On the evening of Aug. 4, Lucy Williams and a few stealthy friends secretly posted 80 signs around the Island.

The red, white and blue political-looking signs depict a man’s portrait in the style of Shepard Fairey’s iconic illustration of President Barack Obama. The rectangular signs read “FIFTY!” but contained no other identifying information.

That man turns out to be Stuart Williams, Lucy’s husband. And as of Aug. 5, he publicly reached the big “five-oh.”

“My goal was for people to call and e-mail well wishes on his birthday,” Lucy wrote in an e-mail confession to the Reporter. “It worked, but many of the signs have since been turning up in all sorts of interesting places.”

Islander Carrie Bell e-mailed the Reporter of “FIFTY!” sightings as far away as Sun Valley, Idaho, and included photos of the sign all over Seattle.

“The coverage in the MI Reporter was the icing on the cake,” Lucy wrote. “So there you go; mystery solved.”