A research group in Australia have released footage and photos which they believe contain tantalizing glimpses of the legendary Tasmanian Tiger.
By way of an ambitious project which utilized a whopping 14 game cameras, the Booth Richardson Tiger Team staked out an area of wilderness in Tasmania where they suspect that the thylacine may lurk.
After months of collecting data from the endeavor, the trio of researchers shared the findings in a press conference on Tuesday where they produced a handful of still images and snippets of video.
Although the photos and video are quite ambiguous, the BRTT are confident that they show the notorious creature which scientists say has been extinct for decades yet is still allegedly witnessed in the wild to this day on rare occasions.
"I don't think it's a thylacine ... I know it's a thylacine," said group member Adrian Richardson, who has been on the hunt for the Tasmanian Tiger for over a quarter of a century.
One wildlife expert who examined the materials seemed to be largely skeptical of that definitive conclusion, but did say that there was a "one in three" chance that one particular piece of video from the group could show the thylacine.
According to the group, two other scientists who have looked at that segment of footage generally agree with the assessment that there is a roughly thirty percent possibility that a thylacine can be seen in the video.
Of course, to those skeptical that the Tasmanian Tiger could have survived until modern times, the newly-released evidence is unlikely to change their minds as only the clearest of images would even be considered from their perspective.
Nonetheless, emboldened by what they consider to be a promising proverbial 'proof of concept' for their project, the group plans to continue watching this patch of forest in Australia for the creature.
It's also worth noting that the BRTT game camera quest is one of two such searches for the thylacine either underway or planned for Australia as academics from James Cook University are also hoping to spot the creature using similar means.
With so many sophisticated 'eyes' looking for the ostensibly elusive or actually extinct animal, one would hope that some kind of breakthrough can be found soon and solve the mystery once and for all.
Otherwise, should the creature continue to evade detection despite all of the efforts to find it, realistic researchers may have to revisit the argument that the thylacine has long since left this Earth.
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Source: Mercury