What is this symbol?

February 22, 2007 1:44 AM

Weird-Symbol-Filter: I have driven past this house every day to work for years and I am no closer to working out what this symbol hanging above the owner's gateway is. Help me Me-fites!

Here is the symbol I am talking about. The house doesn't look like it has any sort of business running out of it, nor is there any other signage indicating what could be there. Is this symbol commonly known? Or is it just some lone guy's commentary on life, the universe, and everything.

Yes. The irony of the question mark is well noted...

posted by TheOtherGuy to society & culture (15 comments total)

Looks like Art to me. Why not drop a note in the letterbox asking about it?
posted by flabdablet at 3:28 AM on February 22, 2007

I really like this resource for working stuff. It appears to be a question mark inside a lightbulb, which I think might refer to ideas forming from questioning. I've not seen it elsewhere.
posted by b33j at 4:08 AM on February 22, 2007

I was wondering whether it might be an obscure pop culture reference.. something from an album cover perhaps?
posted by TheOtherGuy at 4:22 AM on February 22, 2007

Looks like a round bottomed flask atop a bunsen burner to me. Perhaps your neighbor is a chemist. Or advertising his meth lab. Or both. Anyway, just ask the guy.
posted by jamaro at 5:13 AM on February 22, 2007

I could be way off, but from the area shown in the photograph, it looks like an entry to a garden. The "symbol" to me looks like it could be a map. It looks to have 4 entrances, & several paths to walk along to view the garden. My father is a landscaper & this looks like a layout he would make.
posted by Laura in Canada at 5:14 AM on February 22, 2007

Any chance you can identify the area in Google Maps, switch to the sat view, and see if it is a map of the garden?
posted by jwells at 5:24 AM on February 22, 2007

looks like a variation of a hex sign to me.
posted by lester's sock puppet at 5:57 AM on February 22, 2007

Coud be some variation of a hex sign.
posted by Kensational at 6:00 AM on February 22, 2007

JINX!!!
posted by Kensational at 6:00 AM on February 22, 2007

Ha. I too say hex sign. Not one I recall having seen though.
posted by Goofyy at 6:36 AM on February 22, 2007

Indicating a labyrinth?
posted by thinkpiece at 7:22 AM on February 22, 2007

Looks to me like a mashup of an old 45 rpm record adapter and a question mark. In other words, art, as flabdablet suggested.
posted by mosk at 7:23 AM on February 22, 2007

There used to be an online database that was searchable by symbol characteristics. It asked a series of questions, and would display a list of relevant results when you were done. (Is it symmetrical? Does it utilize rotation?) I'd recommend that, but I can't seem to find it again. Maybe someone else can harness "teh Googles" better than I at this.
posted by troubadour at 10:21 AM on February 22, 2007

troubador, the one I knew was Symbols.com, as linked by b33j
posted by AnyGuelmann at 10:41 AM on February 22, 2007

That's the one. I didn't find it on there, so I figured it must have been somewhere else. It looks quite different now. Thanks.
posted by troubadour at 11:41 AM on February 23, 2007