Orang-bati

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 was stunned when 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.

See also

• Ropen, a Pterosaur-like beast reported from Papua New Guinea
• Kongamato, another Pterosaur-like beast reported from Zambia
• Ahool, like a Orang-Bati, reported from the Indonesian island of Java.

There are no records of Dutch misionaries from those parts of Seram at that time for the simple reason that the complete population of western Seram was wiped out by the Dutch for illegal glove-growing in the seventeenth century and missionaries went there much later. The village of Uraur is not that old. They are immigrants and isolated without much contact with the other regions. The claim that the coastal inhabitants of Seram are fearfull of this animal as is stated in Shukers book is simply not true: they know nothing of it. The Orang Bati they fear are a tribe with that name in eastern Seram who claim to be able to fly and the story goes they abduct children. The French adventurer Jean Raymond visited and fotographed them in 2005 attracted by the stories of the orang bati. These fotographs are published in his book Les Molucques (2007). Needless to say they could not fly and did not abduct children; this was a myth they spread to protect themselves by means of fear. In the only source there exists of the myth around this animal - the book of Karl Shuker - Tyson Hughes does not claim to have encountered one.So he was not stunned by the sight of it.

In her book,,Shirley Deane, who taught English at Ambon University tells about her encounter wirh an Orang Bati; a normal human being, who does not confirm he can fly. 

According to the chief of police who is present at the meeting, he could not do that because he had to kill a human being in the inauguration and could hardly confess to a murder in his presence

The chief of police also confirmed that the villages of the Orang Bati are invisible. 

As there are pictures of the villages and the people maybe you should not always believe what people say.

References

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Further reading

• Newton, Michael (2005). "Orang-Bati". Encyclopedia of Cryptozoology: A Global Guide. McFarland & Company, Inc.. pp. 354. ISBN 0-7864-2036-7. 

External links

• Orang-bati at American Monsters
• Orang-bati at the Cryptid Zoo