You can never tell the motivation for a crime, of course, unless the criminal tells you himself—or herself.

But somehow—and this is based solely on the in-depth psychological profiling one develops almost as instinct after reading approximately 10,000 Dave Barry columns over the course of a lifetime—we think it's a guy.

Here's the blotter item:

Someone took a "green alien" plastic Christmas light fixture from the front yard of a home in the 500 block of Highbury Lane sometime between noon and 5 p.m. Dec. 20, Geneva police reports said. The value of the figure was estimated at $50.

An interesting detail is that the perpetrator would have the nerve to steal the object in broad daylight.

Another point of interest is motive. Was it jealousy or avarice? Did the thief covet his neighbor's alien? Was it perhaps a statement that front-yard figures at holiday ought to be more like Santa, less like ET?

For now, and perhaps forever, the crime remains one of the many mysteries of the holiday season.