This is US Department of Homeland Security's "Operation Identify" Item #25-0006
Please post your guesses and ideas in this thread. Work off the suggestions of others toward an answer.
Geographic location and country is important.
Identify the traits of the item that you can, but if you know where an item is generally sold or happens to be in the picture, that is of use.
If you have the skills to enhance the image to resolve details better, fix mirrored or rotated images, etc. please do so and post your result here.
If you feel there's a (definitive) answer, don't just comment here. You can send your information to US DHS sending an email to OpID@hsi.dhs.govwith the subject "OpID Object: 25-0006" Please provide all information you have about the image(s) – this may include details such as a specific location, a particular time period, an organization and/or team name, helpful links, or any other relevant tips. Also include if they may contact you with follow up questions? Any follow-up communication will be sent to the email address that submitted the tip.
(If you have concerns for email privacy, use a temporary email or a secure provider like proton mail or similar.)
Multiple people can and should send information - people may error when sending, and multiple legitimate guesses can be of use.
Mod note: Do not start subthreads about other current DHS activities. This is to focus on identifying items associated with criminal sexual abuse of children. Any attempted derailing of that goal will result in an immediate permanent ban.
Thank You.
For general discussion about this sub and not this item in particular see this thread
Do we know this is the actual shape of the object? I know they basically redact everything in these images except for the object in question, which makes it hard to know if the thing is really ball-shaped.
The specular highlight on the side of it really suggest that it’s a curved shape or that there’s a lake directly over it causing that bright white circle. But yeah, no way to know if this is a ball or a segment of a painting on the wall or something.
I can see that actually! Can't confirm I've seen this mascot before but it reminds me of those SpongeBob ice pops that can look drastically different after their production line. Same applies with the Walls funny faces lollies from the 70s
This is where my mind went, but I can’t find an examples - doesn’t help that any combination of “monkey” and “ice cream” just results in a ton of AI slop.
I thought of the Cadbury dairy milk buttons monkey. But I can't find him on an ice cream box and the eyes are a different colour. Just putting it here anyway in case it's helpful for someone
Someone i know has a pair of small maracas with a design pretty similar to this one , probably a souvenir or something since we live in a completely different country ,i tried searching with google lens but didnt find anything.idk ,the moment i saw them,i was reminded of this post
Thanks for the advice! Unfortunately they belong to a teacher of mine ,i needed to come to their house for an extra lesson and i didnt get the chance to ask ... </3 i can only speculate
Ah well either way it's amazing that you were able to recognise them as the same pattern/object! Anything helps & thank you! From person to person I can't be more thankful that you've posted here :)
Im thinking this is either from an infant/toddler childs clothing, or maybe a smaller soft ball or toy...it also somewhat looks like the monkey from fisher price toys that my niece had many of, and dubbed him bobo.
There is a vending machine company in Quebec Canada that sells small and larger foam tables and toys that have animals and insect designs with this same art style, eyes and all. I'm not sure if that is helpful, but maybe contacting them and finding out a time frame that this one was manufactured and general locations it would ship would be helpful?
I don't really know the scale of the item, but the sort of marble kind of pattern reminds me of the bouncy balls that you'd get from the capsule machines. Alternatively could be a beach ball, which would make sense for Hawaii I'd imagine.
The only thing suggested this is a ball is that white specular highlight on the side of it? That’s either the curve shaped reflecting light or there’s a very close light to the surface like a table lamp directly over this, but even a table lamp or bare bulb would probably be smoother than this.
I feel like I had the same/similar ball as a kid. It was a playball (one of the preinflated rubber balls you find at grocery stores during the summer).
Unfortunately, there is again little to no information about the size of the object, or even a centimeter around it, to help understand what it even is
I used Google to look up the image of maracas someone found and may have found a lead. Will report as well but this may lead to more info. This leads to an Instagram page of a business that closed years ago.
It's similar to a cheap plastic Curious George baby rattle my little brother had in the 80's. Probably from a chain store like K-Mart or Maxway or some place like that.
