Gef the Talking Mongoose

Gef the Talking Mongoose was reportedly a small, invisible-to-most, weasel-like animal that spoke in a high voice and claimed to live inside the walls of the Irving family farmhouse at Cannan's Ground near Dalby, Isle of Man, starting in September 1931. James Irving, his wife, and daughter Voirrey described Gef as an "extra, extra clever mongoose" born in India in 1852, who sang, gossiped about neighbors, and occasionally killed rabbits he claimed to leave as gifts on the doorstep. Paranormal investigator Harry Price visited the farm in 1935 and 1936, documenting paw prints and hair samples that a laboratory later identified as likely from the family dog, and published a book on the case with co-author R.S. Lambert. Voirrey Irving maintained until her death in 2005 that Gef was real, telling one interviewer, "He was a real person to me, whatever people say now." Psychologists studying the case since have suggested a shared family delusion or an elaborate, sustained hoax by young Voirrey to entertain herself in an isolated farmhouse, since no independent witness ever conclusively saw the creature.