Mystery totem pole appears from nowhere on clifftop overnight

Speculation rife after 8ft-sculpture, inscribed with name of Baltic God Perkunas, appears on clifftop

A coastal town has been left baffled after a mysterious totem pole appeared on a clifftop overnight, sparking wild speculations over how it got there.

The 8ft-sculpture, inscribed with the name of the Baltic god of thunder Perkunas, appeared on the clifftops on the Capel-Le-Ferne nature reserve in Kent.

Speculation has been rife over the totem since it appeared, with theories online ranging from aliens to art pranksters, with one person suggesting it is a “camo phone mast”.

Kent Wildlife Trust is seeking retrospective planning permission to allow “Perkunas the Pole” to stay on the cliff permanently after it appeared on the 27 July and has appealed for the artist to come forward.

A spokesman for the trust said: “The local council has given us eight weeks to submit planning permission and it would be great to track down the person behind Perkūnas to get a bit more detail so we can keep it.”

A wildlife trust has declared the random appearance of a sculpture on a popular clifftop trail a ‘totem mystery’ (Kent Wildlife Trust)

It added on Twitter: “It is not quite a Banksy, but perhaps the totem pole artist equivalent?”

The god of lightning, thunder and storms, Perkunas was considered the second most important deity in the Baltic pantheon, with both Lithuanian and Latvian mythology further documenting him as the god of war, law, order, fertility, mountains and oak trees.

The Capel-Le-Ferne nature reserve was acquired by Kent Wildlife Trust to protect a section of the famous White Cliffs of Dover, used as nesting points by seabirds and populated by peregrine falcons.

Kent Wildlife Trust’s area manager Ian Rickards said: “The artist behind this would have spent hours painstakingly carving out the details and we are keen to keep it on our reserve.

“The artwork seems to be a hit with the walkers who have taken selfies and congratulated us on the installation, but we had no idea how it came to be there.”