Our planet has many amazing animal stories, like why the world's strangest-looking creature doesn't get cancer, how some bizarre creatures look like real Frankenstein projects, and even the existence of species that can turn into real zombies. As far-fetched as some of these seem, they are authentic.
What about animals that can talk as well as or better than humans? After all, we've all heard that parrots can speak, and we may have even heard one talk in person, even if they can't technically talk like we can. But have you ever heard of a talking mongoose?
Gef, the talking mongoose, supposedly lived on the Isle of Man. He has never been proven to exist, but as incredulous as it sounds, he's never been proven a hoax. Let's gather what we know about Gef, the talking mongoose, and you can decide whether he was real or if it was like one of those incredible discoveries that turned out to be a hoax.
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The Irving Family Told Stories Of A Talking Mongoose
Gef supposedly lived inside the walls of their farmhouse
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The Irving family, James T. Irving, his wife, and their 13-year-old daughter Voirrey, lived in a farmhouse on the Isle of Man, an island located in the North Irish Sea between England, Scotland, and Wales to the east and Ireland and Northern Ireland to the west.
One day in the mid-1900s, they discovered an Indian mongoose living in the walls of their home. The mongoose was said to be barking, growling, spitting, and keeping the family up at night. James Irving tried to capture the mongoose through various means but was unsuccessful. So they decided to live with it.
They began to make sounds back to the mongoose, which he supposedly repeated, and the Irvings' daughter, Voirrey, taught the mongoose nursery rhymes, which he also repeated, and that's when they discovered that the mongoose could talk.
The mongoose told the Irvings that his name was Gef, and he was 83 years old. He spoke English and several other languages, including Russian, Welsh, Arabic, and Italian. Gef could sing, dance, and knew arithmetic.
He told the Irvings all kinds of crazy things and was determined by the Irvings to be pretty intelligent. Talk about incredible (no pun intended)!
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Word Began To Spread About Gef
Reporters and other people began showing up at the Irving house
Gef the talking mongoose
As the Irving family began to spread the word that they had a talking mongoose living in their home, these stories eventually reached the British press and other people, such as ghost hunters and psychologists. Gef became locally known as the "Dalby Spook," and the Irvings soon received lots of visitors to their farm who all tried to prove the existence (or non-existence) of Gef.
One of the first visitors to the Irving home was Harry Price, a psychic and paranormal investigator, and author of the book Confessions of a Ghost Hunter. He visited in 1935 at the invitation of Mr. Irving.
Paranormal investigator Harry Price
Mr. Price was a bit skeptical of Gef's existence, or at the very least the fact that he could talk, but decided to accept the invitation because he thought there was a small chance that it was possible:
I argued to myself that there might be something in it. After all, talking animals are fairly common -- in print. The pages of A Thousand and One Nights, Aesop's Fables, Sir J. G. Frazer's The Golden Bough, and scores of books on mythology are full of talking beasts who are human in everything but shape.
Richard S. Lambert
Mr. Price invited Richard S. Lambert, a physical researcher and editor for The Listener, a weekly BBC magazine. Unlike Mr. Price, Mr. Lambert thought the whole thing was a hoax from the beginning but went along with Mr. Price so he could write about this mysterious talking mongoose.
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Gef Never Showed During The Visit
In front of visitors, Gef never showed himself, and the story created further doubt
When Mr. Price and Mr. Lambert showed up at the Irvings' farmhouse, Gef was nowhere to be seen or heard. Mr. Irving suggested that Gef was hiding somewhere, listening to the two men, so Mr. Price tried to coax Gef into talking, or at least try to prove that there was a mongoose living in the walls of the Irving home.
His efforts were fruitless, as Gef never made a peep. The only thing the two men got out of their visit were stories about Gef and his antics, so at this point, even Mr. Price was considering that Gef might be a hoax, although he couldn't figure out why the Irvings would make up such a tall tale.
The men eventually left the Irvings' home, and Gef supposedly returned not long after, saying that he decided not to make himself known because Mr. Lambert doubted that he was real.
According to Robert Graves and Alan Hodge, who wrote a book called The Long Week-end: A Social History of Great Britain, Mr. Price and Mr. Lambert later wrote about their experience. Graves and Hodges suggest that:
a deliberately created family legend might have taken such hold that the family itself had come to believe in it.
So, Was Gef Real Or Not?
Further clues suggest Gef might have been a hoax, but the existence of an actual mongoose was never ruled out
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However, Mr. Price and Mr. Lambert were no longer convinced that a talking mongoose existed. They didn't exactly rule it out, either. However, they suspected that the Irvings' daughter, Voirrey, did have something to do with the whole story.
Voirrey was said to have excellent ventriloquist skills and could have been throwing her voice to make it seem like a mongoose was talking through the walls. After all, teenagers have always loved pulling pranks.
But, Mr. Irving also claimed they had heard Gef speaking while Voirrey was under supervision and when she wasn't around. Poltergeist activity was also suggested, with Voirrey as the medium. Other theories suggest that the entire Irving family was responsible for creating the ruse and keeping it up for several years just to seek attention.
It's also entirely possible that the Irvings did have an actual mongoose living in their home, just maybe not one that talked. After all, mongooses are one of the creatures that ancient civilizations kept as pets, and they are still invited into homes today to help control rodents and other pests.
Mongooses are also known for being intelligent, and a study has shown that Mongooses can imitate behaviors. So, it might be true that Gef could have been imitating some of the Irvings' sounds. However, this all raises the question of how an Indian mongoose got to the Isle of Man in the first place.
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Regardless, the story of Gef, the talking mongoose, still fascinates and entertains people today. There has even been a movie based on this tale, which you can check out the trailer for below.
We'll never know the truth about Gef the talking mongoose since it happened so long ago. But, we can decide whether he was real based on the information presented here and by watching the movie. Crazier things have happened, after all.