‘No Eye Contact,’ ‘No Running with Sticks’ mystery signs puzzle walkers on trails in Belmont

Walkers and hikers in Belmont can’t decide if the latest trail signage is a joke, a public art piece, or just plain weird. 

Signs popped up on trails last week alongside the normal “Stay on the Trails” signs telling the public the newest thing that isn’t allowed is eye contact. If the eye contact rule was broken it would incur a $10,000 fine. Other signs read “No Running With Sticks. Do it in Waltham — they don’t care if you put your eye out. Per Belmont Bylaw… (forgot which #).”

Belmont resident Venya Knyazev, 27, told The Boston Globe he was just “kind of shocked.” 

He saw the signs on a Reddit post asking “is this real?” incurring thousands of replies. The signs blend right in next to official city bylines like COVID-19-era social distancing. 

“That may be the most New England thing I’ve ever seen. Love it,” wrote one Reddit user. 

Knyazev said he thought the signs were some sort of public art piece or someone poking fun at the unspoken divide between Waltham and Belmont — the two towns that share the wooded area. 

He said the posted rules are usually more strictly enforced on the Belmont side so it’s possible the signs were poking fun at that. 

Knyazev, and the public at large, may never know the source of these strange signs as they were removed by Wednesday. 

“Those signs were not Belmont-sanctioned signs and they have been removed,” an employee from the town administrator’s office said in an email to The Boston Globe.

The world may never know.

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