A ‘Ghost Child’ at a CFE Payment Machine in Tehuacán

Condensation on window glass, the kind of surface at the centre of this case. Public-domain photo by Doggo19292, 2021, via Wikimedia Commons. Not the kiosk and not the video.

What happened

In early June 2026 a short phone video spread across Facebook and other networks in Mexico. It shows the glass-fronted booth of a bill-payment kiosk run by the Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE), the state electricity utility. According to Tunota’s 8 June report, a kind of mist appears inside the booth, and seconds later what looks like a small child’s silhouette seems to form behind the glass door. The figure stays still for a moment and then appears to move to another part of the booth.

The post that carried the clip read: “Ya estaba por pagar el recibo de luz, pero mejor dejo que me la corten.” In English: “I was about to pay the electric bill, but I’d rather let them cut it off.” Tunota and Uniradio Informa report that the person who shared it said they left without paying.

Several Mexican outlets picked it up, including Tunota, Uniradio Informa, Excélsior, El Siglo de Torreón, Horacero and Azteca Morelos. None of them identifies the person who filmed it, and neither do we.

The original video is linked through the outlets below. We do not rehost it.

Timeline

• 14 August 1937: Mexico creates the Comisión Federal de Electricidad, the utility whose payment kiosks (“CFEmáticos”) now stand outside many of its offices.
• 2020: A study in Nature Communications maps how the brain processes “illusory faces” in objects, a key piece of the pareidolia explanation.
• 26 June 2024: A CFE security camera in Durango records a utility truck that appears to move by itself, according to Excélsior. It goes viral as an earlier CFE “haunting”.
• Early June 2026: The kiosk clip begins circulating on Facebook and other platforms.
• 8 June 2026: Tunota publishes its report. Uniradio Informa’s report is stamped 19:05 the same day (time as shown on its page). Our original short item runs that week.
• 4 November 2026: This rewrite re-checks all sources.

What believers claim

Some viewers say the clip shows the ghost of a child haunting the kiosk. Tunota reports that “algunos usuarios afirmaron creer que se trataba de un fenómeno paranormal” (“some users said they believed it was a paranormal phenomenon”). The figure’s apparent movement from one side of the booth to the other is offered as proof that it is not a stain or a reflection.

The claim fits a familiar regional genre. Tunota and El Siglo de Torreón both link the clip to other viral “niña fantasma” videos, including one from a shopping centre in Torreón.

What the research found

1. The video is real as a viral object, but its origin is not documented. Six Mexican outlets reported on it. All of them describe a reposted clip with a caption. None names the original account, gives an upload time, or shows that a reporter reached the person who filmed it. None of the cited sources identifies a first upload with a verifiable date.