  The existence of extremely dark and compact astronomical bodies is by now a
well established observational fact. On the other hand, classical General
Relativity predicts the existence of black holes which fit very well with the
observations, but do lead to important conceptual problems. In this
contribution we ask ourselves the straightforward question: Are the dark and
compact objects that we have observational evidence for black holes in the
sense of General Relativity? By revising the semiclassical scenario of stellar
collapse we find out that as the result of a collapse some alternative objects
could be formed which might supplant black holes.
