Chicago's most famous sculpture refused to budge on Sunday, despite the combined effort of roughly 250 people. The crowd gathered at Millennium Park at the oddly precise time of 12:47 p.m. with a single mission: to push Anish Kapoor's Cloud Gate, the 110-ton stainless steel work everyone calls the Bean, exactly seven inches to the left.

The attempt began with an anonymous flyer that spread online, inviting Chicagoans to the push and claiming that shifting the sculpture might reveal a hidden latch door underneath its right side. Behind the door, the flyer suggested, a man had been trapped inside the Bean for years, and moving it would let rescuers pass him supplies. The sculpture measures 66 feet long and 33 feet high, is anchored to the ground, and has stood in the park since 2006, so the plan was never likely to succeed. Footage from the day shows the crowd surrounding one end of the gleaming form and pushing in unison. It stayed exactly where it was.

The joke has a history. An online group calling itself the Man in Bean Coalition has promoted the trapped-man story since the summer of 2025, staging a protest outside the sculpture in July of that year and flooding local officials with concerned calls. Alderman Brendan Reilly, whose ward includes Millennium Park, addressed the rumour last summer, confirming that no man had been trapped inside Cloud Gate for the past 21 years and joking that the man had actually been freed years ago. His office did not respond to a request for comment about the latest push, and neither did Kapoor's studio.

The Millennium Park Foundation, which oversees the site, took the stunt in good humour, describing the gathering as a creative and humorous initiative and saying it was delighted to see so many people rally around the sculpture. The Bean, which visitors are meant to touch, is cleaned every night to remove fingerprints. This time, the only mark the crowd left was a viral video.