The Strange Case of Pokemon Go's Phantom EX Raids

Pokemon Go players claim that a large number of "phantom" EX raids appeared this weekend without any invitees.

On Sunday, a Pokemon Go player in Toulouse France shared an unusual story that had occurred the day before. The player claimed that an EX Raid had appeared in a local park, but that no players arrived to participate in the raid. Furthermore, the player discovered that no one in their local Pokemon Go chat had received an invite, even though many players had received EX Raid Passes at that gym before.

At first, the player thought that it was just a statistic anomaly. After all, a Pokemon Go chat couldn't possibly contain every player his neighborhood and it's possible that every single person who had gotten an EX Raid Invite simply had other things to do when the EX Raid took place.

However, when the player posted their story on Reddit, many other players shared their stories of EX Raids popping up over the weekend with no visible participants. Players from Europe to Asia to the United States all reported similar EX Raids popping up with no visible participants and no one in local communities getting invites.

So, did Pokemon Go actually set up an entire wave of EX Raids, only to forget to send out invites? Well, the evidence suggests it's definitely a possibility. Another potential reason for this strange anomaly is that Pokemon Go only sent out invites to spoofers, which is statistically unlikely but would suggest that spoofing is a bigger problem than game developers realized.

Luckily, many Pokemon Go players have already received EX Raid invites for the upcoming weekend, so this could be a onetime occurrence. Still, many are wondering if there's not a stranger reason for these phantom EX Raids. Perhaps Pokemon Go is catering to an invisible or ghostly fanbase?