Is Articuno In Pokémon GO? How The Legendary Bird Was Caught Accidentally (And Then Revoked)

While you were caught up in the political scandal of Donald Trump insulting a baby at a campaign rally, an arguably bigger controversy was unfolding in the Pokémon GO world: Someone claimed to have caught Articuno.

Articuno, an ice-type flying Pokémon, is one of the original three legendary birds of Kanto. It's super rare, and it hasn't been found in the new Pokémon game thus far, along with monsters like Mewtwo, Ditto and Moltres... until now.

Kait Covey, a woman living in Ohio, posted on Facebook that she'd found an Articuno at Austin Landing, near Dayton. She put up a video, and, after receiving dozens of comments from skeptics, went on live stream site Twitch to prove its existence. Covey and her husband said Niantic, the maker of the game, gave her the Articuno after they emailed the company about a glitch, according to EuroGamer.net. In the email, Articuno was misspelled.

Reddit and other gaming forums exploded with people either doubting the Coveys or citing legendary Pokémon appearances of their own. Some users were angry at Covey; others were upset with Niantic and Nintendo. "If Niantic seriously gave out a legendary bird to some random person as an apology, I will uninstall this game so fast," reddit user dwlee commented.

On Wednesday, Niantic finally waded into the debate itself. It issued a statement to IGN saying it noticed "a few Legendary Pokémon got into a few accounts when they shouldn’t have."

"To preserve the game’s integrity and as a measure of fairness, we have rectified the situation and revoked the legendary Pokémon from the Trainers’ accounts," it wrote.

So, what does that mean for you? Unfortunately, it means Articuno is probably not in the game yet. As the Daily Dot noted, the game's Pokédex only includes spots for 148 of the 151 original Pokémon. Just guess which three are missing.