A few days ago, a Chinese man took an afternoon hike through a forest in the country’s Huairou District. He was strolling with a group of friends when he spotted something unusual. Actually, “unusual” might not be the right word; it was downright scary: It was a frightening creature with humanoid features, long droopy ears, and a skirt made out of tree branches.

He had spotted what he thought was a monster, and it turns out he was only half wrong.

After snapping a few photos, the man was spotted by the creature and both fled in opposite directions. Upon uploading the snapshots to China’s extremely popular Sina Weibo social network, the country began buzzing with viral monster chatter. Over 16 million mentions of the sighting have been recorded since, and it wasn’t until the makers of the popular massively multiplayer online game (MMO) Guild Wars 2 came forward that the truth was finally known.