Alien in the crosswalk?

UPDATE:  Since I posted this, I have learned that this character is known as “stikman” and is the work of an urban guerilla artist known only as “Bob,” who occasionally visits D.C.

On my way to work, which takes me by foot from Union Station to the Library of Congress, I have begun to notice these little critters in the crosswalks.  They look like tiny space aliens made out of the reflective material used for lane markings.  Does anyone know the story behind them?  I wonder if they have popped up in other parts of D.C.?  If you’ve seen one, drop me a line with the location.  (Use the “Contact” link on http://tackytreasures.com/)

So far, the ones I’ve seen are only white and yellow, which further supports the argument that someone got creative with traffic striping material.  They are cute little figures about six inches long, and they aren’t identical.  Check out this Flickr set with the ones that I photographed this morning: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tackyjulie/sets/72157626888853267/ And as you do, try to picture me standing in the middle of a crosswalk with a camera pointed toward the pavement.  Pedestrians walked by me as if I wasn’t there (that’s typical of DC; I once wore a purple wig on the subway, and no one acted as if anything was unusual.)  Cars had to wait to make the right turn on red while I did my photo shoot, but none of them blew their horn (that’s not typical DC behavior!)

They remind me a little of the “Toynbee Tiles,” which first appeared in Philadelphia in the 1980s, and spread to Washington, D.C., and other major cities of the North and South America.  Those where more like graffiti with the message, “Toynbee ideas in Kubrick’s 2001 resurrect dead on Jupiter.”  You can read more about this phenomenon in Wikipedia:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toynbee_tiles.  Also there was a website devoted to the Toynbee Tiles that is no longer maintained.  Thank goodness that Wayback Machine at the Internet Archives has saved it here:  http://web.archive.org/web/20071218004343/http://www.toynbee.net/

stikman articles:

• http://www.woostercollective.com/2005/09/moniker_stories_part_ix.html
• http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/18/AR2008091803439.html