Man looks like a mummy after being rescued from bear den month after he vanished

A question mark hangs over the identity of a ‘living mummy’ who was reportedly attacked by a bear and left for dead.

It was thought the man, known only as Alexander, was found by hunting dogs in a bear’s den in a remote region of Russia, a month after going missing.

But a new twist has emerged, following claims the bearded survivor was actually in a hospital in Kazakhstan and had never been attacked.

Every hospital in the Russian region of Tuva, where the attack supposedly happened, has denied the man was ever a patient, reports MailOnline.


The bear attack story was first broken by Moscow-based news agency EADaily.



They have since offered a cash reward to anyone who can ‘shed light on this event’.

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video

The identity of the bearded ‘living mummy’ has taken a twist (Picture: East2West News/Siberian Times)

Independent researchers say the woman speaking in the footage is speaking Kazakh rather than Tuvan.

A group who search for lost people in Kazakhstan say the man was from the city of Aktobe, where he was hospitalised, and wasn’t attacked by a bear.

Aktobe is around 1,600 miles from Tuva’s regional capital of Kyzyl.

The organisation known as zello.poisk made the claim after trying to find out of Alexander was a missing man with the same name they were looking for.

He was reportedly found by a pack of passing hunting dogs by chance (Picture: East2West News/Siberian Times)

They asked the hospitals in Aktobe to help them and were told he is being treated and is ‘getting better’.

The group added: ‘He is ill. But the doctors said that they will cure him.

‘Of course, how he turned out to be in such state we will never know.’

A source from a hospital in Aktobe also said the man was a patient there, but there has been no formal statement.

Got a story for Metro.co.uk? Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk. For more stories like this, check our news page.