Legendaries are supposed to be the rarest, most unique monsters available in Pokemon GO; the sorts of creatures you would expect to only show up during special events announced by Niantic. And yet, a couple has unbelievably claimed that Articuno has spawned in Ohio, of all places.
Seriously. Ohio. Not Antartica, or some other traditionally icy, out-of-the-way location, like in the games, but somewhere in the middle of the US.
There’s video proof, which was shared last night to a Dayton Area Pokemon GO! Facebook group:
But even that is not enough to prove the Articuno is real — faked Pokemon GO legendaries circulated earlier this year through YouTube videos, after all.
“#Niantic gifted me with him,” said Kaitlyn Covey, who is one of the supposed Articuno owners, on a Facebook comment. “It is simply the truth!”
Yeah, right. So what’s going on here? Well, there are two big possibilities. The first is that the Coveys may be using a hack that changes the appearance of monsters in Pokemon GO on the client side. That “Articuno” may just be a Butterfree for all we know, it’s just been altered to look cooler.
The other, potentially messier possibility is that it is a glitch. On Reddit, there are many reports of users capturing one monster, only to have it turn into an entirely different Pokemon once in the Pokeball. Here is the glitch in action, as shown by Kieran M:
It’s theoretically possible that the couple did indeed catch Articuno, but only because Go has been messing up spawns lately.
While the Articuno may not be real or legitimate, its affect on the Dayton Facebook group certainly is:
Dozens of people in the Dayton group are arguing over the Articuno’s legitimacy, and are demanding further proof of its existence. Many of these Facebook users may not actually be from Ohio at all, but rather curious onlookers who saw the spectacle and wanted to know more. Either way, the Dayton group is now a miserable wall of anger, scepticism, and confusion.
Making things worse, some people claim to have spoofed their GPS location so that they could see the Ohio gym first-hand…
…only to them be banned by Niantic for cheating:
The Ohio Facebook group got so out of hand, it has now been renamed to “Was: Dayton Area Pokemon GO! Now: Articuno Freakshow.” Pretty accurate, really.
All of this over an Articuno which may not even be real. I predict mass hysteria once the first actual Pokemon GO legendary spawns.
Right now, there are a few reports of other legendaries randomly appearing around the world, all in unlikely places with even less believable stories. Maybe something is in the air, prompting people to hack their games to make shit up on the internet. Or maybe it’s the visual glitch. Whatever it is, lets hope these stories of legendaries don’t tear the rest of the world apart, too.
Comments
11 responses to “Legendary Articuno ‘Appears’ In Ohio, Tears Pokemon GO Community Apart”
Yikes.
You know when I see a player with an uncommon Pokemon, I just think “Aaaaw, damn. Lucky sod”
You mean, you don’t fly into a for of jealous rage?
FFS. While i get a kick outta outta this game, people saying they are “emotionally invested” in pokemon, so insensed that someone is lying over pokemon they call them “shitbags” and also that someone would be so needing of attention that they would fabricate legendaries and a story… Get a fucking grip folks. Jeez, between shit like this n some of the vile crap you see in TwitchTV chats, its the 1st time in my life im becoming embarrassed to tell people im a gamer.
Only your first?
Mate, some of us have been embarrassed about this shit since the school yard.
You never played with Pokemon cards did you…? Was a very embarrassing admission for a 12yr old when I was at school. Hell even playing it on gameboy was enough to lose some social status.
No I’ve always embraced my geekiness and bugger what others think. Its not the gaming im embarrassed about, its other gamer’s shitty behaviour that shames me. That is the brush I dont want to be tarred with.
Most likely these legendary pokemon will be available somehow at whatever Niantic decides to call the Pokemon Go version of anomalies.
I may very well be the only one who thinks this, but I think it’d be better if they left legendary pokemon out altogether. To me there’s more appeal in having the focus on non-legendaries (or perhaps excluding them from Gyms but later adding personal battles). It’s inevitable one way or the other though.
I’d be happy if they handled it similar to PokeMMO. The legendaries can be found in certain areas periodically. Any trainer who captures it is forced to accept all pvp battle requests in order to keep it. Eventually though the legendary “gets bored” and leaves.
Makes it so that people can fill out their pokedex but you don’t have hundreds or thousands of people able to use a legendary at the same time.
Given how fucking ridiculous it is now I can wait to see how things progress when trading, breeding and other features start adding real padding to this. The shitshow will be glorious!
Ahahaha that Facebook comment – “Some of us are emotionally invested in Pokemon”
This game is turning into Eve online. Hell of a lot more entertaining to watch/read about his shitshow than to actually play.
I’m surprised it’s so popular tbh. Maybe it’s because I was playing Pokemon Y when it came out, but everything about it just felt like a cheap cash in on Pokemon with microtransactions. But it’s ok because now I have an excuse to excersize!
I played a bunch of Pokemon Go with the kids on the school holidays and it was fun but we’ve kinda gotten bored of it, but the drama around the game continues to entertain.
Oh c’mon it’s just a dull game. All that hype, srsly. So who actually cares if she got a goddamn Articuno? Pokémon Go gets way too much attention in my opinion. All of a sudden all people seem to like Pokémon, lol.