:13.480 were enough people who are eyewitnesses to this and who 0:18:13.520 --> 0:18:17.120 documented it independently, then maybe it would get some credence. 0:18:17.119 --> 0:18:20.240 So there's this whole problem here where feral children the 0:18:20.320 --> 0:18:23.600 stories are so fantastic that science wants to believe it, 0:18:23.680 --> 0:18:25.720 but they don't know what to believe. And it does 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:28.679 turn out that there's actually been plenty of cases of 0:18:28.760 --> 0:18:32.600 fraud over the years where I mean, somebody said, hey, 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:35.760 I think the best way to get famous is to 0:18:36.000 --> 0:18:38.320 make up a feral child story. So I'm going to 0:18:38.400 --> 0:18:42.200 do that. Yeah, and one dude, foresure did that. Mister 0:18:42.359 --> 0:18:47.000 j Al Singh in the nineteen twenties found two young girls, 0:18:47.880 --> 0:18:50.760 a toddler eighteen months old and an eight year old 0:18:51.280 --> 0:18:56.120 in India and claim they were raised by wolves, named 0:18:56.160 --> 0:18:59.800 them Amala and Kamala, and said they prefer raw meat, 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:03.840 walk on all fours, they howl at the moon. I 0:19:03.920 --> 0:19:07.399 can't get them to walk upright or speak, you know, 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:10.000 like a human being would speak. I was about say, 0:19:10.000 --> 0:19:13.080 speak English, but it was India, sure, uh. And they 0:19:13.119 --> 0:19:15.679 had books written about them and it was sort of 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:20.399 a big media sensation until people started poking around and said, well, 0:19:20.440 --> 0:19:22.520 these girls are real, but you know what, they weren't 0:19:22.560 --> 0:19:25.919 raised black wolves at all. They actually had developmental and 0:19:25.920 --> 0:19:30.080 birth defects, and he would eventually admit that, and then 0:19:30.560 --> 0:19:33.080 we start learning that in a lot of these cases, 0:19:33.800 --> 0:19:38.040 although not all, a lot of these cases are kids 0:19:38.040 --> 0:19:44.720 with autism or or other developmental birth defects that they 0:19:44.800 --> 0:19:47.040 just maybe at the time didn't know how to deal 0:19:47.080 --> 0:19:50.199 with or how to categorize, or just would straight up 0:19:50.200 --> 0:19:54.160 lie about. Yeah, there's there's this this line in here 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:59.000 that says that the the investigation into feral children's kind 0:19:59.040 --> 0:20:01.960 of revealed that you could also call feral children's stories 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:07.440 stories of amazing survival of attempted and fanticide. Basically that 0:20:07.440 --> 0:20:11.280 that accounts in some people's minds, and this is not 0:20:11.400 --> 0:20:14.720 a new idea. Going back a couple hundred years, some 0:20:14.760 --> 0:20:16.640 people have said, you know what, I think, I think 0:20:16.680 --> 0:20:19.800 all of the stories of feral children are probably true. 0:20:20.080 --> 0:20:22.359 But they weren't really raised by wolves, or they weren't 0:20:22.400 --> 0:20:25.760 necessarily raised by wolves, or they hadn't adopted wolf like behavior. 0:20:26.160 --> 0:20:30.119 They were kids who had cognitive impairments and intellectual disabilities, 0:20:30.640 --> 0:20:33.480 who had been left to die and friend for themselves 0:20:33.480 --> 0:20:36.080 in the woods by their parents, had grown wild and 0:20:36.119 --> 0:20:39.879 then were Somebody came across them five or ten years 0:20:39.960 --> 0:20:43.320 later and mistook them for a wolf boy or an 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:46.840 ostrich boy or a wolf girl or whatever animal you 0:20:46.880 --> 0:20:50.240 want to call it, or loss opso man. Some people 0:20:50.320 --> 0:20:54.520 think that accounts for basically all stories of all of 0:20:54.560 --> 0:20:58.160 the older stories of feral children. I think that's definitely debatable, 0:20:58.200 --> 0:21:01.639 but that's when one camp. Yeah, here's another case. Misha 0:21:01.680 --> 0:21:07.360 the Wolf Girl nineteen ninety seven, Monique Misha Difonesca. Even 0:21:07.400 --> 0:21:12.119 though she's not Italian, she actually published her memoirs about 0:21:12.160 --> 0:21:17.320 the Holocaust called Misha Colin and memoir of the Holocaust 0:21:17.440 --> 0:21:25.199 years basically you mean her memoirs, that's right, memories. She 0:21:25.320 --> 0:21:30.280 said that Nazis killed her parents in Brussels when she 0:21:30.359 --> 0:21:33.920 was seven. She set off on her own through Europe, 0:21:34.240 --> 0:21:37.159 ended up in the Ukraine, and then a pair of 0:21:37.160 --> 0:21:40.560 wolves brought her in and she lived with them for years. 