LANSING, Mich. — A family is trying to track down the person responsible for abducting a beloved alien from a display in downtown Eaton Rapids.
Elliot (as a scarecrow) sits on a bike in downtown Eaton Rapids, with an empty basket where E.T. used to be (source, WILX).E.T. was stolen from his spot last week and hasn't been seen since:did he go back his home planet or was he stolen?
A local family is thinking the latter after finding their E.T. and Elliot Scarecrow was suddenly without the extraterrestrial.
"Last Sunday, we got some phone calls letting us know that E.T. was ripped out of the basket and the bike--everything actually was on the ground," Jennifer Smith said.
Smith had just introduced Steven Spielberg's E.T. to her daughters so they decided to make that the theme of their scarecrow for Eaton Rapids' annual competition.
The scarecrow looked great until someone decided to cut the crocheted E.T. right out of the bike's basket.
"I feel like we put a lot of effort into this and it kind of all just got ripped apart, someone just came in and messed with our stuff," Mallory Smith said.
"I was sad because we spent a lot of time on this and someone just ripped it out," McKenna Smith added.
It took Jennifer more than eight hours to make the E.T. After he vanished, the family made a "missing person" poster for the alien hoping to find it, but so far haven't had much luck.
"I was waiting for the E.T. from home comment and I was actually surprised on how long it took for someone to do that, but in all reality I was really hoping someone say something or knew something," Jennifer said.
For the time being, Elliot is without his alien friend--something the Smith family said should never have happened.
"Not a lot of people come out of their shell or out of their comfort zone to do something like this so when you see something, just respect the fact that this took people a long time. Just respect it from a distance and leave it alone," Jennifer said.
Jennifer said she just finished crocheting a new E.T. that she plans to put in the basket soon--this one she hopes actually stays.
The scarecrow competition runs through Oct. 23. On the poster promoting it, it states the city is not liable for damage to scarecrows.
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