The Mysterious Goonch Catfish

The monstrous Goonch Catfish was rumored to be over six feet long, weigh over 200lbs and have the ability to swallow a full-grown man whole. That was until 2007, when a biologist named Jeremy Wade finally caught one with the help of an entire village when he was investigating the related disappearances of three different men. But was the Goonch Catfish responsible for the disappearances of these men?

In-between 1999 and 2007, three separate people were reportedly pulled under the water while swimming and having disappeared without a trace off the banks of the Kali River located in India. One search party, established by an entire village near 50 people who were accustomed to the local jungle, searched for five days without being able to find any remains of the man who disappeared. No clothes, no bones, no skin or teeth were even found.

The assumption was that the man was swallowed whole. No remains either meant that a crocodile had eaten the men whole or had chewed their bodies into small enough remains that they could not be found. However, the local freshwater crocodiles were too small to complete such a feat and saltwater crocodiles were not known to travel far enough inland. Therefore, it was most likely a fish, a Goonch Catfish.

When Jeremy Wade began studying the waters looking for the causes of the men's disappearances, he had found nothing. But when he began to study the waters with sonar imaging where a water buffalo had reportedly been pulled underwater and disappeared wtihout a trace similar to the men, he found a three-foot-long Goonch Catfish. He was unable to capture it, however.

A few weeks later, however, he captured a six-foot long monster of a Goonch Catfish almost by chance. When a floating funeral pyre had been set ablaze and was floating down the river, the village people found that a the fish had been attracted to the corpse's charred flesh. The men and the researcher managed to capture the catfish, which was six-feet long and weighed close to 170lbs. It was, and still is, the largest Goonch Catfish ever caught to date.

Wade theorized the Goonch Catfish was originally a bottom-feeding fish which was attracted to the burning flesh of the funeral pyre in the river. It acquired a taste for humans and bigger animals, like the water buffalo, and began to feed that way.

To date, there have been no more reported disappearances of people swimming in the river with only a few more water buffalo disappearing. But that doesn't mean there couldn't be more. The next time you go swimming in the Kali River, be careful not to get swallowed up by a monster fish like the Goonch Catfish.