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Haunting Nighttime Figure Seen on Camera Confounds Texas City

The internet is speculating that the "Unidentified Amarillo Object" might be a mythical monster.

Amanda Kooser
Freelance writer Amanda C. Kooser covers gadgets and tech news with a twist for CNET. When not wallowing in weird gear and iPad apps for cats, she can be found tinkering with her 1956 DeSoto.
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Amanda Kooser
Black and white camera image of a strange humanoid figure on the other side of a fence.
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Black and white camera image of a strange humanoid figure on the other side of a fence.

The City of Amarillo is curious about the odd figure off to the right of the screen captured on camera on May 21.  

 City of Amarillo

Werewolf? Ghost? Pokemon? Goat-sucker? It seems nobody is sure what the Amarillo Zoo in Texas captured on camera in the dark one early morning. The city is asking for help in identifying the figure, from a still photo that shows the thing on the other side of a fence. If you look closely, it seems humanoid, with two legs and two arms, but it's all very fuzzy.

The image the city shared came from 1:25 a.m. local time on May 21. "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 asked on social media on Wednesday.

For those not in the know, a chupacabra is a creature from folklore that's said to drink blood from goats. Social media followers chimed in a with a variety of explanations ranging from Sonic the Hedgehog to a bobcat to Elvis.

Michael Kashuba, Amarillo's director of parks and recreation, confirmed to news channel KFDA that the image is indeed real. As of Thursday, the creature/object remains unidentified. With not much to go on, I think the figure is a cowgirl in a Stetson living out Patsy Cline's Walkin' After Midnight. It's Texas, after all.

Neither the Amarillo mayor's office nor the parks and rec department responded to a request for additional comment.