Early this week I called the viral Amarillo Zoo 'UAO' sighting a hoax.

Here's an excerpt where I boldly claimed the entire city of Amarillo was in on a grand conspiracy to garner tourism to their fine city:

The City released a statement saying, "For now, the strange visitor is a UAO – Unidentified Amarillo Object," then adding: "In the spirit of fun if not curiosity, the City of Amarillo is letting the public offer ideas on the identity of the UAO. (Video footage is not available.)"

Wait, you can grab a screenshot of the video but not release the video?

I'm not scared anymore. Amarillo has hoaxed the nation.

Congratulations on your 15 minutes of fame, Amarillo Zoo. You can't fool me.

After publishing my story, I was contacted by someone on the inside who wished to remain anonymous. The intel I received is that the image is 100 percent real. They don't have video because the camera set up is a trail camera that's used to capture still frames when a motion sensor is tripped.

Ok, fair enough. But why did it take three weeks to post? I got that answer, too.

Whoever found the video had to pass it up to the bureaucratic chain of command inside the city government. The photo was passed from one city agency to the next, trying to define the creature. When they couldn't scientifically confirm or deny what the monster was, they released the image to the public for help.

That's where we come in. I scoured the comments for the best suggestions of what the creature is and did some serious research to come up with my own thoughts on what this mysterious malfeasance might be.

Here's what we came up with: