PLYMOUTH — Lionel Gonzalez says he wasn’t the first to notice the ice shaped like the Virgin Mary outside his home. His friend, Jose Perez, did.

Perez stepped into his mobile home Wednesday afternoon and said, "Hey, you know you got the Virgin Mary out there!"

"Don’t be playin’ about that," Gonzalez responded. "You don’t play about that."

But Perez insisted. So outside they went and found Mary, in ice, at the base of the hitch on his home at Northgate Mobile Home Park, head tilted down, hands clasped in prayer at her chest.

When Gonzalez told people about it, they asked whether he’d carved it. No, he hadn’t, he said. It’s smooth and rounded. It’s also frozen to the wall of his home, so no one put it there, either. No water drips onto it; it’s too cold. In fact, it is under a window cover, which itself is under an eave. So he can’t explain how Mary arrived there.

"This is unbelievable," the 24-year-old Gonzalez says. "This is something you see on the news (happening somewhere else).

"It’s a blessing. It could just be a sign from the Father above."

There was no argument from the people who have come to view Mary.

Gonzalez said about 50 people came by Wednesday night, and more were coming this morning. Some, he knew. Some, he didn’t.

Candles and flowers have been left by those paying respects. Others have hung rosary beads around Mary. Many gently touched her.

"If you touch snow, your hands get wet," Gonzalez said this morning. "But if you touch this, it’s like dry ice."

"I can’t explain it," one man said after spending several minutes pointing a video camera at the roughly foot-high statue.

Carmen Rosa, who also lives in Northgate, had much to say.

She spoke in Spanish as Gonzalez translated, "This is a message from God, to let us know there’s a chance for us to change our lives. …

"It’s a truly great blessing for it to appear here near us."

See a larger photo.