Puzzled residents were turning detective today after mysterious stone heads were left outside their homes in the middle of the night.

The sculptures, which all feature the same carved symbol and come with a riddle attached, have been left outside homes and businesses across Yorkshire.

But despite CCTV footage showing a man leaving three heads outside a post office and personal investigations into the meaning of the carvings, the recipients are none the wiser as to where they have come from.

So far, 12 stone heads have appeared in Goathland and Kilburn, in North Yorkshire; four have been found in Arthington, near Leeds, West Yorkshire; and three in Braithwell, near Rotherham, South Yorkshire.

Each looks different but all feature the same carving - which appears to spell out the word paradox - and a note bearing the riddle: Twinkle twinkle like a star does love blaze less from afar?

Mike and Valerie Hoyes, who run a post office in Braithwell, found three heads outside their business on the morning of August 23.

Checking their CCTV footage, they discovered a man they did not know dropping off the stones in a small car at around 4am. They have since passed the tape on to the police.

Mrs Hoyes said: "It's very weird.

"They're a bit like gargoyles really, obviously somebody has taken a lot of trouble if they have been carved.

"On the back it looks like an occult thing, it does actually spell paradox, but we dont know what any of it means."

George Griffiths, an artist from Arthington, near Leeds, also received one of the heads on August 23 and then found another outside his house two weeks later.

After speaking to friends and neighbours he became aware of two more of the sculptures being left in the village.

He contacted stonemasons at York Minster in an effort to trace what appeared to be a masons mark on his heads but said nobody had ever seen anything like it before. He also turned to the internet and dictionaries to try to find out details about the rhyme but again drew a blank.

He added: "I think it's a publicity stunt - I can't see anything else. They're not sinister or anything like that, its just a puzzle."

Fiona Gould, the owner of the Forrester Arms Hotel in Kilburn, received her head last month.

She said: "He turned up a week last Monday between 1.30am and 7.30am. I opened the door and there he was, as large as life, sat on the patio."

She discovered that five more heads had appeared in Kilburn and another six in nearby Goathland. There are also unconfirmed reports of another head in a village near Selby, North Yorkshire, she said.

Miss Goulds head now has pride of place on the bar in her pub.

* Have you found a head? Contact the newsdesk on 01325 5059068 or e-mail us on newsdesk@nne.co.uk