People who lived in antiquity believed that the possibility of the existence of half-humans, half-animals was fully proven. An example of this are the legends of the centaurs that have survived to this day. A little later, during the Renaissance, it was believed that all unfortunate people with a flawed appearance are the descendants of man and beast.
There is even indirect documentary evidence that a hybrid was born from a woman and a primate. Peter Damiani, who lived in the 11th century, a famous scientist of that time, left a note in his diary that the wife of a certain Count Gulilmus got herself a monkey lover and gave birth to a child from him. The fate of her husband is tragic: he was strangled by that very monkey. But there is no more mention of the baby being born.
When Charles Darwin created the theory that man is a descendant of monkeys, a natural question arose: was there an intermediate link in this chain? Have creatures of both kinds lived on the planet? When looking for an answer to this question, researchers often turned to ancient legends. But it turns out that even today it has been possible to find an individual that looks like both a man and a monkey at the same time.
Oliver: a legend revived
In the 1970s, a primate was caught in the impenetrable forests of the Congo, which was sold to the Barger family, who trained wild animals and then transferred them to the circus. The chimpanzee was named Oliver. Its distinguishing feature was the behavior inherent in humans rather than animals. For example, he could easily buy soda from a special machine or flush the water behind him in the toilet. Most of all, he loved to copy the behavior of the head of the family, Mr. Barger, even learned to make himself the same cocktails.
Chimpanzees, among other things, had their own pet - a dog, which took him for a human. And it's not just that - the smell coming from Oliver had nothing to do with the aromas inherent in monkeys.
External differences were also striking. There was little hair on the body, especially on the chest and head, and the ears were identical to human ears. Light eyes and a massive jaw completed this picture. This is how a creature should look like, which was in the middle of the evolutionary path from ape to a man.
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It is not surprising that the scientific world became interested in him. Geneticists working at the University of Chicago conducted a number of studies, including taking Oliver's blood for DNA analysis. His result showed that the DNA of this individual contains 47 chromosomes, while humans have 46, and the monkey has 48. This suggested that a particular individual could really be a fetus conceived by a resident of a tribe, still preserved on the territory of the African continent from a male chimpanzee. Of course, one cannot exclude the option with a mutation that occurred as a result of the negative impact of humans on the environment.
But Oliver did not amuse the Barger family for long. Having reached puberty, he chose the mistress of the house as the object of his desires. His attention became so intrusive that it was decided to get rid of the stagnant primate. He was sent to Pennsylvania to a research lab. Very soon his interest in the beautiful representatives of the human race dried up, and he got himself several wives from the monkey tribe.
The results of those very studies conducted in Chicago have not survived. Otherwise, one could say that after a long period of time, the monkeys again entered the evolutionary path, and the human race will soon be replenished with new representatives. But the lack of evidence leads scientists to question Oliver's origins.
But it is reliably known that people went further and decided to challenge nature itself.
Secret experiments of the USSR
At the beginning of the 20th century in the Soviet Union, the scientist I. I. Ivanov. He specialized in the insemination of animals, his research mainly focused on horses. But in 1924, while in the capital of France, the researcher put forward a truly amazing project. He proposed to create a hybrid of a man and a monkey.
Having received permission to conduct experiments and waiting for the transfer of the amount of money allocated for the experiments, the researcher goes to the city of Kindia, Guinea, and then to Conakry - a place where many representatives of monkeys live, and also tribes whose development has stopped at a primitive level. For the first time in human history, animals are inseminated using human biomaterial.
But the scientist suffers his first setback. None of the female chimpanzees became pregnant. Ivanov makes a new attempt: he makes the assumption that the fertilization of human women by monkeys should lead to a positive result. But the authorities could not agree to this.
After 3 years, in Sukhumi, the scientist is still trying to verify his assumption. But Soviet officials do not allow willfulness - Ivanov is arrested on suspicion of political treason. And nothing more is known about the researcher.
The Soviet Union was not the only country in which they tried to conduct experiments so shocking to modern people. During the Second World War, Joseph Mengele, known as the "Angel of Death of Auschwitz", conducted experiments on the fertilization of captured women. It is reliably known that already pregnant prisoners, he showed photographs of various types of monkeys and said that they depicted the fathers of their future children. But no evidence of this, including any documentary sources, was found. Modern researchers are inclined to believe that this is another technique that was used for the psychological torture of prisoners.
But, despite the fact that no signs of the existence of ape-like people have been found, many believe that if they do not live in our days, then they definitely lived when humanity was just beginning its path along the evolutionary ladder. Arguing their beliefs, they refer to ancient Indian legends, which describe the race of monkeys who once lived people - the Vanars.