It was in Mumbay/India, March 1991. I had to stay overnight to get my flight back to Europe the next day. The cheap hotel was not a place to hang out so I decided to go for a walk. I got to a beach and proceeded heading north along the promenade of the Mahim Bay. It was a sunday and probably an Indian holiday because many people were strolling around and were enjoying themselves. Eventually I got to a playground next to an amusement park and there on the boardwalk I saw something I will never forget.

Since this is 22 years ago and I had not taken any pictures, I can't recall too many details but what suddenly struck my eye back then almost shocked me - like a sudden encounter with extraterrestrials might have. There was a middle aged woman who had three beings with her that I could not make any sense of. She had put up a board there with Sanskrit writing and she also had written quite a bit on the pavement with crayon which of course I could not read. I think the writing explained what these beings were and where they came from. She also talked to the bystanders when she interacted with these beings, three small and very dark skinned beings. Sometimes she would hold one in her arms, talk to them or feed fruits to them.

I could not determine if these were humans or apes but I have never seen any apes like these! They wore little vests each with a different color and some golden embroidery and some shorts so you could see that they were very hairy, rather short hair and short also on the head. They may have been a bit larger than one meter and had roundish heads with more human looking facial features than apes. They had no facial hair and they had no negroid features, their skin was just very dark which is also common in India for the people living closer to the equator. I remember their ears were roundish too. I don't remember what their feet looked like because that would have been a very distinguishing feature but they were certainly not like feet of apes because that would have solved the mystery for me already then. Their arms and legs just did not look really ape-like and I could not see a tail. I don't remember if they uttered any sounds but they made no loud noises at all, they were friendly with the woman who took care of them. They must have been males since I don't remember seeing breasts.

Today I am convinced that I saw living specimen of kryptid primates, the Homo floresiensis, called 'Hobbit' by us and Ebu Gogo by the locals of Flores. Another possibility is that I might have seen the Orang Pendek from the neighboring Sumatra island which is an island in the western Indonesia. But Orang Pendek's hair color is described as more reddish but both are in the class of kryptid primates and seem to be related.

Flores is an island extending east from the Java island of Indonesia. Fossils and the remains of tools show that the Indonesian archipelago was inhabited by Homo erectus, popularly known as the "Java Man", between 1.5 million years ago and as recently as 35,000 years ago. Homo sapiens reached the region by around 45,000 years ago.

According to the anthropologists, Homo floresiensis, whose remains were discovered 2003 on the island of Flores, lived as recently as 13,000 years ago but that is only a conclusion because they have not found any newer evidence (yet). According to the local population Ebu Gogo was seen last about a hundred and seventy years ago.

After the discovery of the remains of Homo floresiensis, the anthropologists listened to the accounts of the villagers of Flores who said that the last living Ebu Gogo was seen just before the village moved location, farther from the volcano, not long before the Dutch colonists settled in that part of central Flores in the mid 19th century. It is evident that they haven't seen the Ebu Gogo anymore because THEY moved away, not because the Ebu Gogo disappeared!

Homo floresiensis has the greatest similarity with the Homo habilis which lived from approximately 2.33 to 1.4 million years ago and Australopithecus afarensis (Lucy) that lived between 3.9 and 2.9 million years ago. That means that Homo floresiensis is not our predecessor but are survivors of some of the original inhabitants of Earth from before we came here 300,000 years ago with the Moon and they must have survived six extinctions since then and very likely some more in their very ancient history but that is another story.

I believe that what I saw in 1991 in Mumbay were some of the last Ebu Gogo who survived under the care of humans. In India cripples and freaks are commonly used by their owners to make money with, either as beggars or as show pieces and to own an Ebu Gogo is certainly something very special.

I am speculating that a family clan in India was or is still breeding Ebu Gogos as show pieces and I would also speculate that by now some agency has gotten hold of these kryptid primates and has taken them away from that woman and that you won't find the Ebu Gogo displayed publicly anymore … but who knows - it is a fact that today many anomalous artifacts are seized and hidden from us and I am sure that a living Homo floresiensis can not remain unnoticed forever.

Hannes Shunyananda Erler