La leyenda de Pacita, la loba de la Casa de Campo en Madrid.

Let’s go back to the late 70s. Madrid was starting to shake off the dust of the dictatorship. Its streets were boiling with protests, a desire to live, and dreams. And in this context of effervescence and change, the story of a she-wolf wandering through Casa de Campo emerged.

The people of Madrid named her «Pacita,» and soon her existence began to spread from mouth to mouth. There were no videos, no photos, no traces. Just accounts that agreed on the sighting of a large, solitary animal that appeared among the bushes and trees at dusk in Casa de Campo.

Who was Pacita?

The description pointed to an Iberian wolf, but it could also have been a large feral dog. No one knew for sure, and that didn’t seem to matter. Her mysterious appearance spread like wildfire, and suddenly everyone was talking about Pacita, while the authorities remained silent.

Neither the Madrid Zoo—located within the park itself—nor the forest rangers ever confirmed the existence of any wolf. There were no official reports attesting to her presence, nor denials refuting it. Institutional silence would help fuel the story.

Some suggested that Pacita could have been an animal that escaped from a private collection. Others pointed to an optical illusion. But the truth is that Pacita became an urban legend that fed the collective imagination of the people of Madrid in those years.

The she-wolf was never seen by everyone, but everyone talked about her. Umberto Eco, in «Apocalípticos e Integrados,» legitimizes the cultural value of these shared, uncertain, and unverifiable narratives. «The important thing is not so much the truth of the fact, but the fact that it is said, repeated, propagated. Mythification is a language of popular culture,» he wrote.

Today, in the age of digital hoaxes, Pacita’s story seems pure innocence. An analog legend, told aloud, without likes. Just imagination. A simple, unexpected, and ambiguous rumor. A simple echo of what we were and what we are willing to believe.