This may be the most alienating story you'll read all week.
A woman in San Jose, California, claims she heard a loud scream on Saturday night in her backyard and ran out only to find a bizarre-looking creature she assumes is an alien.
As you might expect, a lot of people don't agree.
Gianna Peponis said she found the creature in her yard just hours after people all over California and Arizona reported seeing streaking lights across the sky.
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Although some people went to social media to report seeing UFOs, the Pentagon later announced the lights were actually from a U.S. Navy Strategic Systems Programs Trident II (D5) missile test flight that was conducted at sea from the USS Kentucky, in the Pacific Test Range off the coast of Southern California.
Peponis allegedly put two and two together and posted pictures of the bizarre creature, claiming a connection between it and the alleged UFOs.
So I found this in my back yard during that strange light in the sky the other night... This is so crazy... I'm afraid of the government to some extent.. If something happens to me please be my voice... <3
The HuffPost reached out to Peponis, but she hasn't responded.
There are some issues with her alien assertions, including the fact that the UFO sighting was actually a missile launch.
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Also, Peponis' story about what she did with the creature keeps changing. At first, she claimed she buried it. A day later, she posted this Facebook comment: "Some people came and took it.. It was dark I was too scared to go outside and ask who they were."
Most important, the photos Peponis claims she took on Saturday night in San Jose were actually posted on Facebook Nov. 5 by a man in Pleasant Hope, Missouri, named Teshawn Michael Stafford.
Stafford has not responded to an interview request from HuffPost, but at least a few people on his feed pointed out that the creature was most likely a fetus belonging to a calf.
It is unknown whether biologists have examined the actual creature in the photos.
However, Daniel Xu of OutdoorHub.com said the most likely explanation is that it is an animal fetus, most likely a deer.
"Such a miscarriage of a fetus in deer is relatively rare but can be brought about by stress or disease," he wrote. "It is also possible that a portion of the deer was already consumed by a scavenger and the rest left behind."
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Snopes.com, a website devoted to debunking urban legends, has declared Peponis' E.T. claim as a hoax, mostly because the photos weren't taken by Peponis at all, much less the time or place she claims.
Peponis, however, is sticking to her guns.
"If the thing was an aborted animal then why did I hear a defining scream?" she wrote on Facebook. "There is going to be opposition in all truth. I've accepted that."
UFOs? Maybe They're Just...
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