Chinese Camper Frightened When Gollum Creature Invades Area, Called Out For Hoax, Later Finds Out He Is Not Crazy

An unnamed Chinese camper was in for the surprise of his life when he encountered a strange, yet familiar creature near his campsite earlier this week. The man was minding his own business, enjoying nature, and wandered upon the scary creature.

He was camping in the Huairou region of china when the occurrence took place. He was able to get close enough to the creature to snap some photos. Although the creature looks more like the aliens from Mac and Me, the internet quickly went mainstream with Gollum references.

Within days, the photos acquired more than 16 million mentions on Weibo, which is China’s Twitter clone. The pictures are pretty impressive and show an obvious monster lurking about. However, many compared the photos to sightings of Bigfoot, aliens, Cthulhu, and Nessie, and quickly dismissed them as fakes. Still, the mentions and views barreled in.

An anonymous net user (it seems like everyone that uses the internet in China is anonymous) quickly laid claim to the creature, stating that he was filming a short fantasy film with some friends. However, the man’s 15 minutes of fame were quickly diminished as his claims were shot down by Beijing police:

“This was an actor wearing a costume. He was filming an advertisement.”

Huairou local government also stepped in to ease the panic that residents might have of a monster lurking in the forests.

“The actor has provided pictures of himself in the costume to prove it. The actor was taking a loo-break and was still wearing his costume.”

Some would believe that the government was just hiding the presence of the creature, claiming it to be a new conspiracy by the Chinese government to control the minds of the public. However, new information came to light that removed the conspiracy from the story altogether.

It seems as though a popular video developer, AreanNet, LLC, has claimed the hoax to be their work. Not as an actual hoax, but as an upcoming advertisement for Guild Wars 2 that they were filming. The Gollum-like creature (Ahem, alien from Mac and Me) is not a Lord of the Rings knock off, but really Asura. He even has his own hashtag, #???????? or, loosely, “The monster was really video game marketing material”.

It seems as though the advertisement is gaining quite a bit more advertisement than it had originally expected.

Photo Courtesy: Kotaku