Mexican President shares photo of 'mystical' creature he says was spotted at construction site

1. Mexico's president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador recently shared a photo of what he believed to be a mythological woodland spirit similar to an elf. On Sunday, he tweeted the photo of an "aluxe" which is a mischievous woodland spirit in Mayan folklore, similar to an elf.

"I share two photos of our supervision of the Mayan Train works: one, taken by an engineer three days ago, apparently from an aluxe; another, by Diego Prieto of a splendid pre-Hispanic sculpture in Ek Balam. Everything is mystical," Obrador tweeted in Spanish.

But Twitter users were quick to point out that the photo had been doing rounds on social media for two years. One even identified it as a racoon with a bag stuck on its head.

"It’s a raccoon with a bag on its head," tweeted Akilah Hughes (@AkilahObviously).

A journalist from Spain even took to Twitter to point out the Mexican president's "stupidity". "Yes, Andrés, an engineer three days ago took a photo that has been doing the rounds in Nuevo León since February 2021 and in Thailand since December of that year," Mauricio Schwarz (@elnocturno) commented. "You are sad, very sad... and the country even more... If you believe it, you are stupid... if you know you are lying, you are malicious."

Twitter has now added a context to the tweet which reads: "The first image is at least two years old, and was not taken recently as this tweet suggests."