A recent question cites a puzzle, and is skeptical that there is an answer.
It looks like a notable claim and an expression of skepticism that it is true.
Should we accept puzzles as questions?
See also:
Puzzling: a Stack Exchange dedicated to these questions.
Are magic tricks in scope? Puzzles and magic tricks have a lot in common.
The solving of puzzles - i.e. toy problems designed to test ingenuity - should not be considered on-topic.
Simply finding the answer is not the role of this site, even if the puzzle itself may be notable - e.g. Rubik's Cube or any of those interminable arithmetic questions that create a buzz by revealing people's ignorance about the order of operations in arithmetic.
Finding solutions may be on topic at Puzzling Stack Exchange.
Puzzles may still be on-topic here in at least a couple of ways.
There may be claims about the puzzle - e.g. that the Riddle of the Sphinx originated in Ancient Egypt.
There may be claims about the answer - e.g. an answer declared to be right on a trivia quiz show like QI - which is based on doubtful facts.
Both of those are claims that amenable to answering based on the application of scientific skepticism. However, simply linking to a puzzle and asking for the solution is not.
I voted to close as primarily opinion based. Whether one of the animals looks like a cat, or looks like an owl, is a matter of opinion.
I reckon the cat looks like Totoro!
You can make almost everything fit into the literal description of our scope, but I think solving puzzles here doesn't make much sense. We usually deal with finding answers to "real world" questions, a puzzle is an artificial challenge. I personally don't think we should solve puzzles here.
There are probably cases where questions about puzzles might be on-topic here, I'm thinking mostly about cases where the solution is controversial and the whole thing is making the round on social media.
In the interest of clarity and indexability I would leave puzzles to the appropriate sub-site, unless the solution is part of refuting/confirming a larger claim.
("Is there a cat?" vs "Is it true that only the thrice sworn monks of quala lumpur can solve this puzzle?")
For me, the key to this particular question being on topic comes from the appearance of a notable published source of the specific claim that the puzzle has a solution. If the puzzle were "making the rounds on Facebook", then there'd be no guarantee that was even a single version of the puzzle. But given the Us magazine article, the question becomes well defined and answerable.
So it comes down to whether this is within scope. I want to say yes to that as well. The image is just a big 2D array of numbers, and the claim is about an observable pattern within those numbers. Therefore this is isomorphic to questions like "do the digits of pi really contain the works of Shakespeare".
