Aluxe - Mexican President's Mayan Elf
Here at Wolfenhaas we love blurry photos of hard to make out cryptids. The blurrier, the better, because you can hide so much in the blur. Details like zippers, rubber masks, or even the track marks of Photoshop can disappear in the grain of an image.
These pictures are all over the internet. Overly compressed and shared ad infinitum. You'll find a war in the comments underneath such images. On one side you have a pack of rabid believers who literally believe everything they read. The other is made up of slavering skeptics who disbelieve everything they see. Both sides are equally wrong.
We take the centrist view on these things. Debunking is important, but allowing yourself to believe in a little magic isn't the worst thing, either. The argument itself is also rather entertaining.
Believers will often point to the status of the person sharing the image as evidence for credibility. This is the case with the recent photo shared by Mexican President, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, of what he believes is a mythical creature.
On 26 February 2023, Andrés Manuel López Obrador tweeted two photos. He claimed that one was of the Aluxe, a sort of Mayan Elf. He ended his tweet with the caption, Everything is mystical.
What is an Aluxe
In the Yucatán Peninsula, certain Mayan peoples hold the myth of the Aluxe. This forest spirit is also known as the Aloosh. The Náhuatl speaking Aztec people share a similar legend, calling it the Chaneque.
Aluxe are described as standing at knee-height and wearing traditional garb. They are usually invisible, but can take corporeal form to communicate with humans or to hang out with other Aluxes.
In temperament, the Aluxe act in similar fashion to European goblins and elves. They are mischievous, and love nothing more than playing tricks on unwitting humans. Like the Tokoloshe of Southern Africa, the Aluxe is supposedly created by a shaman.
The President's Picture
Let's see what can be found out about the photo of the Aluxe. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is the leader of a nation, so we can give him as much credit as we typically give national leaders, which is none.
Winning the popularity contest which is Democracy isn't a good indicator of credibility. The man has a platform and a following, so his reach is undeniable. Here I am writing about his photo, after all.
Well, the President claims the photo was taken at the site of the construction of his new Maya Train. The photo was snapped by an unnamed engineer, or so he claims, in the week before the tweet.
The Maya Train Project will be a boon for Mexican infrastructure. Connecting several states and offering an eco-friendly solution to local travel.
Looking into the validity of the Aluxe photo, one quickly realizes that the photo is already two years old. So much for presidential credibility. It was posted on 10 February 2021 by Twitter user, Johnny Martinez (Juan Francisco Martinez R:.). He claimed that it was a photo of a Bruja (a witch).
Johnny claims that the photo was taken by a person named Juan Pachero. Unfortunately for Johnny, it seems that the picture was first posted on an Indonesian website.
The original post is from 5 February 2021, and claims the photo was taken on 4 February. From what we can gather, it seems that the picture was taken in Indonesia.
The expert contacted in that original post theorized that it was a demon:
“In my opinion it is a demonic figure, even though each region has its own unique creature but I see it is a demon from the results of rituals. It seems he uses the ritual of drinking animal blood, eating his figure like that”
We think what we have here is most likely the blurry photo of a monkey.
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