8 Times "Pokemon Go" Has Confirmed that 2016 is a Mass Hallucination | The Odyssey Online
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8 Times "Pokemon Go" Has Confirmed that 2016 is a Mass Hallucination

Please be aware of your surroundings

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8 Times "Pokemon Go" Has Confirmed that 2016 is a Mass Hallucination
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2016 has been a weirdass year. There’s been several articles asking the real question- is 2016 real? Or are we experiencing a mass hallucination involving a Trump/Pence campaign and Keeping up with the Republicans?

Thankfully, we’ve been given something pretty amazing this year- Pokemon Go, an app which encourages users to explore their surroundings, walk 10k to hatch eggs, and meet other users who want to “catch ‘em all”. But 2016 seems to have the need to make everything just a little bit bizarre. Including playing a relatively innocent game about catching virtual monsters.

Here’s just some of the weirder things that have happened since Pokemon Go was released over a week ago.

1. Not one, not two, but THREE bodies have been discovered by Pokemon Go Players

Just a few days after Niantic released the highly anticipated app, a Wyoming teen went to her local river, hoping to catch water-type Pokemon. Totally engrossed with catching virtual creatures, it took her a minute to realize that she was standing next to a man’s drowned corpse.
"I guess I was only paying attention to my phone and where I was walking," she told CNN.

Discovering a dead body while playing a videogame seems like the sort of thing that should happen like, once, but given Pokemon Go’s encouragement to “travel across the land, searching far and wide”, it might be no surprise that another player reported finding a corpse, this time floating in a brook behind the New Hampshire Holocaust Memorial.

And then, just three days ago, three San Diego girls hunting for Pokemon stumbled upon a month-old body a while exploring a trail in Marian Bear Memorial Park. At this point, the app had only been out for about a week.

The thing is, this is probably going to keep happening, since the game often leads players to relatively obscure places. So keep an eye out. That Squirtle you’re after might just lead you straight into the first five minutes of ‘Bones’.

2. Two guys fell off a cliff trying to catch a Pokemon

Besides finding dead bodies, if you’re not careful you might end up being one yourself. Two dudes in Encinatas, California ignored several “No Trespassing Signs” and found themselves at the bottom of a cliff. Luckily, they survived, and were transported to Scripps Memorial Hospital. But it makes you wonder—exactly what Pokemon was so tempting that you’d risk potential death to catch it? It better have been a Charizard.

But that was just a one-time incident, right? It’s not like people are getting stabbed over this game. Well…

3. Guy gets stabbed trying to catch a Pokemon, keeps playing

Imagine being so engrossed in catching Pokemon that a knife in your shoulder is nothing but a mild annoyance. 21 year-old Michael Baker was minding his own business and exploring Oregon’s Forest Grove for some Pokemon at around 1AM, when he saw a stranger walking by.

“I saw him go by and asked if he was playing ‘Pokemon Go.’ He was like ‘what?’ I guess he wanted to battle because he came up at me with a knife,” he told KPTV.

At this point, most people would stop whatever they were doing and head straight to the hospital. But not Michael Baker, who decided that catching a potential Pikachu was top priority, followed by a snack and some beer. After he was finished hunting Pokemon and grabbing a bite, he then decided that he should, you know, maybe get some stitches.

If you’re thinking that this is the only time a person has gotten stabbed while playing ‘Pokemon Go’, think again. An Anaheim man was repeatedly stabbed in Schweitzer Park after getting into an argument with a group of five or six men. Police suspect that the victim had been playing the game and had gotten deeply distracted.

Pay attention where you’re going, kiddos.

4. Teens use a ‘Lure’ to attract players to isolated Poke Stops, then rob eleven people

Besides the game inadvertently leading players to corpses, cliff edges, and stabbings, criminals have figured out how to literally ‘lure’ potential victims into isolated areas. Any regular player of Pokemon Go will tell you that the best way of getting a large group of players together is to put a lure module into a Poke Stop, which are places where you can stock up on Poke Balls, potions, and bait. Basically, this increases the presence of Pokemon in the area, which in turn also attracts the presence of people trying to hunt those Pokemon.

A group of teens decided that this was a great way of attracting people and well, robbing them. The teens, whose ages range from 16-18, are suspected to have been behind 10-11 armed robberies which spanned the St. Louis and St. Charles counties in Missouri. Which means that you can say “Pokemon used as bait in robbery” and be completely serious.

5. A dude’s house is now a Gym and now he has to deal with teenagers loitering his lawn

One thing you can notice after spending large amounts of time exploring the app is that many of the Poke Stops and Gyms (places where you can battle other teams) are usually communal places such as libraries and churches. Now, imagine that you just so happen to live in a house that used to be a church. And imagine that you wake up one day, and there’s a bunch of young folk standing outside of your house, looking intently at their phone. Imagine that this happens every day and night, and they just don’t leave.

Welcome to the life of Boon Sheridan, who live tweeted the en masse flux of players determined to train their Pokemon.

Since the game’s inception, he has counted around 50 people who have stood outside his home, hoping to take over the Gym. Which, as he points out, is a little weird, considering that the Gym is technically his. Because he lives there.

For the most part Sheridan seems to be largely at peace with his home’s newfound function, though he finds people loitering outside his house past midnight “a little creepy”.

6. Girl figures out her boyfriend was cheating on her because he caught a Zubat

Most Pokemon Go players I’ve talked to have a particular kind of disdain for Zubats. They’re relatively low level, they’re hard to catch, and you just can’t help but feel a tinge of disappointment when your phone buzzes and it’s just an eyeless bat begging you to waste your Poke Balls. But for one guy who lives in Sunnyside, Queens, Zubats are now a daily reminder to not fucking cheat.

"She saw that I had caught a Pokémon while at my ex's house," Evan Scribner told the Post. "She found out last night at my house and hasn't contacted me since then."

How did she find out? Whenever you catch a Pokemon, the app uses geolocation to capture the date, time, and place that your catch took place. For Scribner’s girlfriend, it was just a matter of knowing that his ex-girlfriend lived in Bushwick, Brooklyn, and that his Zubat was also caught in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

Hope that Zubat was worth it.

7. Marine Vets playing Pokemon Go help catch a wanted criminal

Seth Ortega and Javier Soch were busy hunting Pokemon in a Fullerton, California park, when they noticed a creepy dude harassing several mothers and their children. When he began to touch one of the children, they decided to act. Ortega and a bystander named Keith Sanders chased the man away from the children, and kept an eye on him until police arrived.

What they probably thought was just a weird dude with absolutely no sense of personal space ended up being 39 year old Jacob Kells, a man who, among other things, was wanted for attempted murder.

8. Westboro Baptist trains Jigglypuff to take over a Gym

After Pokemon Go users figured out that Westboro Baptist Church was designated as a Gym, one player quickly claimed the Gym as his, using a Clefairy which he named “LoveisLove”. Westboro Baptist’s reaction?

That’s right. They’re training a Jiggilypuff to “deal with that sodomite Clefairy”. That’s actual sentence that I just made you read. Welcome to the rest of 2016, my dudes.

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This article has not been reviewed by Odyssey HQ and solely reflects the ideas and opinions of the creator.
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