On Jan. 13, Cambodian loggers were shocked to find a naked, crouched and shaking woman in the jungle. She does not speak any recognizable language, and her identity remains a mystery. Although DNA tests have yet to be done, village police officer Sal Lou has claimed the woman as his daughter, Rochom P’ngieng, who went missing 19 years ago at the age of eight. Lou recognized her, in part, due to a scar on her left wrist.

Last seen, P’ngieng was tending buffalo on the edge of the jungle in the remote northern Rattanakiri province.

Lou and his family have taken the woman in absolutely convinced that she is their long-lost child. Lou recognized the woman as his daughter because of a scar on her wrist that he says was caused by an accident with a knife when she was a child.

“I recognize her face,” said Rochom Soy, the alleged mother, to The Guardian. “Now that she is back home I sleep better and I have regained my appetite.”

Daily, crowds of curious villagers and journalists flock around the alleged family’s hut to observe the woman. However, without any objective proof of the woman’s identity, many remain skeptical about who she is and what she has been through.

Some believe that she survived for 19 years alone in the jungle. Others believe that she suffers from some form of mental illness and simply became lost in the jungle much more recently. Some villagers think that she is an evil jungle spirit.

Kek Galabru, president of a non-governmental human rights group, said to The Washington Post, “We believe that this woman is the victim of some kind of torture, maybe sexual or physical.”

The scar that Lou used to identify the woman is apparently tiny compared to deep scars circling her left wrist and ankle that may have been caused by being bound.

First-year Mo Grumbly has her doubts about feral-child claims. Grumbly thinks that the most likely case is that the woman has experienced severe abuse or torture.

“It sounds sketchy. How would an 8-year-old survive in the wilderness?” Grumbly said. “It’s like ‘The Jungle Book.'”

Although it seems unlikely that the woman disappeared as a child and relived ‘The Jungle Book’ story, it is a possibility that this is a feral-child case.

Feral children are youth who grow up in isolation from human contact and who lack language and social skills. Such cases are very rare but do occur.

Supporting the feral-child claim are local police reports describing the woman as “half-animal and half-human.” According to BBC News, when the woman’s alleged father first saw her, she was naked and walking like a monkey.

First-year Timothy Lindberg marveled at how tough a woman would have to be to survive alone in the wilderness for nearly two decades.

“If it really is her, that’s amazing,” said Lindberg.

There are others, like Karen Hayes, assistant professor of psychology, who are also skeptical about the woman’s identity.

“We don’t really know anything other than that this person appeared,” Hayes said. “(However, if this is a feral-child case) it would make sense that she would be probably presenting sounds that are like an infant. We know those kinds of sounds are universal.”

The woman’s alleged family hopes that with time the woman will be able to speak again and will return to school. Hayes said that with the appropriate interventions the woman might be able to regain her verbal skills and receive an education.

Despite the family’s warmth towards their alleged daughter, Lou and Soy have told reporters that the woman has tried to escape, presumably to return to the jungle, and that they must guard her at night.

The woman’s alleged father has agreed to have DNA tests done to prove that the woman is his daughter. Yet Lou has been reluctant for a test to be performed, according to The Guardian.

Since the woman cannot speak and is almost entirely non-communicative, her true story remains undiscovered.