The Mystery of the Giant LEGO Man

I came across this story this morning, and while there’s nothing paranormal or otherworldly about it, it definitely falls into the “weird news” category. Plus it’s a bit more lighthearted than what we usually cover here. Apparently an 8-foot tall LEGO man (you know the building block toys?) washed up on a beach near Siesta Key, Florida. nobody knows where it came from, and stranger still, this apparently isn’t the first time this has happened.

We’ve heard of people finding messages in bottles on the beach, but how about an 8-foot-tall LEGO figure?

We first saw the news over at BoingBoing. Apparently a man was out walking on the beach near lovely Siesta Key in Florida, when he came across “something” laying in the surf a ways away. He went to investigate, and what do you know — it was a giant LEGO man. On its torso was a message, reading “No Real Than You Are.” Yeah, we don’t get it either.

Nobody (at least nobody official) is sure why the plastic figure showed up on the shore. We spoke to Amanda Santoro, Assistant Brand Relations Manager at LEGO. She declined comment but did say that the “stunt” was “in no way endorsed or sponsored by the LEGO Group or its affiliates.”

OK, so does that mean somebody stole a giant LEGO figure and planted it on the beach? Well, maybe. Believe it or not, this sort of thing has happened before. Several years back, a giant LEGO man washed up in the Dutch resort of Zandvoort. That same figure (or perhaps a twin) also appeared at a Brighton beach in the U.K.

Is this the same LEGO man? Did it really cross the ocean by itself? Or was it placed there by a jokester? No way to know. For now, though, check out the video below of people marveling at the discovery. Staged or not, it must have been an odd way to start the morning.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this was some far-reaching and coordinated effort on the part of some pranksters, and perhaps the people “stumbling upon” these LEGO men are involved. It’s harmless fun, but it gets into the newspapers and online news sites, and gives people like me something odd to write about. It definitely seems staged, and I think the alternative, three giant LEGO men coincidentally washing up from the ocean on the shores of three different countries, is a little harder to believe. What do you think of the origin of the giant LEGO men is?