Being a Floridian I have spent more than my fare share of time on the state’s beaches and from time to time have seen some weird stuff wash up on shore, but I have never seen anything this weird/awesome in my life. Earlier today at Siesta Key Village, Florida, Jeff Hindman found a giant Lego Minifig washed up on the beach. Now for the life of me, I can not understand why he left the 8 foot figure on the beach (if I had found it, it so would be sitting in my living room making my inner child uncontrollably giddy), but he did.

Amazingly, this is not the first time that this has happened. Yes, giant Minifigs have washed up onshore before. Four years ago a similar Minifig was found in Holland followed by a second in Brighton, England a year later. At the time research into the giant Minifigs revealed a connection to a website for Ego Leonard which is apparently run by a group of Dutch artists. Could this giant Lego have spent years floating in the Atlantic before making its way to the Sunshine State or is it part of a new group of giant figures deposited off the Florida coast (possibly linked to recent opening of LegoLand Florida)?

Giant Lego Man washes ashore in Florida

[UPDATED] It looks as if a Mothman may have paid a visit to the Windy City. According to witness reports a large bat-like creature with glowing red eyes was spotted in the University Park neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois on Friday, September 30th 2011. Witnesses spotted the creature, which they estimated to be 6 to 7 feet tall, perched on a basketball hoop in Miller Park. When it took off, the heard an audible “whoosh” as it beat its wings. Nearby two female witnesses were moved to hysterics when they spotted a pair of glowing red eyes peering in the window. Researchers have identified multiple witness and are currently investigating the incident.

If the creature that was spotted in Chicago was a Mothman, could there be a tragedy in the city’s future? If we are to believe the historic sightings of the Mothman, it very well may be. After the 1966 and 1967 sightings in Point Pleasant, West Virginia the Silver Bridge, which connected the town to Kanauga, Ohio over the Ohio river collapsed during rush hour killing 46. There are also reports of a Mothman type creature being spotted around the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant shortly before the plants catastrophic failure in 1986. If the Mothman is indeed an omen of catastrophe, what does the future hold for Chicago?

UPDATE: I can’t believe that I failed to make the connection when I was writing the post, but Friday Oct 8th there was a major freight train derailment 100 miles outside of Chicago. The derailment set off a series of massive explosions that caused the evacuation of the 800 residents of the small town of Tiskilwa, Illinois. Amazingly, no one was hurt in the accident. Could the Mothman sighting be linked to this accident, or is something else in store for Chicago?

A possible Mothman sighting in Chicago, Illinois? [via @CoraxSays]

The evening of February 28th, several witnesses saw what appeared to be a meteor falling from the sky over Miami, Florida. However, it soon became apparent to the witnesses that the object they were watching was no meteor. According to three separate reports to MUFON (report #1, report #2, report #3) the “meteor” split into multiple objects which proceeded to change direction and fly off. Additionally, one of the witnesses saw the exact same thing happen moments later in the same area of the sky. This is a video (unfortunately of very low quality) of the same sighting taken by a fourth witness that shows the objects appearing to hover in the sky as they split apart and the second “meteor” falling and splitting up.

One possible explanation is that planes from the nearby Homestead Air Reserve Base were dropping flares, but in all the footage I have seen, flares are usually dropped separately in a line and are all individually visible from the time that they are dropped. The lights were only visible as a single point of light until they neared the ground in all of the witness statements. (Please feel free to correct me in the comments if I am wrong, as my knowledge of military flares is admittedly limited.) Additionally, if the lights were flares being carried by prevailing winds, they should have all been carried in approximately the same direction at approximately the same speed, but two of the witness accounts say that the objects flew at different speeds in multiple directions. This leads me to believe that these objects were not flares, leaving me wondering what exactly flying over South Florida that night? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

MUFON Witness Report #1
MUFON Witness Report #2
MUFON Witness Report #3
UFO Sighting Miami 28.02.2010 @ Dailymotion