"I saw the 'Your Shot' contest, which of course I knew existed, but I had never thought of entering one of my own pictures into it," Brandts said. "I thought, 'This is what I'm going to do!'"

Brandts said she submitted it on August 5 and by August 13 it was NationalGeopgrahic.com's photo of the day.

"Things just kind of spun out of control from there."

The photo was soon published in the pages of two national Canadian newspapers, and Brandts received calls from a friend in South Korea who'd seen it on a local South Korean news Web site.

The couple has since appeared on NBC's "Today" show, as well as the Twin Cities' local affiliate KARE.

And now that it's been selected for publication in the November issue of National Geographic, the attention hasn't subsided.

As of this writing Brandts has received Facebook messages from random fans in 29 different countries. The Facebook group "Nuts the Squirrel is a Legend" comes complete with 5,300 fans and counting.

The squirrel is also being used by Banff National Park in advertising on its Web site, and it has created a Banff squirrel Twitter account.

There's even a Web site dubbed "The Squirrelizer," which has apparently been created for people who feel their photos lack a certain "squirrel charm," if you will. The site's tool will paste the squirrel cutout onto any picture uploaded.

Other sites have pasted the squirrel onto various scenes from history, from the D-Day invasion at Normandy to the Apollo moon landing.

And it hasn't stopped there.

"It keeps popping up everywhere, like at my husband's job," Brandts added. "If people are giving him a presentation, all of the sudden they'll have a squirrel pop up."

Authenticity assured

It was during their appearance on "Today" that host Matt Lauer raised questions about the possibility the photo could have been doctored. Brandts assured him, as she did once more for CNN, that the photo is "completely authentic" but said she understood the skepticism because people had originally thought the photo was taken simply with a timer -- as opposed to the remote shutter she used in actuality -- which, if it were the case, would have kept the couple in focus and blurred the squirrel.

"National Geographic looked at the full high-resolution [image, and] realized it was authentic," Brandts said, adding, "You can't make this stuff up."