'Nervous' Chicken Caught at Pentagon Checkpoint

A mysterious intruder was found at a Department of Defense security checkpoint earlier this week—and fowl play is suspected. "Apparently, the answer to 'why did the chicken cross the road' is to get to the Pentagon," an animal welfare group tweeted after the bird was spotted near the building. The chicken was "was caught sneaking around the security area at the Pentagon," the Animal Welfare League of Arlington said. It was taken into custody by a league employee. "For actual security reasons we are not allowed to disclose the exact location," league spokeswoman Chelsea Jones tells the Washington Post.

It's not clear where the chicken, believed to be a Rhode Island red, came from. Jones describes the bird as "beautiful" and "nervous." She says the chicken has been adopted by a league member who has a small farm in Virginia. After the bird was found Monday, the league asked people online to suggest names, reports the Guardian. Suggestions included Colonel Sanderson, Henrietta Kissinger, and Chick Cheney, but the league eventually settled on Henny Penny, after the folk tale character who thought the sky was falling. (More Pentagon stories.)