A local news report of a cougar sighting took a turn into instant internet infamy, when a small house cat photobombed the report, posing perfectly in the frame as a news chyron read, "LARGE CAT SPOTTED."

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Reporter Scott Madaus was reporting live from Hernando, Mississippi for Fox13 when he directed his cameraperson to the "large cat": "I'm Scott Madaus, live in Hernando, Mississippi where there have been spottings of a cougar... And that's not it, that looks like a house cat."

The video was shared on Twitter by David Mack, a BuzzFeed News reporter (who first saw it here) shared it with the caption, "omg this is everything."

Clearly, people felt a kinship with the cat:

Madaus later shared the video himself, writing, "The cat that stole the show. Not really sure how my live tease made social media let alone international social media. But here you go if you didn't catch it."

In a later interview with Mack, Madaus admitted that the shot wasn't that as spontaneous as you might've believed:

"[The cat] had come out from this brush from underneath a tree and it was just standing there, staring at me, and I thought how ironic is this that we're doing a story about a 100-pound plus possible cougar and here's this small, little house cat ... If you look at the video, it's just methodically staring at me. He almost turns his head back towards where the cougar was identified, like, 'What did you say?'"

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Lilian Min
I'm the night shift at Cosmopolitan.com and a writer and reporter around the web. I spend my daylight hours playing music, crafting, cooking, scheming, and rearing my pet chameleon.