A Weird Pokemon Appeared In Pokemon Go And No One Knows What It Is [Update]

Pokemon Go's latest Community Day took place this past weekend, and by all accounts, it was a fairly standard event. However, something rather unusual happened right after the Community Day ended: a strange, never-before-seen Pokemon briefly appeared in the wild. [Update: The Pokemon Company has confirmed the unusual new monster, and its name is Meltan.]

In each region, an unidentified Pokemon began swarming immediately after the event concluded. No one knows what kind of monster it is; it was first discovered in the game's files shortly before the Community Day by dataminer Chrales, but it was listed with the name Kecleon--a chameleon Pokemon first introduced in the Gen 3 games Ruby and Sapphire.

The strange monster, which you can see below, appeared in the wild for precisely 30 minutes following the Community Day, after which point it disappeared just as suddenly as it debuted. Niantic hasn't formally acknowledged the new Pokemon, but it most closely resembles Ditto, albeit with what appears to be a golden nut for a head.

Gallery

Moreover, when the strange Pokemon was captured, it would reveal itself to be Ditto. Some players have also reported that the new monster would turn into Chikorita--the featured Pokemon during September's Community Day--or the aforementioned Kecleon when captured.

Whether or not it has any relation to the shapeshifting Pokemon remains to be seen, but it is considerably smaller than Ditto, so it isn't likely to be an evolution of it. Barring a small handful of exceptions--for instance, Bellossom is notably smaller than Gloom--Pokemon generally increase in size when they evolve.

While the upcoming Pokemon: Let's Go, Pikachu and Let's Go, Eevee games for Nintendo Switch will feature only the original 151 Pokemon (plus their Alolan variants), The Pokemon Company had previously teased that players could receive a brand-new Pokemon by connecting the Switch games to Pokemon Go. Whether or not this is the Pokemon in question remains to be seen, but we'll likely learn more soon, as those games are scheduled to launch on November 16.