Gef The Talking Mongoose!

Gef the talking Mongoose,
He’s a friend to you and me!

He’s a personable ghost,
Not some menacing fiend.
He talks your ear off,
Yet he can’t be seen!

Straight from New Deli,
To the Isle of Man,
He’s a queer little cryptid,
Doing the best he can!

Gef the talking Mongoose,
He’s a friend to you and me!

People around the island,
Called him the “Dalby Spook!”
One day, Harry Price came to visit,
Yes, that Borley kook!

He gave a few hairs,
To old man Price.
But they turned out,
To be dog hairs with lice!

Gef the talking Mongoose,
He’s a friend to you and me!

Hello, True Believers! I’ve looked on the boards and I’m surprised that there’s not one post on Gef, the talking mongoose. I remember reading about this account way back when I was a kid in a poltergeist book. Since then, it’s always stuck out in my mind as one of the most unusual reports of ghost and poltergeist phenomena.

Gef was not one of those silent malevolent spirits that haunt so many poltergeist cases. He talked a great deal, sang songs, and reported what he saw when he spied on the neighbors. Of course, the only people who heard Gef were the Irvings, the residents of the house Gef haunted.

Like most poltergeist cases, Gef had a “focus” on the Irving’s daughter, Voirrey. The mongoose had seemed to take a liking to her and spent much of his time talking to her. He even let the girl pet his fur. (And bit her in the process!) Voirrey still lives in England, although she refuses to speak more about the case.

Gef left behind some clues to his presence. Here is the famous Gef photograph. I can’t see him. Can you? When Harry Price visited the Irving’s home, Gef left some hairs of his which turned out to be dog hairs. Paw prints provided by the Irvings turned out to unsubstantial.

In 1937, the Irvings moved out of the house. Apparently, so did Gef. But in 1947, the new owner of the Irving’s home shot a mongoose on the property. Thus ends the tale of Gef on a sad note…

Several researchers on the case theorize that Gef was an elaborate prank created by the Irvings. To date there has been no hard evidence to prove that Gef was real, be he a ghost or living animal. And the evidence provided, such as the hairs and paw prints suggest a prank.

Here’s some links to the case. First up is a good overview of Gef’s haunting. Next is Harry Price’s report on Gef.

Last is a BBC item about Rex Lambert, editor of “The Listener.” Lambert filed charges against Sir Cecil Levita when Levita suggested that Lambert was mentally unfit to sit on the board of the recently formed British Film Institute. Levita’s proof of Lambert’s “insanity” was an article published in “The Listener” about “the mongoose case.” What editor in his right mind publishes such an outlandish story in a respectable newspaper? BTW, Lambert won his case.

What do you think, sirs?

[edit on 5/2/2007 by Cowboy Clint]

When I started reading the poem at the start of this thread, I immediately thought this was going to be another El Pollo Diablo kind of thread.

This was an interesting read. Never heard of Gef before. Perhaps this tale was the inspiration for the film Harvey. Good find!

GEF! That brings me back. I think I read the same book as you Cowboy when I was a kid. The book for me was House Of Evil. It had a bunch of short ghostie like stories in the them and scared me to death when I was 9 -10 yrs old.
My favorite was of course Gef because it was more light hearted than the other stories. Until of course Gef would get mad, then he acted like a kid throwing a tantrum.
While I have never heard anything else beyond the story I read I have never forgotten it.

Thanks for taking me back...

Hey Dday! Did your book have a purplish cover with a picture of a sheet and some chains floating on the cover? And was the Gef story located in the back? If so, then we must have read the same book!

I agree that the case of Gef is pretty much a closed book with little evidence for or against. The best we can hope for is some sort of deathbed confession by the daughter, Voirrey.

Still, it's a cute little ghost case. I like telling it to the kids in my classes to get them intrested in the paranormal.

That's really kind of creepy if you really think about it.

From the 2 links that were posted I gather that Gef was corporeal. The father never saw it close, but the mother and daughter did regularly. Also, it moved around the house inside the walls and had little hidey holes it could retreat to, and peep holes to see through. Is this really a ghost? Or a cryptid?

Creepy that there was a strange creature living with the family. Creepy that it could get kind of mean (mean enough that the daughter had to move into the parents room for a while), and was kind of bipolar.

Kind of sad that it was gunned down by the next owner of the house... Why didn't it move with the family? It wasn't bound to the spot, it had traveled the world before settling down there and made regular trips around the area.

Kind of sounds like a meaner Kiki (anyone here read Sluggy Freelance?).