On the Malaysian island of Borneo and the nearby Malacca peninsula, according to local legends, there is a people who do not belong to our world.
These people are called by different names: Hidden People, People of Light or Whistling People. In the local language they are called Orang Bunian, which translates as "People who make sounds."
Indeed, practically no one saw these creatures with their own eyes, but many heard frightening whistles, screams or singing that were heard in the jungle. And the locals are well versed in animals and birds and they know what sounds are emitted by certain living creatures. But none of them can still identify these strange screams.
Whistling people are frequent heroes of local fairy tales, and those who saw them describe them as ghostly pale and thin creatures, similar to people. Moreover, they are very beautiful, their lips do not have a groove, and their ears are pointed. They dress in traditional local clothing, but in all other respects they are remarkably similar in descriptions to elves from Western folklore.
Whistling people in legends are often endowed with supernatural powers such as teleportation, flight, mind reading. They can also become invisible to everyone, and they also have something like spiritual vision.
They live in trees in the deepest jungle high in the mountains, sleep in hanging hammocks, and move from tree to tree using ropes and rope ladders. They have a very developed class society with kings and queens, princes, princesses and so on, and at the very bottom are peasants. That is, everything is like people.
Moreover, according to them, they do not belong to the human world, but live in the etheric space between our dimension and another. They are indifferent to human affairs, but can be very hostile if someone invades their territory. And if people do come to the mountains, they must perform a special ritual and leave offerings so as not to anger Orang Bunian.
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If pissed off or deprived of gifts, they can kidnap people. If someone goes missing in the village and cannot be found, then they say that he was kidnapped by the Whistling People.
On the other hand, they often help people find lost relatives or children, and they can themselves fall in love with people and even have sex with them. Children can even be born from this connection, and they will have the gift of invisibility.
Sometimes they can help in the search for treasures, but if the treasure seeker decides to brazenly steal the treasure, he will be in trouble. Whistling people can take revenge in such a way that the attacker will go mad with pain.
Of course, for the most part it is just folklore. However, among the local residents there are those who have encountered these strange creatures in our time.
Hungzai.com posted a story from a grandson whose grandfather dated the Whistling People in the 1970s. In those years, he bought himself a small farm south of Lake Toba on the neighboring island of Sumatra. And after that, strange phenomena began.
Unusual drumming sounds were often heard near the jungle farm. This happened every Wednesday and he had the feeling that some big celebration was taking place near his house.
In another story, an eyewitness said that when he was a child, he disappeared right from his room. His parents couldn't find him.
A few years ago, at Gunung Tebu in Terengganu, Malaysia, a 15-year-old teenager, Mohammad Khairi Abdul Ghani, went missing while hiking. For five days they searched for him by all means, including with service dogs and with the help of search helicopters, but could not find him in any way.
But after a couple of days, the boy suddenly appeared out of nowhere and said that he was always there and saw how they were looking for him and shouted back, but as if no one saw or heard him. Local residents immediately began to say that he was kidnapped by Orang Bunian.
In 1979, a 28-year-old farmer, Azmi Ahmad, suddenly went missing. It happened in the city of Sungai Petani. One evening he told his wife that he would go for a swim in the river, but did not come back. When his wife and neighbors went looking for him, they found only his neatly folded clothes on the shore.
It was decided that the man had drowned and then local shamans were brought in to search for his body. They sang and recited prayers, but this did not bring any effect.
But the next day, Azmi Ahmad was unexpectedly found alive, but in an incomprehensible state. He was half asleep and told the story of how he was taken to his magical hill Orang Bunian.
When the farmer got a little better, he became almost obsessed with finding this enchanting place again. Only the pleas of his family stopped him from escaping into the jungle in search of Magic Hill.
There are stories that Orang Bunian lure people to them with their unusual singing and music. A certain traveler Silan Govindana went to the Malaysian state of Selangor and on the way he heard a tempting melody among the dense trees
Another traveler and journalist A. R. Amiruddin climbed the 2-kilometer mountain Ganung Yong Belar in the Cameron Highlands in Pahang and also came close to falling under the spell of invisible creatures.
It's amazing how these stories closely resemble European stories about fairies and elves. From similar looks to kidnapping and mysterious circles. Either there is a borrowing of folklore traditions, or, more likely, they are the same creatures.