Ahool — Giant Flying Primate or Bat Reported From Java's Deepest Jungle

The Ahool is a cryptid reported from the rainforests of Java, Indonesia, described as a flying creature with a wingspan of approximately 10-12 feet, gray or black coloration, and a face resembling that of a monkey or ape rather than a bat. Its name comes from the sound of its call — a long, low "ah-oooool" that is reportedly audible from great distances. The creature was first brought to Western attention by naturalist Ernest Gill, who reported an encounter with it while living in the Sundanese rainforest in 1927. Gill described seeing a large flying creature with forearms supporting leathery wings, a flat monkey-like face, and large dark eyes adapted to night vision. The wingspan appeared to be at least 12 feet. Subsequent accounts have come from Dutch colonial-era explorers, local Sundanese communities, and modern witnesses in the remote Salak and Halimun mountain forests. The creature is nocturnal and is reportedly associated with rivers in deep forest. Its call is distinctive enough that witnesses from different areas describe it consistently. Cryptozoologist Ivan Sanderson, who received Gill's original account and collected additional reports, proposed that the Ahool might represent a surviving colony of Kongamato-type creatures or, more plausibly, an unknown species of extremely large bat. The largest known bat in the world is the giant golden-crowned flying fox of the Philippines, with a wingspan of approximately 5.5 feet — half that of the Ahool. A species twice that size in unexplored Javan jungle is zoologically possible if unlikely.