The Nage people of Flores describe the Ebu Gogo as having been able walkers and fast runners around 1.5 m (5 feet) tall.
They reportedly had wide and flat noses, and broad faces with large mouths and hairy bodies.
[7] The ebu gogo folklore has gained public attention with the discovery of Homo floresiensis, an extinct hominid species that inhabited Flores until c. 50,000 years ago or later.
The ethnologist Gregory Forth (2008) has suggested that tales about ebu gogo and similar figures in the folklore of Indonesia such as the Orang Pendek are based on the memory of actual encounters between modern humans and Homo floresiensis.
[8][9][10][11] The hypothesis of contacts between the ebu gogo and the ancestors of the present population is also sustained by the unique designs of Ngadha ikat: their motifs are executed as stick figures, which give them a strikingly 'primitive' appearance resembling some prehistoric cave drawings.