ARLINGTON COUNTY, Va. β Imagine sitting down for dinner with your family, and you get a Ring notification. You check the camera, but it's not a delivery person or a neighbor, it's a gingerbread man.
That is exactly what happened to one Arlington family who lives along N George Mason Drive on Wednesday.
"My wife said 'hey listen, there's this guy, he didn't ring the doorbell he's just standing there and he's in this gingerbread man costume' and I'm like gingerbread man -- what?" said the neighbor who asked WUSA9 not to identify him or his family, since the "gingerbread man" is still out there, and they don't know what that person's intentions were.
He and his family didn't know what to do, so they just watched the camera from inside their home.
"We noticed the door was trying to be pushed. We look at the camera I'm looking at this guy in a costume," said the homeowner.
He told WUSA9 he wasn't sure how to react, but felt like he should report what had happened just in case. He called the non-emergency police line.
"I just told them listen, I just want to report this, it's not an emergency. Some guy came with a gingerbread man costume, and they [the operator] were like a gingerbread man? I'm like yes a gingerbread man costume. I have the video," he told WUSA9.
That was around 7 p.m. on Wednesday.
Another neighbor told WUSA9 she saw the gingerbread man about an hour earlier, also along N George Mason Drive.
"We have a big picture window that faces N George Mason. All of a sudden my dogs were going crazy barking out the window and I looked out, and there was a giant blow-up gingerbread man costume out on the sidewalk," said Lindsey Churchill.
She told WUSA9 she was shocked.
"We kind of locked eyes and the gingerbread man went on his way. So weird," she said.
Several other neighbors told WUSA9 they also spotted him in the area at points throughout the evening.
Arlington County Police told WUSA9 Thursday night the following:
A community member filed an online report regarding suspicious circumstances. The report indicates that at approximately 6:00 p.m. on December 13, a man in a gingerbread costume tried to open the door of a residence in the 2600 block of N. George Mason Drive and, upon finding the door was locked, walked away. A witness approached the subject outside and he reportedly stated he was looking for a friendβs house.
The fact that police never actually spoke with the "gingerbread man" had some neighbors feeling a bit unnerved.
"It is kind of like a horror movie. In this costume this whole ordeal, what was the goal? Just to see if we're home? Or to enter the house?" said one homeowner.
"It's a good thing we had our doors locked," he said.
"It was not holly jolly," said Churchill.