‘White creature’ story meets heavy doubt in region

When I first came across these photos, the question in my head was simple: is this actually something new, or just another internet mystery dressed up as news? Based on everything published so far, the honest answer is that nobody has shown real proof of anything unusual – and the officials who’d know best say they’ve found nothing at all.

The pictures show a pale, long-limbed, long-tailed animal moving through farmland in the Juárez Valley, a rural stretch of Chihuahua, Mexico, just across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas. They were published on 17 October by a team working with Jaime Maussan, a Mexican researcher known for promoting claims about unidentified phenomena. He says the animal is an unknown predator taking chickens, turkeys and rabbits from local farms, and he has even suggested it might not be from this world.

Stories like this travel fast online, which is exactly why it’s worth slowing down and looking at what’s actually been proven. You can find more of our international news coverage if you want the full picture on stories making headlines beyond Kuwait this week.

What the photos actually show

According to Maussan’s associates, surveillance cameras were placed in the area where the animal was supposedly seen. The resulting images show a four-legged animal, white in colour, with a heavy body, long limbs and a long tail. The team says it doesn’t match rodents, raccoons, mice, rabbits or any other mammal common to the region.

That’s as far as the hard evidence goes. No sharper images have been released. No physical samples, no tracks, no droppings, nothing a zoologist could examine directly. Maussan has described the animal as highly agile and intelligent, and has suggested it can move on two legs like a human. But none of the footage made public actually shows it standing or walking upright.

So who says this is real – and who’s doubting it?

At a press conference, four of Maussan’s collaborators gave their estimate of the animal’s size. They said the cameras recorded it climbing a brick wall, and by comparing its body to the size of individual bricks, they worked out it could be almost 1.8 metres long, nose to tail. They estimated the tail alone at around 90 centimetres.

It’s worth being clear about what that actually is: an estimate based on comparing a photo to a wall, not a direct measurement of a captured animal. The team says it consulted animal specialists who couldn’t identify the creature as a known regional mammal, and that some suggested it might have an unusual physical condition. No scientific report backing that up has been published.

On the other side, Mexican Civil Defense representatives in Juárez say they’ve had no reports of a dangerous animal in the area, and no formal complaints about livestock being taken by anything unidentified. Police on the US side in Texas told the El Paso Times they’ve logged no unusual incidents or mysterious livestock deaths since 5 October, which is when Maussan’s claims started appearing.

The boy, the chicken and the unverified story

Maussan says the whole investigation started after a boy, whose identity hasn’t been made public, reported seeing the creature grab a chicken by the head and climb a tree. That account hasn’t been independently verified by anyone outside Maussan’s team. He has also said some residents may have left their homes out of fear, which again hasn’t been confirmed by any official body.

In an interview with the Mexican outlet NetNoticias.Mx, Maussan said: “It’s a predator. I’m not saying it’s extraterrestrial, but it’s something scary.” He added: “Its intelligence and agility are truly frightening. I don’t believe it attacks people, but it is affecting the interests of the residents of the so-called Juárez Valley.”

He’s also raised the idea that the creature could be interdimensional rather than alien – a theory that other realms exist alongside our physical world. “Why did they appear there? It’s a mystery. Are they interdimensional beings? Are they beings who came with other beings? Did they come by ship?” he asked Mexican media. There is no scientific evidence connecting the photographed animal to any of that. It’s speculation, and nothing released so far supports it.

A name that comes with a track record

Maussan has compared this case to one he promoted back in 2007, known in Mexican media as “El Ser de Metepec.” A farmer near Mexico City had claimed to find a hairless creature resembling an extraterrestrial, reportedly caught in a mousetrap. Maussan presented it as possible proof of alien life at the time. He now suggests the Juárez Valley animal could be an adult version of that same creature.

Here’s the problem: the Metepec case was later exposed as a hoax. The “alien” specimen turned out to be a squirrel monkey that had been altered by a local taxidermist.

This isn’t the only time Maussan’s claims have been challenged. In 2023, he presented two mummified bodies to the Mexican Congress, describing them as non-human remains found in Peru and offering them as evidence of extraterrestrial life. Forensic specialists who examined the bodies rejected that, finding they were artificial constructions made from animal and human bones and other materials, held together with glue and paper. Those earlier episodes are a big part of why experts are treating the new photos with caution.