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On March 29, an Australian local, Alex Tan, chanced upon a most peculiar looking alien-like creature on a Queensland beach in Australia. The man was on a routine morning walk along the seaside when he noticed the organism was washed ashore.
He immediately took to Instagram in a bid to try and find out more about his mysterious discovery. The footage generated a great deal of buzz, with several chiming in with their theories about what it could possibly be.
Tan postulated that it was possibly a "de-haired possum," which was later corroborated by a professor from the University of Queensland.
What is this "extraterrestrial" creature?
Alex Tan's morning walk on Maroochydore Beach on the Sunshine Coast took a weird turn when he came across a bizarre looking creature that didn't resemble any recognizable animal.
In the Instagram video, the Christian pastor said,
“I’ve stumbled across something weird. This is like one of those things you see when people claim they’ve found aliens."
He then pans the camera to show the carcass of a sprawled-out creature with flappy limbs, a decaying skull, disturbingly human-like hands, and a long tail resembling that of a rat's.
He continues,
"Looks like a de-haired possum, but different to anything I've seen. Extraterrestrial.”
There have been many hues and cries about sightings of aliens and extraterrestrial beings over the years, but with the past three years' track record, an alien wouldn't be too far out of reach.
Many of Tan's Instagram comments suggested investigating the creature more closely instead of a cursory glance. However, Tan found out that it was removed from the site when he returned to the beach later in the day.
The unsettling discovery soon went viral, with several media organizations reaching out to the pastor in an attempt to unearth the creature's puzzling identity.
In an interview with the Australian broadcast channel 7NEWS, Tan elaborated on how the creature completely stumped him, saying,
“I thought it was a three-metre flatty or something but as I got closer, it looked like a cross between a dog, a possum, a kangaroo and some sort of giant rat. Maybe something had come along and had a little nibble of it. I just think it’s some sort of deformed possum."
The Aussie added,
“I’m pretty certain it’s not an alien."
Tan was so confident about his hypothesis of the animal being some form of a possum that he wagered a chicken parm on anyone who proved otherwise.
Upon his commenters' suggestion, he has been trying to get in touch with wildlife experts Bindi and Robert Irwin, but to no avail.
However, an associate professor at the University of Queensland, Stephen Johnston, concurred with Tan's possum theory. He told Courier Mail,
"After consultation with my colleague Heather Janetzki from the Queensland Museum we are pretty sure that it is a swollen, waterlogged brushtail possum who has lost its fur. The skull and hindlimb give the clues. The animal was probably washed down into the ocean during the floods."
Alex Tan has certainly gotten an answer to his question, but he doesn't believe it to be the only plausible explanation. He is still diligently working on his mission to uncover the species of this strange animal, who he's lovingly dubbed "little buddy."
