Evening star., 1941-04-15
Scientists Discredit
Story Of Two Waits
Reared by a Wolf
OrientoI Society Rejects
Authenticated Report
Received From India
., . Staff Correspondent of The Star

- Staff Correspondent of The Star
CHICAGO, April Is - Out of
Northern India a few years ago
came an apparently authenticated
story of ghost children'-tWow waits
with "onion-colored" skins and eyes
that cleaned blue in the dark, who
lived in VOLTS den dug out of an
anthill.
They had been, it was reported,
sucked by wolf. They were and
9 years old, respectively. They had
no speech. They had long, wolflike
canine teeth, had greatly enlarged
joints and ran on all fours. They
played with wolf cubs
There have been wolf children"
stories ever since Romulus and
Remus especially out of India, and
scientists are Sceptical of all of them.
This one, however, was Vouched for
by Bishop Singh, native Methodist
cleric of excellent reputation, who
actually rescued the children and
placed them in an orphanage, where
they gradually regained their human
character.
Strong Evidence Adduced.
Bishop Singh communicated with
various scientific institutions in the
United States and the evidence he
sdduced was SO strong that there
would be no doubt there was sub
stantial basis to the story.
But he was mistaken. This was
the conclusion presented before the
American Oriental Society meeting
here today. Probably two Hindu
children ran away from home and
found shelter in a dugout in an ant
hill.
The story is significant. it was re-
ported to the society by DR.. D. J.
Mandrelbaum of the University of
Minnesota, as evidence of how such
apparently incontrovertible eye
witness evidence can be so mistaken
Bishop Singh has co-operated
with American anthropologists, it
was learned. in answering eXhaus-
tive questionaires on the condition of
the children and the circumstances
of their discovery. The chief fea-
ture was the "eyes" that cleaned
with blue light in the dark"
This was what originally scared
the natives, who were resorting to
all sorts of incantations to keep the
ghosts" away from their homes.
It also was the point upon which
the bishop was least certain.
Eminent Psychologists Consulted.
Eminent psychologists have been
consulted and the result, it was
brought out at the meeting, is that
human eyes cannot emit blue light,
or any light at all except under very
rare pathological conditions. The
apparent green light from cats
ewes in the dark is due to reflection
from layer of the eye known as the
'tapetum." No human being pos
seSses this organ.
If it was present, human eyes
might have yellow gleam IN par
tial darkness. All the wolf f-suckling
In the world, it was stressed, could
not possibly produce a tapetum for
child's eyes.
The children had lived all their
lives on wolf milk, according to the
reports. Now, it was stressed, the
udder of a female wolf contains milk
only long enough to wean her own
brood and the children must have
gone without any nourishment at all
for months at a time Besides they
would have developed teeth, and it
Is impossible to imagine, authorities
have concluded, that mother wolf
would continue to nurse founding
who could bite her.
A final hit of evidence was that
wolves do not make denS in ant hills.
The general opinion was that the
whole story was one of the most re-
markable unconscious mlSrepre-
sentations in literature.