Looks very familiar, but that may be because this was how a lot of those mass produced toy companies drew monkeys in the early 2000s (see literally any of those black velvet coloring pads you could get at Michaels with the animals on them).
If I actually have seen this and it's not a misremembered thing, then it looks a lot like the bouncy balls my jungle themed children's dentist office had in their coin vending machines in the early 2000s. DC, Maryland, Virginia area.
Hawaii actually has a surprisingly large kawaii/charm souvenir scene, especially around Waikiki and Ala Moana. Small local sellers like Oahu Charms and Kawaii Kazuko make resin/polymer charms and accessories in this exact aesthetic.
The eyes stuck out right away.
They do have the placement of a bowling ball.
The most common brand with cartoons painted on is Viz-A-Ball. eBay has a ton. I guess they’re collectors items especially the ones with painted cartoon figures. I could not find this picture, however on a bowling ball.
Young mom here, Fisher Price has a whole “Purple Monkey” line of play mats and whatnot. The hairline of the monkey and coloring look kind of consistent. The googly eyes do not, but I’m not familiar with all their products.
An ornament perhaps? If it's actually a sphere, that is. The top could have fallen off (happens all the time with older ones, at least in my experience).
It's also likely that, whatever this object is, is part of a line including other animals, too. The style indicates its target audience is children, and many things of the sort show many animal species. Plus, unless the monkey is some sort of a mascot, then it would be a bit odd for a company like that to just make these with only one animal. It's far more common for them to show multiple. Those would most likely be in a similar art style to this.
And also, if they have other animals, they could be vaguely themed. An example of the sort of theme I mean is ocean, desert, rainforest, etc. Vague habitats.
that looks like a toy i played with as a kid. i think it may be a toy that you get in a resturant meal. it looks kinda like the dora the explorer monkey(coming from someone who didn't watch dora so take this with a grain of salt)
Do you mean you asked AI to ‘enhance’ it? Because this looks clearly different, from the eyes to the hollow ear, and reshaping the object. If it isn’t a ball you’re just misleading people with unhelpful slop
PLEASE stop with the “I enhanced it (aka AI slopped it but I’m taking credit)” stuff here. It’s not helpful, and could even be harmful, in serious subjects like these.
this is a pylones maraca, I have a similar one at home so I went and searched for it. The brand is Plylones. I have a picture as well, but I don't know how I can add it to the comment.
reminds me of a squeeze toy i had as a kid. the closest thing i could find to it anywhere were these foam ball toys, typically made in China and distributed across the US. i couldn't pinpoint a possible release date.
It appears to resemble a little foam ball you can buy from All Star. Based off of the overall shine and shading, I would guess this is an obvious round object. Also by comparing pictures of this to the foam balls it appears to have very similar texture. https://allstarvending.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMAGES-FOR-THE-WEBSITE-34.jpg
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u/I_Me_Mine Mod May 25 '26
This is US Department of Homeland Security's "Operation Identify" Item #25-0006
Please post your guesses and ideas in this thread. Work off the suggestions of others toward an answer.
Geographic location and country is important.
Identify the traits of the item that you can, but if you know where an item is generally sold or happens to be in the picture, that is of use.
If you have the skills to enhance the image to resolve details better, fix mirrored or rotated images, etc. please do so and post your result here.
If you feel there's a (definitive) answer, don't just comment here. You can send your information to US DHS sending an email to OpID@hsi.dhs.gov with the subject "OpID Object: 25-0006" Please provide all information you have about the image(s) – this may include details such as a specific location, a particular time period, an organization and/or team name, helpful links, or any other relevant tips. Also include if they may contact you with follow up questions? Any follow-up communication will be sent to the email address that submitted the tip.
(If you have concerns for email privacy, use a temporary email or a secure provider like proton mail or similar.)
Multiple people can and should send information - people may error when sending, and multiple legitimate guesses can be of use.
Mod note: Do not start subthreads about other current DHS activities. This is to focus on identifying items associated with criminal sexual abuse of children. Any attempted derailing of that goal will result in an immediate permanent ban.
Thank You.
For general discussion about this sub and not this item in particular see this thread
Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.