One morning in the early 1930s, James Irving of the village of Dalby on the Isle of Man was getting ready to open his daily newspaper when a high-pitched disembodied voice called out impatiently, “Read it out, you fat-headed gnome!” The voice didn’t belong to Irving’s wife Margaret or his teenage daughter Voirrey—the only humans likely to be in the remote farmhouse—but though Irving may have been offended, he wasn’t surprised. He knew the voice belonged to a strange creature called Gef, who, for some time, had been living, largely unseen, in his family’s home.
The mysterious creature first showed up in the Irving residence sometime in 1931, and, according to the accounts of James, Margaret, and Voirrey, initially lived in the walls and, not yet able to speak, imitated a range of animal noises. Quickly, the unseen entity started to pick up human language from the Irvings, and, before long, introduced itself to the family: His name, he said, was “Gef” (pronounced “Jeff”), and he was a mongoose from India.
Over the course of the 1930s, Gef The Talking Mongoose became something of a media phenomenon. He appeared in numerous tabloid newspaper stories, and was investigated by paranormal researchers.
Source: Mental Floss
Source: Mental Floss
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