Mexico’s president has prompted confusion on social media after sharing a photo of a creature that he claims is a woodland elf, saying: “Everything is mystical”.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador shared the photo in apparent seriousness and said that the mysterious animal could be an ancient Mayan woodland elf.
He claimed that the image resembled a sculpture from an archaeological site on the Yucatan peninsula.
The poor-quality image, taken at night, shows an unidentified creature with luminous white eyes and long white hair, clinging to the branch of a tree with all-fours.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador posted the photo to his social media accounts, seemingly claiming that this it captured an “alux”, a mythological sprite from ancient folklore which are associated with forests and caves.
He said the photo had been taken three days earlier by an engineer on the construction site of a new railway line known as the Tren Maya, which will connect tourist destinations, including ancient Mayan sites.
“It appears to be an alux,” Obrador wrote, adding that “everything is mystical”.
His social media post comes as thousands gathered in the largest protest against his administration yet, as campaigners opposing the government’s drive to shrink the independent electoral authority argue the changes threaten democracy.
Social media users, commenting under the post, suggested the engineer was making it up as the photo had been originally published in February 2021, and had been previously “used in Indonesia, Thailand and other countries”.
One user, Mauricio Schwarz, said: “Yes, Andrés, an engineer three days ago took a photo that has been doing the rounds in Nuevo León since February 2021 and in Thailand since December of that year.
He added: “If you believe it, you are stupid... if you know you are lying, you are malicious.”
Many also accused the president of spreading fake news after multiple users posted articles from where the image had allegedly been making rounds over the years. The original source of the image is still unclear.
