Wednesday, city officials in Amarillo, Texas asked for assistance in identifying a “strange” human looking animal that was spotted outside the local zoo last month.
The city posted a photo of the creature on social media, stating that it was captured on May 21, early in the morning, outside the Amarillo Zoo.
“Is it a person with a strange hat who likes to walk at night? A chupacabra? Do you have any ideas of what this UAO- Unidentified Amarillo Object could be?” the city wrote.
According to Michael Kashuba, director of the parks and recreation department for the city of Amarillo, members of the zoo were casually reviewing footage from game cameras placed throughout the zoo when they discovered the photo.
Thursday, he told CBS News that the cameras only snapS photographs and that the now-famous image overlooks a park area just outside the zoo that does not receive heavy foot traffic.
He stated that a member of staff had sent him the image, and after consulting with other coworkers, they came to the conclusion that “Nobody could figure out what it was.”
“And so, that’s where we decided to kind of reach out to our community to see if there was any thoughts on what it could potentially be,” he said.
From Sonic the Hedgehog to Rocket Raccoon, dozens of people responded with requests for video footage of the incident. Many social media users speculated that it was a skinwalker, a mythical creature from Navajo folklore that can assume the form of an animal.
Kashuba stated that no animals were harmed and no one was present at the time of the incident. Importantly, there is no sense of fear, he said; rather, there is a sense of curiosity.