0:21:41.359 --> 0:21:44.199 Published this story. It was a big sensation, and like 0:21:44.240 --> 0:21:46.920 I said, this was in the nineties. It turns out 0:21:47.000 --> 0:21:51.960 she made it all up, which was I mean disappointing 0:21:52.040 --> 0:21:55.000 in that she could have been a real good case 0:21:55.040 --> 0:21:58.160 study and ended up just lying about it all. Yeah. 0:21:58.160 --> 0:22:01.480 She said that she told the Belgian press that her 0:22:01.600 --> 0:22:03.840 she had made it up, but that her story was 0:22:03.880 --> 0:22:06.760 her way of coping with what had happened to her. 0:22:07.440 --> 0:22:10.120 In reality, like her parents had been killed during World 0:22:10.160 --> 0:22:13.600 War Two, but her grandfather raised her and by all 0:22:13.640 --> 0:22:16.119 accounts he was not a wolf at all, just a 0:22:16.240 --> 0:22:20.440 dude with a beard. Yeah. There was another famous case 0:22:20.560 --> 0:22:24.560 that's not necessarily fraud, but just isn't very well documented. 0:22:24.640 --> 0:22:28.879 A woman named Marina Chapman who supposedly was left in 0:22:28.960 --> 0:22:32.840 the woods after a kidnapping that went bad and was 0:22:32.960 --> 0:22:38.240 raised by monkeys and eventually became a housewife in England 0:22:38.840 --> 0:22:41.520 and published her story with the help of her daughter. 0:22:41.600 --> 0:22:43.879 I think again, in the nineties, the nineties must have 0:22:43.920 --> 0:22:47.280 been super hot for feral children memoirs. I guess that 0:22:47.400 --> 0:22:52.200 was probably some stupid Jerry Springer or something. I'll bet 0:22:52.200 --> 0:22:55.040 it was. The people were you know, it was his influence, 0:22:55.920 --> 0:22:59.200 the Springer influence. Yeah, should we talk about should we 0:22:59.200 --> 0:23:01.200 take a break of talk about Peter the wild Boy first? 0:23:01.520 --> 0:23:04.959 I think Pete deserves his due before the break. All right, 0:23:05.000 --> 0:23:06.760 we'll talk about Peter the Wild Boy. Then this was 0:23:06.800 --> 0:23:09.520 a true one, because there are a few cases which 0:23:09.560 --> 0:23:13.280 are verified. This is the summer of seventeen twenty five 0:23:14.200 --> 0:23:18.480 in the forest of Hertzwold, near Hamil in northern Germany, 0:23:20.040 --> 0:23:22.639 which we know has no bodies of water near it. 0:23:23.320 --> 0:23:27.720 This landlot, he was about twelve years old, walked on 0:23:27.800 --> 0:23:31.880 all fours, fed on grass. He would run up trees. 0:23:32.480 --> 0:23:36.919 He could not speak the language, and then he became 0:23:37.040 --> 0:23:42.120 hereto known as the wild Boy of Hamilon, and achieved 0:23:42.160 --> 0:23:44.359 such fame at the time. After he went to the 0:23:44.400 --> 0:23:47.439 house of Correction for a little while, the king, the 0:23:47.520 --> 0:23:51.399 Duke of Hanover and King of the UK, said, George said, 0:23:51.520 --> 0:23:56.280 you know, bring him to me. Basically, they trot him 0:23:56.320 --> 0:24:00.920 out there like a spectacle, essentially, dress him up in 0:24:00.960 --> 0:24:04.280 a little boy's outfit, sit him down at a table, 0:24:04.720 --> 0:24:07.360 and of course he acts like an animal. And then 0:24:07.440 --> 0:24:10.040 George is like, you know, take him away. He discussed 0:24:10.119 --> 0:24:15.680 me right, so he wasn't like. It wasn't like put 0:24:15.760 --> 0:24:18.280 him back in the woods. Once he was brought to court, 0:24:18.359 --> 0:24:22.880 he was under the King's care, and he was they 0:24:22.920 --> 0:24:25.840 attempted to tutor him. Not only could he not speak German. 0:24:25.880 --> 0:24:29.000 He couldn't he couldn't speak any language. He just basically 0:24:29.000 --> 0:24:34.240 grunted right, But he was basically under the royal largess. 0:24:34.320 --> 0:24:38.200 After that point, they baptized him, they dressed him up, 0:24:38.720 --> 0:24:41.240 they cleaned him up, they tried everything they could to 0:24:41.280 --> 0:24:43.400 teach him. But eventually they were like this, this kid 0:24:43.440 --> 0:24:45.480 can't be taught. We don't know what we're doing. We 0:24:45.520 --> 0:24:48.360 can't get through to him. So let's send him over 0:24:48.400 --> 0:24:51.800 to London. Apparently they'd heard about him in London, because 0:24:52.160 --> 0:24:54.800 I mean, you noticed that the Duke of Hanover in 0:24:54.880 --> 0:24:58.080 Germany was also the same person who was the King 0:24:58.359 --> 0:25:04.880 of the United Kingdom. Didn't that seem odd to you? No? Okay, well, 0:25:04.920 --> 0:25:07.840 at any rate, he had a connection to London. So 0:25:07.960 --> 0:25:10.560