COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — On a rainy Monday morning, a central Ohio woman captured an unusual sight while driving to pick up her mother from John Glenn Columbus International Airport. (Photo Courtesy/ Samantha Nelson) “Not quite sure what I saw this morning headed to the airport 😆,” Samantha Nelson wrote in the caption of her Reddit post. “Headed towards long-term parking, totally caught me off guard when I saw it I tried getting a photo sooner. 🐀” The truth about coyotes in central Ohio Nelson had spotted a large inflatable rat strapped to the back of a pickup truck. In an email to NBC4, she described what she witnessed. “[The inflatable rat] was coming from the cellphone lot, I couldn’t read the text on the sign at all, but I saw it a couple minutes later on the other side of the airport while I was leaving,” she wrote. “They had it displayed over in one of the lots on the left side leaving the airport.” Nelson's post quickly gained a lot of reaction online. Many commenters identified the giant air-filled rodent as “Scabby the Rat,” an iconic symbol of union protests. “Scabby! You see him at picket lines everywhere ✊✊✊,” one person wrote. Former Statehouse candidate becomes Ohio's first openly trans city councilmember “Yeah, that’s the Union rat. Was everywhere in Cleveland in the 90s,” another writer noted. (Photo Courtesy/ Samantha Nelson) The organization that takes credit for the invention of Scabby is the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150, which represents workers across Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa. The union states on its website that it first conceived the protest mascot in the late 1980s to draw attention to non-union labor practices. In a detailed story of how the “era of the inflatable rat was born,” the Local 150 described each incarnation of the rat symbol. After beginning as a cartoon rat drawn on signs, Scabby's next phase was as a costume that “was notoriously difficult to clean … without destroying.” The final step occurred when one union member saw an inflatable gorilla at a car dealership, which gave him the idea to create a blowup rat. “It began as a small rat that was kept on a car’s rooftop luggage rack and could be stowed when not inflated,” the union's website explains. “An old car was painted yellow and fitted with the rat and a pump, and dubbed the 'Scab Tracker.' The attention this drew was unmistakable, and so additional cars were fitted with this 'rat pack' until a fleet of cars made up the 'Rat Patrol.'” The union said the symbol was known as “Mr. Rat” until a naming contest was held in 1990 with “Scabby the Rat” as the winning entry. Sources: DeWine likely to name Vance replacement soon The Reddit post also garnered attention for other elements in the photo, with one Redditor noting the odd-looking “scrambled” text. Nelson said she discovered that on her phone there is, “a setting that uses AI to optimize images if pressing the button quickly, which I did take this and a few others of it within quick succession, so that’s likely why the text looks wonky.” In a message to NBC4, Nelson said her mother informed her that “Columbus Regional Airport Authority” was written on the sign. Another comment thread pointed to the reason Scabby was at the airport, with one person stating, “Interesting, is that why there were signs for an event today down at the airport??” Three Ohio cities significantly drop in Zillow’s 2025 most competitive markets list “I believe the event was the official groundbreaking for the $2 billion expansion project,” another offered. “The building trades wanted to display Scabby during the ceremony.” A post on the Facebook page of the Columbus/Central Ohio Building and Construction Trades Council confirmed that “Scabby the Rat joined affiliated C/COBCTC members who were protesting at the John Glenn Columbus International Airport terminal groundbreaking ceremony.”