Orang bati

Updated on Jan 11, 2024

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The orang-bati is a winged cryptid rumored to inhabit the Indonesian island of Seram. According to local folklore, the bat-like or somewhat monkey-like creatures abduct children and carry them away to be eaten. Other accounts sound more like encounters with living Pterosaurs.

It is said that islanders of Seram were faced with this creature when it raided villages to abduct infants and children to its home in Mount Kairatu.

Encounters

Missionary Tyson Hughes, an English man who became a believer in Orang-Batis was originally skeptical about "Orangutans with wings", but later claimed he actually encountered one.

Missionaries on Seram as long ago as the 15th century were told about the beast and how it raided the town of Uraur.

In the episode "Winged Assassin" of the Nat Geo Wild documentary series Man v. Monster, presenter Richard Terry goes to the Seram to check out the villagers' legends of orang-bati haunting their jungles. The locals claimed that the orang-bati could carry off a baby human being and people who came into contact with the creature would die. The creature turned out to be a large flying fox (Pteropus vampyrus), the largest species of bat inhabiting the Indonesian archipelago. While it is not big enough to carry off a baby, the flying fox is a carrier of the deadly Henipavirus, which could potentially kill a human being and can be transmitted via contact with the flying fox's saliva. This likely accounts for the villagers' stories of how human beings who come into contact with the flying fox will die.

References

Orang-bati Wikipedia

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