'Pokémon Go' Trainers Are Desperate to Catch Ditto — Here's Some Theories on How It's Done

Impact
By Anna Swartz

Pokémon Go, the augmented-reality mobile game that spun-off of the massive Pokémon empire, took the world by storm when it debuted back in July. Now, having racked up plenty of common Pokémon, players are hunting for the rarest ones of all — like Ditto, the shapeshifting Pokémon that can take the form of other Pokémon, but at its core is a smiling purple blob. (Pokémon: They're just like us!)

Some clues suggest that Ditto already exists somewhere within the world of Pokémon Go — like when Niantic's John Hanke teased that there were more easter eggs left to find in the game during a panel at San Diego's Comic-Con in July — although it seems that no one has been able to actually catch a Ditto yet.

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There are entire, well-developed Reddit threads devoted to both analyzing the evidence that Ditto is hidden in the game as an easter egg and testing theories to uncover it. And it seems likely that desperate players should be able to find a Ditto if they just try hard enough. So how exactly are Pokémon Go experts going about searching for Ditto?

One theory suggests that Ditto is somehow hidden within another, catchable Pokémon, like a Geodude — which seems to have a hint of the Ditto's smiling face on its back — or that Ditto is disguised as a Pikachu that makes a slightly different sound.

Other theories posited on Reddit suggest that the key to finding Ditto is hidden in the names of medals, or that feeding your eggs butter will turn them into a Ditto. It's also possible that Ditto is only found in South America, which seems to be a continent that doesn't yet have a regional Pokémon because the game hasn't yet been released there.

Of course it's possible that Ditto isn't in the game yet, and won't be added for a while — these theories are just theories, after all. But it's way more exciting to imagine that Ditto is already lurking somewhere inside Pokémon Go, just waiting to be uncovered.