Earlier in the week, it was reported that one lucky Pokemon GO player was gifted with the legendary Pokemon Articuno as a result of a complaint to developer Niantic.
Many (myself included) regarded this claim with a healthy dose of scepticism. There were a few videos and screenshots, sure – but they can easily be faked.
However, Kait Covey of Ohio, along with her husband, have now come forward on Twitch to reaffirm that this Articuno is legit, and that it is theirs.
You can watch the video below, where you’ll see that they certainly seem convinced that this Articuno is the real deal.
Either the couple are the architects of an elaborate (pointless) internet prank, or they genuinely believe that Niantic gifted them a legendary bird (because Pokemon GO deleted Kait’s Pidgeot, no less).
They even show off the alleged email from Niantic – although the message from the developer reads ‘Articundo’, which seems pretty fishy.
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It could be that a shady third party has somehow pretended to be Niantic and hacked into Pokemon GO to give Kait an Articuno, but what would the point in that be?
The internet is a pretty fucked up place to be fair, and people do have their own peculiar flavours of humour.
Another (unlikely) possibility is that Niantic intended to gift Kait with a randomised Pokemon that just so happened to be Articuno (a mistake on Niantic’s part?).
I continue to call bull (or bird) shit. Niantic have made some pretty big messes with Pokemon GO, but I can’t imagine they’d give out a legendary like this – accidentally or otherwise.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.