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Mystery Pokemon Baffles ‘Pokemon Go’ Players – Gen 8 Ditto Evolution?

It was a Pokemon Go Community Day like any other this past Saturday as trainers flocked to their local parks and malls to hunt Shiny Chikorita and earn x3 experience. Although something strange happened after the event ended.

Signs of this began early in the morning as trainers is Asia began reporting an odd never-before-seen Pokemon appearing in large amounts at the conclusion of their Community Day. A handful of reports even surfaced on the other side of the world at the same time – though in FAR fewer numbers. Later in the day though, all these reports would be confirmed as the same never-before-seen Pokemon began appearing in mass as Community Day ended at abruptly 5:01pm.

Mystery Pokemon Baffles ‘Pokemon Go’ Players – Gen 8 Ditto Evolution?
They seriously were everywhere…

These strange Pokemon – affectionately called “Nutto” – were found with ??? / CP ??? above their icons. To my knowledge, we’ve never had ‘???’ appear as a Pokemon’s name before in Pokemon Go though a CP value of ‘???’ has appeared when a Pokemon is encountered with a CP above your current Trainer Level. Was this as well blacked out to keep the mystery going or does this hint at a needed boost in Trainer levels – as well as this being a high tier Pokemon? Personally, I lean more towards the mystery side of things since even upon capture, no information was recorded in the Pokedex. Instead it transformed into a Ditto.

This was all originally discovered by a data miner known as “Chrales”, who at first found these files labeled under the name of a remaining Gen 3 Pokemon, Kecleon – although the entry number was (at the time thought to be incorrectly listed as) 891. So with the Pokedex currently going up to only 807, is this our first look at a Generation 8 Pokemon? The reveal trailer of Pokemon Let’s Go did tell of a “never-before-seen” Pokemon you can send to your Pokemon Go account when paired. Is this the first glimpse of THAT Pokemon?

Mystery Pokemon Baffles ‘Pokemon Go’ Players – Gen 8 Ditto Evolution?
Ditto (Metamon)’s originally planned evolution ‘Animon’ (Credit: Pokemon Company)

Personally, I’m still curious about the supposed “reveal” of those unused Pokemon a few months ago. I’m not just referring to Gorochu – the evolve form of Raichu – but also all the unused Pokemon in the Gold and Silver Beta. One such unreleased Pokemon was named “Animon” and was the evolved form of Ditto when traded while holding a Metal Coat. (Note: Ditto’s Japanese name is ‘Metamon’). This mystery Pokemon doesn’t look like Animon, but it does look like a metallic colored Ditto with a ‘nut’ on its head. Could this be the reimagined/ updated version of Animon – much like how the beta version of Pokemon Gold showed the original design of the Lickitung evolution Lickilicky?

Only time will tell, but I feel each of those Betas were actually a hint of things to come in the future. But what do you think? If it was all just a hoax, would you have preferred Missigno instead? Sound off in the comments!