(Image: @SeaMysteryCoke)

Now it can be revealed. Capitol Hill’s mystery pop machine is alive and well and apparently sightseeing. And in a sure sign of the impending Capitol Hill apocalypse, it now has PR representation.

The viral soda dispenser  — yum! — missing for months from in front of the Broadway Locksmith resurfaced unexpectedly Monday morning on social media, revealing its temporary location to be near the Space Needle. The pop machine has also apparently hired a graphic design team.

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By the time CHS’s Seattle Center stringer arrived at the base of the needle, the glowing coke machine was nowhere to be found.

The popular soda machine grew as a grassroots Capitol Hill legend thanks to its “MYSTERY!?!” buttons and cold, refreshing cans of corn syrup mixed with bubbly, fizzy water. CHS had caught the machine in compromising position before but the mystery deepened this summer when the machine suddenly disappeared from E John in late June.

With construction starting across the street on a full block of development around Capitol Hill Station, many were worried that gentrification had claimed yet another cherished neighborhood cultural center. Either that, or the pop machine had become unstuck in time.

This week’s revelation opens up a simpler, more pedestrian timeline. The Mystery Coke Machine has been traveling. We’ll find out if it is putting down new Seattle roots or destined to return to its patch of sidewalk and dirt on Capitol Hill… soon.