Amid a troop of monkeys in the Katraniaghat forest range in northern India roamed a naked human girl, playing with the primates as if she were one of them. She looked emaciated, her hair disheveled. But she appeared to be in a comfortable state, until the police arrived.

A group of woodcutters had alerted authorities after spotting the girl, believed to be 10 to 12 years old. When police approached her, the monkeys surrounded the girl, protecting her as one of their own, and attacking an officer as the girl screeched at him, the New Indian Express reported this week. After rescuing the girl, the officer sped away in his patrol car, the monkeys chasing him.

She was soon admitted to a state-run hospital in Bahraich, a city in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, where she has remained for the past two months. Doctors believe the girl had been raised by monkeys for quite some time, and her story has so far mystified authorities, sending them searching through reports of missing children in an attempt to identify her, according to the Associated Press.

 

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