If you’re familiar with the iGoogle page, you probably know that you can customize its appearance with several themes.

What you may not know is that every night at 3:14 a.m., some of the themes get a little creepy. On the Beach, Nessie surfaces for 60 seconds, then takes a deep breath and dives back underwater for another day. In Cityscape, UFOs descend and start abducting pedestrians. A monster appears in Spring Scape, and the fox spirits of Japanese folklore appear out of the mist in the Tea House theme. The timestamp is a geek homage to the mathematical concept of Pi–and in fact, the 3:14 Easter Egg in the Sweet Dreams theme is the Greek letter pi made out of stars.

You can see screen shots of a couple other theme Easter eggs here, along with a method for unlocking the other themes at a more decent hour of the day.

(via Museum of Hoaxes)