Garden Gnome Liberation Front

The travelling gnome (also known as the roaming gnome or gnoming) is when someone brings a garden gnome lawn ornament on a trip and takes pictures of it in front of famous landmarks. A running prank has developed, some of which have become national and international news stories, where people take a garden gnome from an unknowing person's lawn and then send the owner photos of the gnome for a period of time as a practical joke before returning it.

The Garden Gnome Liberation Front in France is a community that considers gnoming to be stealing garden gnomes from other people's property, without the intention of returning them, as part of their purported mission to "free" gnomes and "return them to the wild", which has sometimes led to criminal charges, jail time, or fines.

The concept of the travelling gnome dates back to the 1970s when Henry Sunderland photographed his own garden gnomes, which he named Harry and Charlie, while he was travelling around Antarctica.

The earliest record of a prank involving a traveling gnome is from Australia in 1986 when the Sydney Morning Herald reported an "Eastern Suburbs gnome-owner was distressed when she discovered her gnome had been stolen at the weekend. A note was found in its place: 'Dear mum, couldn't stand the solitude any longer. Gone off to see the world. Don't be worried, I'll be back soon. Love Bilbo xxx.'"

A running prank has developed, which has made national news at times, where people steal a garden gnome from an unknowing person's lawn and then send the owner photos of the gnome and sometimes cryptic messages that were supposedly written by the gnome for a time as a practical joke before returning it.

The most well-known instance of the travelling gnome prank was arguably in 2005 when a group of college students took a garden gnome, dubbed "Gnome Severson" in news, from a property in Redmond, Washington, U.S. and brought it on a roadtrip to California and Nevada. Gnome Severson became a national news story after the group ran into socialite Paris Hilton at a gas station, who posed for a picture with the gnome that was printed in People magazine. At the end of the week-long trip, the friends anonymously returned the gnome to its owner's front porch with a photo album titled "Gnome’s Spring Break 2005", which included the issue of People and other pictures the gnome around Hollywood, San Francisco, and Las Vegas. The owner, who had not even noticed the gnome was missing until she found it returned on her porch, was even interviewed on Good Morning America.

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Wikipedia