Video of 'Gong Goi' Out of Laos Goes Viral

A video posted to Facebook that purports to show a ‘Gong Goi’ has gone viral, having been shared over twenty thousand times.

The video was posted by Chantha Sitouluk on September 27th, along with the caption “Come see the ghosts of the Ban Na Noi. Luang Namtha (Laos).”

"I met a ghost in the house. It's been a long time at the Royal Province," he added.

Ban Na Noi is a city in the Luang Namtha province of Laos.

The Gong Goi is a reportedly unintelligent monster that is said to haunt the jungles of Laos and Thailand. It is a child-like creature that bounds through the undergrowth in search of victims from whom it will drain blood by sucking it out of their toes while they are unawares. The Gong Goi has only one leg, and is doomed to spend all of its time hopping around in search of sustenance, emitting its cry of "Gong Goi!" over and over again.

Speculations regarding the creature in the video include the supernatural Gong Goi, as well as a deliberate hoax involving a puppet controlled by someone hiding in the background foliage, and some have even compared it to the warning dance that skunks perform prior to spraying their noxious chemical defense—although there are no native skunk species in that area.

Update 10/9/18: This video has been confirmed to be a hoax. It was taken from the YouTube channel of Cat Burglar Nami, where it was posted September 26th—one day prior to being posted to Facebook by Chantha Sitouluk as his own. The creature in Cat Burglar Nami’s video—which is much clearer—does appear to be a skunk bounding along next to the grass.

The video posted by the Thai news agency on October 8th attempting to show how the video could have been hoaxed then becomes irrelevant, as does the photo that seemed to show two sticks controlling a puppet from the grass—which, it has been pointed out, are in all likelihood simply bent foliage.

This photo was posted in response to Sitouluk’s video, but likely shows bent foliage instead of puppet-controlling sticks.