Sneaky Little Monsters: Gollum Sighting in Huairou

Since the advent of Photoshop, combined with China’s well known proclivity to fake absolutely everything, when news of a monster roaming the hills of Huairou starts to fire up across Chinese social media most netizens laugh it off as another hoax.

But sometimes, sometimes China manages to produce the real deal … sort of.

Deep in the hills of Huairou to the north of Beijing an innocent tourist wandered astray from his camping party and came face-to-face with a Gollum-esque creature with humanoid facials and enormous ears crouching behind a bush. Snapping two photographs before making his escape, he uploaded them online and quickly the story spread.

But one commentator tried to quell the gossip by proclaiming it was in fact himself dressed in character for a friend’s sci-fi film being produced in the area at the time of this revelatory monster discovery (Tord of the Bings coming soon to a pirate DVD shop near you).

Will this anonymous comment be enough for netizens though? Or is the thought of a legendary creature hiding in the mountains of Beijing just too precious to ignore?

Photos: Courtesy The Telegraph