Fact Check: Was a 188-year-old man rescued from a cave in India? Viral video debunked

A viral video has got people thinking that a 188-year-old man was rescued from an Indian cave. A video of an aged man being helped to walk recently went viral on all social media platforms.

Some speculated that the incident occurred in Bengaluru. An X (formerly known as Twitter) user who went by Concerned Citizen shared the 24-second clip on the platform and tweeted:

"This Indian Man has just been found in a cave. It’s alleged he’s 188 years old. Insane."

The video showcased two men helping an old man walk through a rocky terrain. The helpers stood on either side of the allegedly 188-year-old man, who also used the help of a blue stick to walk. The man was also seen walking across a staircase as a crowd of people looked over.

A community note on Concerned Citizen's viral video provided by X and added by readers immediately dismissed the claim that the man was 188 years of age. The note clarified that the man was a Hindu saint named Siyaram Baba from the state of Madhya Pradesh.

It also added that he was around 110 years old and not 188 as many had alleged. Concerned citizen also replied to his own tweet conceding:

"I’m embarrassed I even wrote 188. Anything over 120 would have been ridiculous. Unless he found a lifetime supply of adrenawhatnotnow."

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The man in the viral video is a Hindu Indian Saint named Siyaram Baba

According to the links provided on the aforementioned community note on Concerned Citizen's viral video, Siyaram Baba, the Hindu saint, aged around 110 has an official Instagram handle with over 249,000 followers. According to its bio, the account was run by the Sant Siyaram Baba Ashram Trust.

Further inspection of the Instagram account also revealed that the viral video originated from a reel shared on the account on September 26. A translated version of the reel's Hindi caption read:

"Narmada Ghat construction work being done by Baba himself,"

Fact-checking organization D-Intent Data released a tweet on October 3 confirming the identity of the Hindu saint. D-Intent Data also added that influencers were circulating the viral video alongside "self-invented claims" in order to achieve a social media spotlight.

A December 2022 article from a publication named Satyaagrah claimed that Siyaram Baba was 110 at the time of writing the article, thereby throwing doubt on his exact age. Moreover, a July 2024 article from Navbharat Times claimed that the man was 109 years old as of then.

The Satyaagrah article wrote that the aforementioned saint read the Ramayana without the requirement of glasses and also donated 2.5 crore Rupees for the repair of Madhya Pradesh's famous Narmada Ghat. A ghat refers to a series of steps that leads to a water body, constructed along the banks of a river or pond.

The article explained that the elderly saint resided at the Bhatyan Ashram in Madhya Pradesh's Khargone district. It also talked about the discrepancies surrounding the man's age as some believed him to be 80, others thought he was 130, while media reports at the time arrived at an estimate of 109.

Another interesting claim mentioned in the article states that the saint kept a vow of silence for 12 years and when he opened his mouth after an extended period of time, the first word he uttered was 'Siyaram'. As per the report, this is how people started calling the man Siyaram Baba.