“Monkey-Headed Baby” or Not?
Posted by: Loren Coleman on April 9th, 2007
Monkey x human offspring do not exist from Homo sapiens females. What you are about to read may make you upset, and if you view the video referenced, you may become sick. What are humans thinking to make such things into news? Not surprisingly, as shown above, people have made babies with defects into “monsters” for hundreds of years. The only difference now, it’s on YouTube.
Some things being uploaded onto the internet – technically being reposted because they are on the broadcast news – are so unfortunate that I wish I could expunge them from my memory. I hope this is one, which I can discover is a hoax, and then can move on from the images.
Babies born with defects are often misunderstood and abused. A news organization’s promotion of something so sad and terrible is to be condemned, if real.
With the arrival of YouTube to alert us to the gross nature of international “entertainment news” of poor taste, it has come to my attention that there is a new video that is either showing a stillborn infant with defects, or someone’s sick idea of a gaff. What it appears to be is a fake carcass of a dead baby with elements attached so disturbing that the gaff is being labeled as a “monkey-headed baby.
People have tried to imagine infants with birth disabilities and abnormalities into fantasy animals, fairies, and monsters before, as you can read here.
How old and widespread is this practice?
Could past “monsters,” for example, the Mayan monsters in such carvings as shown directly above, merely be medically abnormal stillborn infants?
Posted below, you may view the YouTube video that is so upsetting, and makes claims for the “dead baby” shown being a “monkey-headed baby.” I hope it is a fake but I post it here, not for shock effect, but to see if there is a doctor reading this who knows if this is a possible real condition or only a prankish hoax? If she will comment on this clip, I would appreciate it.
I would suggest that if you feel you will be offended by this research effort, please do not view the clip from an apparent Turkish (?) reality-based entertainment news program.
Thanks to Boing Boing’s David Pescovitz and Mark Frauenfelder for bringing this sad situation to my attention to be explored and exposed, to discover what is behind it.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
From the neck down it just doesn’t look right for a new born human. Altered primate baby?
Regards
That’s an actual condition. It’s a baby born without a skull of any kind. No bone structure whatsoever. I saw a newscast a couple of years ago about a little girl with this condition. She was alive and about 3 years old. Looked exactly the same. Very sad.
Stalin is reported to have experimented with Ape-Men. The Nazis also wanted to develop an Ape-Man Hybrid.
It’s hard to be offended anymore. The video was interesting, for sure.
Bob Michaels,
I posted the story about Stalin’s plan here on Cryptomundo at: Stalin Planned Army of Human/Ape Hybrids.
This is a real condition. It’s called anencephaly. It occurs more frequently than you would think, probably–I’ve read that there are a couple of thousand cases in the U.S. alone each year.
I’m not a doctor, but I’ve played one on TV, and this is classic anencephaly. As for the presentation, Loren, my Turkish isn’t up to the task, but I didn’t get the sense that the producers or the people involved really knew what they were dealing with… any readers out there with enough fluency in Turkish to have got a take on this?
I do have a Turkish contact I could ask, but I’m afraid she might be repulsed…
Just my two cents.
one word…WEIRD.
Google Harlequin Ichthyosis.
I’ve seen this video at least three times in the past few months and what I’ve learned is that the fetus in this video has a condition called Anencephaly. (which has already been mentioned by elsanto, Jason P., and parkus) In must cases when the fetus is born alive they don’t last very long and most are euthanized. I saw a video a few years back that was supposed to show a half-alien and half-human baby, I think it was from India. But, I’m not sure. I feel sorry for any family that has to go through that.
If I saw the same video, BugMO, then the child you are thinking of is a Harlequin baby. Guitartist mentions it right above your post. Different condition, but just as tragic. They are both birth defects, like being born without arms or being born blind.
In many cultures, people are very superstitious and are more apt to believe in aliens, ghosts et al. The difference in these cultures and ours (speaking of PacNorWest specifically, but others included) is, if a baby is born here with no arms and no legs, we don’t believe that it’s father was a snake.
Of course, if the baby is born and the father runs off with his mistress, than yes. The father is a reptile…. But the baby is still human.
Yes, anencephaly is a real condition. I feel so bad for the family of that little baby. It should not have been made into a freak show for YouTube. Imagine the horror and heartbreak for the family! Not to mention that in many parts of the world, people are superstitious and, not understanding that this is a birth defect, they ostracize the mother or even the entire family of the deformed infant.
I am both saddened and repulsed that people would see this as entertainment.
I didn’t feel the need to view the video and can only say that it is a heartbreaking situation.
Ditto; this is an anencephalic infant (born with only a brainstem and missing most of the skull). Children born with this condition rarely survive more than a few days.
Having just had a baby recently (my daughter is 7 months old), I was pretty repulsed by this video. I can see the merit of making people aware of the horror of this condition, but splashing it across youtube so that some idiots can get there kicks is not only repugnant to me, but indicative of the growing trend of the internet as a place to showcase horrific clips like this. I recently saw a clip in Japan of a person who was choking ferrets (the animal) and posting the clips as entertainment. Seriously, I do not know what is creepier to me, the fact that these clips get put up for all to see, or the fact that there is an audience that wishes to view them. If anyone found this clips to be amusing in any way, then you are not someone I wish to ever know. Period.
Seems to be a variation on anencephaly, not harlequin, though in anencephaly normally there is a recognizable face with jaw, mouth, and nose.
I have removed the YouTube video from this blog, added briefly after I posted my blog. There is no need for it to be here, and if you must, you can find it at the link.
As I mentioned above, “People have tried to imagine infants with birth disabilities and abnormalities into fantasy animals, fairies, and monsters before.” This broadcast is merely the latest, gross example, which has morphed this sad situation into some kind of entertainment for television viewers. Why humans feel the need to associate this anencephaly event with “monkeys” is unfortunate.
I began this quest to come up with an answer, to separate this from any illusion that this has anything to do with cryptozoology. I feel that goal has been achieved.
Well, everyone seems to have pegged anencephaly pretty quickly, so no need to add my 2 cents on that, but i’d just like to say- good use of the “monster of Ravenna”, one of my favourites. She was a teratological child born in Ravenna, Italy, and gained widespread celebrity at the time, for her birth was said to be an omen, and was used as a political tool (Against the pope, I think). Such misfortunate births have been exploited for a very long time…
this is an old post i know but being turkish i can safely tell you all its not a fake, this baby was born around the Hatay province of turkey, it lived for one hour before it died. The mother a 21 year old went into labor in the 7th month of her pregnancy and gave birth to this baby.
A professor in the clip says the arms look almost chimpanzee/ape like where they are slightly longer than the legs which is thier characteristic. he attreibutes it to a possible genetic defect from human ancestors.
Also they’re saying that the mouth wasnt fully fornmed yet. the baby died almost as soon as the umbilical cord was cut. Also at the end they refer to another family with a different genetic disorder in the same area where the baby was born, this other family walks on all 4’s and cannot walk upright and have had a documentary filmed about them. I believe channel 9 australias A Current Affair programme helped that family to walk upright by providing them treatment.