WALLA WALLA, Wash. — The Rev. David Sibley remains puzzled over a mysterious event this week, but he’s not expecting any more light to be shed on the situation.

Sibley is the pastor of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Walla Walla, where, on two consecutive nights, a massive dumping of candles took place.

“On (Monday, March 15), I came to the church to find someone had dumped a large quantity of candles,” Sibley said Thursday, March 18. “We cleaned it up, and when I came back on (Tuesday, March 16), there were even more candles.”

Altogether, more than 1,200 pounds of candles went to the city of Walla Walla’s Sudbury Landfill, he said.

Video camera footage shows that from about 9:30 p.m. to around 2 a.m., on both nights, a person who appears to be male and wearing a winter camouflage jacket goes to and from the front entry of the church at Catherine and Birch streets.

Each time the person approaches St. Paul’s, he or she wears a backpack and carries two or three duffel-style bags, bends over for a few minutes at the church door and exits the scene with bags that look empty.

In one video clip, two women leaving the church appear to not notice the bags being emptied just a few feet away.

The candle bearer does not appear to lag in energy during the several on-and-off trips each night.

Sibley said most of the candles left behind were pillar candles, some had Goodwill stickers, some were still in wrappers, and many had been previously burned.

In terms of wax and cost, the candle dump was “not insignificant,” he said.

Both events resulted in volunteers having to clean up the site and make a dump run.

“As I said to a friend, it was just bizarre enough to be amusing and quantitative enough to be annoying,” Sibley said.

The church did not initially alert police over what seemed definitely weird, but not particularly suspicious. After all, it is not completely out of the ordinary to find donated items left at any church door, he pointed out.

“It’s a little annoying; we wish people would call us first,” he said. “But it’s part of life.”

The two-night candle caper, however, is different. Not that the person leaving the loot necessarily has ill intentions toward St. Paul’s, but a massive quantity of candles does present an opportunistic prankster plenty of fuel to start havoc, Sibley said.

“That’s a lot of paraffin in a small place,” he said.

If the deed was an oddly distributed donation, no church needs that many candles, he said.

“And if it is a prank, guys please. … All right, well played, but please, don’t do that again,” Sibley said.

However, the pastor most wonders if the unusual moment comes from a mental health issue, maybe even a psychotic break.

“I’m concerned this person is suffering. It’s a good reminder people are struggling. … We want to encourage people to seek help, and encourage us to have compassion for each other,” Sibley said. “There’s no shame in talking about this.”

This can be true at any time, but the duration and isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic is producing a rise of mental health issues everywhere, Sibley said, encouraging people to check on their neighbors.

As for his congregation, there’s no plan to do anything more about the mysterious leavings, he said.

“Other than hope no more candles show up at the door.”