A man claims to have found an alien-like species within a meteorite, causing a stir on social media.
The individual, who identifies himself as Kin online, said he discovered a small, silver-colored space rock in a fiery crater in Panama on August 29.
Since then, he has shared a series of videos on TikTok showing what he described as the meteorite burning leaves on contact and an unruly, tentacled organism sprouting from within it.
A week after his initial post, he claimed that the crater ‘shines at night,’ sharing footage of the dark site glowing mysteriously.
Subsequent videos appeared to show a mass of oily, tentacle-like growths spreading rapidly from the rock’s crevices, eventually engulfing the object.
The videos have gone viral on social media, with some viewers claiming they show ‘an alien growing,’ while others dismiss them as a hoax.
‘There are people who want to believe, but in reality it looks like a potato,’ one user shared on X.
‘That metallic sheen smells like paint, and the camera cut before touching it is suspicious. By the way, iron meteorites don’t do photosynthesis. It’s a potato.’
Just days after finding the ‘meteorite’ in Panama, Kin shared videos on TikTok of the object appearing to grow plant-like tentacles
The rock appeared to burn leaves – but some online users claimed it was a hoax
Kin said the tentacle-covered specimen now must be kept inside a large safe, but some have doubted his story, claiming the organism is a common plant and the meteorite scene was staged.
Although his videos have been viewed millions of times, there has been no independent confirmation that the object is a meteorite, nor any verification from scientists regarding the make-up of the organism growing around it.
Meteorite trackers have also not confirmed that a space rock fell last month in the Pedregal district of Panama.
Regardless, Kin has claimed to have mailed samples of the tentacles to friends, but no analysis has been publicly reported.
Skeptics online have pointed out that an image of the supposed crater where Kin pulled the meteorite from appeared to have several matchsticks in it, suggesting the hole had been intentionally set on fire.
Others have noted that Kin was able to pick up the meteorite with his bare hands without any issues, despite the object just burning through multiple tree leaves.
Critics have raised concerns about Kin’s handling of the specimen, noting that he appeared to touch the strange tentacles with his bare hands, which could have contaminated the samples he claimed to be sending for study.
Videos appeared to show a mass of oily, tentacle-like growths spreading rapidly
Kin added in his videos that some have reached out to him claiming the object he found was not a meteorite at all, but was a plant ‘egg’ which sprouts an organism called Clathrus archeri, or the Devil’s Fingers fungus.
However, Kin’s mystery organism appears to look different from that fungus. The substance has many tentacles that have a black, tar-like shine to them.
As for the Devil’s Fingers fungus, the plant is typically red with much less tar-like slime covering the tentacles.
Kin claims that the substance has continued to grow, now taking up almost an entire safe
The viral sensation grew even more terrifying in the last four days, as Kin even claimed the organism had detached itself from the silver rock and moved to hide itself inside Kin’s locked safe.
‘Today I was scared and I felt afraid, I thought it had escaped,’ the man said in a TikTok post translated from Spanish on September 11.
According to his follow-up posts, the organism continued to grow whenever it was exposed to light and was seen pulsing and moving inside Kin’s kitchen, which he kept unlit except for shining a flashlight near the object.
‘When the night comes, I feel calm, I know it won’t grow. Every time I show it to them, when I light it, it grows and puts me in danger,’ Kin wrote in a new video posted Sunday.
The Panamanian claimed that some individuals have approached him and requested that he hand over the strange substance out of ‘concern for his safety’.
Meanwhile, those on social media have warned Kin that they feared government authorities may try to take the mystery specimen from him and erase the videos from the internet.
In a post that was translated into multiple languages, Kin pleaded with his followers to: ‘Save the videos. They’re our evidence. They’ll probably all be deleted.’
While Kin’s videos have captivated social media, many have also claimed the entire story is a hoax.
If a creature were to grow out of a rock, researcher John Greenewald Jr commented that it could be evidence of panspermia, the concept that life on Earth was deposited here by meteorites from space.