Star-struck selectman finds mystery in front yard
By Seth Golden
Special to the Sun Journal

TURNER – Sometimes the stars align in mysterious ways. Just ask Henry Gibbert who found an apparently live starfish near his driveway on North Parish Road Wednesday morning.

“I was dumbfounded,” he said. “I couldn’t believe it. I thought it was a leaf.”

The 83-year old found the sea creature when he went out for his paper about 7:30 a.m.

“I know it rained last night, but I don’t think it rained starfish,” Gibbert quipped.

The starfish was soft, a darker black on top and lighter underneath. It was about 2.5 inches in diameter and it had five legs, Gibbert said. He picked it up and put it in a Mason jar.

“I don’t know if he’s dead or alive, but he feels like he’s alive. It’s very pliable.”

So how did it land in Turner?

Gibbert said he does not believe anybody threw it out of a car. “Now why would they do that?” he asked. Asked whether someone was trying to send him a message, he said, “I don’t know.”

He ruled out a practical joke. “I don’t have any friends who play tricks on me,” he said. “I don’t think it was placed.”

Moreover, if it was a joke the starfish would probably have been placed right inside his driveway instead of by the edge of the road’s white line, Gibbert said.

Did the starfish go Darwin, saunter out of the surf and walk to Turner? “It’d be at least 35 miles as the crow flies,” Gibbert said. “I don’t know how it got there.”

The whole thing has left the veteran Turner selectman incredulous. “It’s a mystery to me,” he said.