I don't just mean because he was Instinct either.

In my town there are 4 gyms, total. One of those 4 gyms is a veterans memorial. Now, that memorial is located across the street from a grocery store parking lot and at the base of a wide open field with a bit of a hill that you can't reach the gym from the top of. You can not attack/train at the gym unless you cross the street from the parking lot, it's too far back.

Essentially, if someone is at that gym playing Pokemon Go, you'll see them, guaranteed. They'll either be standing on the sidewalk, sitting in a parked car near the memorial in one of the 6 parking spots for it, or about halfway up the hill in the field.

So today, I'm doing my daily routine of taking and karping the gyms for my bonus. I come to this one last as it gets the most player traffic. I take it, I grab my bonus, and I notice someone is fighting it already, less than 15 seconds after I took it. So I look around to give a nod and a smile, some recognition of the other player.

Except, there is no one around. No cars on the side of the road. No one standing on the hill or anywhere in the field for that matter. I checked around the backside of the memorial, no one there. I look to see which team took it. Instinct. Well I can't be having a yellow gym in my town, especially not one held by a non-existent player.

I take it back and karp it again. He takes it right back. This went on for about 30 minutes, back and forth. Eventually a Valor player showed up and was all "This gym has been swapping between Mystic and Instinct a lot for the past 20 or so" and I was like "Ya, when you find the Instinct player around here let me know will ya" and he just looked at me and looked around as well and noticed, I'm the only other player in the area. So he takes the gym and Instinct took it right back from him too! We just stood there all confused, shrugged, and left.

You win this night mysterious non-existent Instinct player.