The first time anyone met Meltan, it didn't even have a name. It had three question marks.
In September 2018, a brand-new Mythical Pokémon made its debut not in a main-series game, not in a trailer, but in the wild grass of Pokémon GO, as a costume worn by Ditto. Players who caught it didn't get a new Pokédex entry. They got a Ditto, and a mystery.
The weekend a nut showed up
The timing was almost too neat. According to Game Informer's report, first published on September 22, 2018, players getting ready for the Chikorita Community Day started running into something nobody recognised. The first reports came from the Asia-Pacific region, Game Informer said, citing the fan research group Silph Road, before sightings spread to places including New York and Minnesota.
The encounter screen listed the creature as "???". It looked like a tiny silver blob with a hexagonal nut on its head and a single eye peering out of the middle. Catch it, and the disguise came off: Game Informer reported that it showed up in players' collections as a Ditto or a Chikorita, so nobody could add the new thing to their Pokédex. Some players saw a Kecleon instead, and Silph Road found the mystery creature's cry matched Kecleon's.
So for a few days the community had a living puzzle on its hands. Was it a glitch? A teaser? A MissingNo.-style ghost in the code? Game Informer floated all three.
How we know it was on purpose
Then the official answer arrived, in the most Pokémon way possible. A Pokémon GO news post dated September 24, 2018 confirmed that the mystery Pokémon was Meltan, a Mythical Pokémon, and that Ditto all over the world had been transforming into it. Professor Willow, the post said, had contacted Professor Oak in Kanto, and the two were investigating together.
So that's the trick, in the game's own story: the Ditto were the ones in costume. The "???" on the encounter screen was a Ditto dressed up as Meltan, and a Poké Ball was all it took to knock the costume off.
Game Informer's update added the rest. The Pokémon Company named Meltan the Hex Nut Pokémon, a Steel type, and said Pokémon GO would be "key to meeting this curious new Pokémon in Pokémon Let's Go!"
The box that tied two games together
The second half of the trick came in October. As Nintendo Life reported on October 10, 2018, new trailers explained that catching Meltan properly meant getting a Mystery Box, which you received the first time you sent a Pokémon from GO to Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! or Let's Go, Eevee! on Switch.
Open the box and Meltan would appear in GO, but only for the player who opened it. The box then closed after one use, and reopening it meant waiting and sending another Pokémon across. Meltan caught this way could travel to the Let's Go games and follow you around like any other partner. A second trailer even teased an evolved form.
That's the clever bit. Meltan wasn't just a new species; it was a bridge between a phone game and a Switch game, built so each one gave you a reason to open the other.
New Pokémon usually arrive the classic way: a reveal, a name, a release date, then a game. Meltan flipped the order. It showed up first, nameless and mislabelled, and let players around the world notice something was off before anyone explained it. A mystery with a real answer, delivered by a Ditto that was pretending to be the new kid. Honestly, that's the most Ditto thing a Ditto has ever done.
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