A man walking around playing the mobile game “Pokemon GO” found something big while walking Monday morning — a 15-foot red spoon stolen from outside an Arizona Dairy Queen.

Michael Foster, 52, suddenly found that real life imitates virtual, since “Pokemon GO” shows creatures from the video game on the phone screen as a player walks around outside.

On his stroll near a middle school in Phoenix just 2 miles from where the utensil was taken, Mr. Foster saw the red spoon resting against a fence on the grounds.

Attention had been publicly called to the missing spoon by law enforcement and owners of the Dairy Queen after its theft on March 25.

“The first thing I did was send a picture to my wife and I said, ‘It’s the spoon.’ She said call the police,” Mr. Foster told The Associated Press.

A school maintenance employee helped Mr. Foster move the spoon over the fence before it was strapped to a Phoenix police vehicle for transport.

Law enforcement is still looking for suspects in the robbery. Footage released by Phoenix police over the weekend showed two men and a woman detaching the spoon from its base and loading it onto a flatbed truck.

• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.