P
The name fades out. A P, then a katakana u, then another, then another, Pゥ ゥ ゥ, each syllable a little quieter than the last, like an echo dying against a canyon wall or a signal losing its grip. It is the most rhythmic name in the catalogue, a stutter that trails into silence, and it belongs to the sixth of the great faceless heavyweights whose sprites are borrowed from whatever your Game Boy last drew.
By now the body is familiar, 232 HP and triple-digit bulk behind two types that do not exist and a face that flickers. What this one keeps that its siblings do not is a way out. At level 44 it learns Fly.
Fly is not really a battle move. It is a Hidden Machine, the one you teach a bird so it can lift you off the ground and carry you clear across Kanto to any town you have already seen. It is the game's fast-travel, its escape hatch, the move that means leaving. And here it sits in the learnset of a creature that should not exist anywhere, a wild anomaly that knows how to simply fly away. Picture it: a faceless giant, stitched from memory and nonsense, spreading wings it does not visibly have and vanishing over the horizon toward Pallet Town. Its evolutions circle back to Ditto and Cloyster and Venonat, but the detail that stays with you is that fading name and the one move in its kit that is about departure. Pゥ ゥ ゥ, echoing away, already halfway gone.
GLITCH TYPE 0x8D GLITCH TYPE 0x84
The bytes
| What | Where in the ROM | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Index number | slot 213 of the species table | 0xD5 (213) |
| Pokedex byte | 0x410F8 | 205 (borrowed from a real species) |
| Stats entry | 0x39A2E | 91 E8 93 91 80 88 8D 84 91 F5... |
| Size byte | entry byte 10 | 0x50 = 0 wide, 5 tall (the buffer holds 7x7) |
| Name bytes | 0x1CA66 | AF EA 09 C1 EA 6B CD 3E 01 EA |
| Catch rate | entry byte 8 | 145 |
Front sprite pointer 0x8E8F points into VRAM/RAM (depends on memory state). There is no sprite data there, only whatever your Game Boy was doing a moment ago. The images above cycle through three reconstructions seeded with different video memory states.
Byte for byte identical in Blue.
Base stats
Its stat spread, straight from the entry bytes. Glitch specimens love extremes, a wall with zero attack, or a paper-thin speedster.
Moves
Knows from the start: BARRAGE, CLAMP, LEECH LIFE, HI JUMP KICK.
Learnset (read straight from its pointer)
| Level | Move |
|---|---|
| L17 | THUNDER |
| L252 | LIGHT SCREEN |
| L193 | SKULL BASH |
| L87 | GLITCH MOVE 0xC7 |
| L44 | FLY |
| L147 | VICEGRIP |
| L156 | GLITCH MOVE 0xF5 |
| L64 | GLITCH MOVE 0xFF |
| L157 | CUT |
| L126 | SAND-ATTACK |
| L116 | COUNTER |
| L231 | BONE CLUB |
| L71 | GLITCH MOVE 0xC3 |
| L128 | MIRROR MOVE |
| L190 | EARTHQUAKE |
| L76 | SLAM |
| L59 | FURY ATTACK |
| L212 | GLITCH MOVE 0xC9 |
| L134 | TACKLE |
| L250 | GLITCH MOVE 0xB4 |
| L21 | STUN SPORE |
| L74 | MEGA PUNCH |
| L172 | GLITCH MOVE 0xC1 |
| L42 | WATERFALL |
TM and HM compatibility (flag bits, entry bytes 20 to 26)
| Machine | Move |
|---|---|
| TM02 | RAZOR WIND |
| TM08 | BODY SLAM |
| TM13 | ICE BEAM |
| TM15 | HYPER BEAM |
| TM18 | COUNTER |
| TM21 | MEGA DRAIN |
| TM24 | THUNDERBOLT |
| TM27 | FISSURE |
| TM29 | PSYCHIC |
| TM32 | DOUBLE TEAM |
| TM33 | REFLECT |
| TM34 | BIDE |
| TM35 | METRONOME |
| TM36 | SELFDESTRUCT |
| TM40 | SKULL BASH |
| TM43 | SKY ATTACK |
| TM48 | ROCK SLIDE |
| TM49 | TRI ATTACK |
| HM03 | SURF |
Evolutions
| Trigger | Becomes |
|---|---|
| LEVEL 85 (glitch method 0x39) | DITTO (0x4C) |
| LEVEL 153 (glitch method 0x13) | PARAS (0x6D) |
| LEVEL 142 (glitch method 0x55) | CLOYSTER (0x8B) |
| LEVEL 200 (glitch method 0x7F) | VENONAT (0x41) |
| LEVEL 30 (glitch method 0x39) | AERODACTYL (0xAB) |
| LEVEL 227 (glitch method 0xC6) | MAROWAK (0x91) |
| LEVEL 242 (glitch method 0x5D) | DRATINI (0x58) |
| LEVEL 160 (glitch method 0xE5) | MISSINGNO. (0xB5) |
The glitch that can leave
Most of these creatures are trapped in the single battle you summon them into. This one is not. Buried in its garbage learnset are the field moves, the ones that carry a Pokemon through the world instead of hurting things in a fight.
A pile of borrowed video memory with no business existing, and it taught itself the three moves whose whole purpose is leaving. The name trails off like an echo. Given the chance, so would it.
Hear its cry
A cry is three bytes the game looks up by index number: a base sound, a pitch, and a length. This specimen reads its three bytes straight from the table. I rebuild the sound live from the Game Boy's two pulse channels and its noise channel. This is not a recording.
Does it still work?
This is the question people actually ask about a glitch, so here is the honest answer for this one.
| Where | Still works? |
|---|---|
| Original Game Boy cartridge | Yes. The source of every byte on this page. |
| Game Boy Color / Super Game Boy | Yes, with the auto-assigned palette shown above. |
| 3DS Virtual Console (2016 re-release) | Yes. Nintendo shipped the re-release unpatched, so this is the most accessible way to reach it in 2026. |
| Later remakes (FireRed, Let's Go, and newer) | No. Rebuilt engines, the empty-slot overflow that produces this creature is gone. |
Fight it yourself
This is our from-scratch recreation of the Red battle engine. The enemy team is preset to this specimen; pick your own fighter, glitch or otherwise.
Every number on this page was read from a Pokemon Red ROM by reproducing the game's own out-of-bounds memory reads. Nothing is invented. Part of The Glitchhouse.