Everyone loves a good Google Earth easter egg, especially when they're dick-shaped.
First spotted by Reddit user u/adrianmtb and reported by publisher Broadsheet, a collection of phallic symbols have appeared on three parks in the northeast of Melbourne, Australia.
Three penis-shaped glyphs were flagged as visible at T W Blake Park in the suburb of Preston. We checked, they're there. Broadsheet clocked the biggest of the three at 122 metres (133 yards) long.
News outlets have compared the glyphs to Peru's renowned (and also mysterious) Nazca Lines, a perplexing ancient collection of geoglyphs — zig-zagging straight lines, geometric figures, and renderings of animal and plants — which can only be really viewed properly from above.
Another sighting was made by the publisher at Hayes Park in the suburb of Thornbury, although this is now hard to see on Google Earth — whether or not people have destroyed it is hard to tell.
But the third reported cluster is undeniable, with two spotted at John Cain Memorial Park.
Who is behind these crop circles? The parks are within about 3 kilometres (1.86 miles) of each other, so perhaps the same culprit hit all three sites. Melbourne newspaper The Age suggested the glyphs may have appeared some time ago, late 2018, but have only been picked up now.
Whoever it is, they've royally annoyed the area's local mayor, Darebin councillor Susan Rennie, who has deployed personnel to remove them.
"Darebin Council condemns this type of irresponsible vandalism on our parks and sports grounds. It is not a cheap joke — fixing the affected ovals is complex, costly and time-consuming," she told Mashable in an email statement.
"Council is taking action to remove the graffiti, but it can take months for the grass to recover, during which time our community are left using sub-standard grounds which can be a safety hazard."
Perhaps it might be less costly to the community to draw dicks with GPS trackers in future, like this pilot in the fellow Australian city of Perth. Still, the level of mystery behind Melbourne's glyphs proves pretty stiff competition.
