(CNN) A part from a secret military project, a lost piece of oceanographic equipment, a piece of a UFO -- there's lots of speculation after a mysterious object was pulled from a Rhode Island beach.
The 6-foot "thing" -- with eight metal poles converging from a circular base -- was removed from the East Beach shore Thursday by a construction crew in the town of Westerly. CNN affiliate WPRI reports the object was dismantled, put in a truck and removed to "an undisclosed location" for examination.
The object was first spotted a few months ago in the surf. It was covered and uncovered in the last few weeks by the tide, and it was finally removed when the weather cleared.
With no clear explanation for the object -- theories are rampant.
"The Day the Beach Stood Still," was the headline in the Providence Journal -- referring to the classic 1951 sci-fi movie, "The Day the Earth Stood Still." One onlooker at the beach held a sign that said "I Love Aliens."
Commenters on the WPRI Facebook page had their own thoughts.
Some were considering the plausibility: "It's part of a satellite" or "a device called acoustic Doppler current profiler." Others found the humor in the discovery: "It's the Rockefeller Christmas tree stand" and "the plug on the drain to the Atlantic Ocean."
"We haven't solved anything here today," East Beach Association President Peter Brockmann told the affiliate. "Hopefully, the experts in this field will take a look at it, now that we have it out, and be able to identify it," he said.
Brockmann said he did contact scientists at the University of Rhode Island for their assistance in identifying the object.