This is straight out of Pee-wee’s Big Adventure.

A sort of man-child — but clearly an adult — is searching the country for … his lost bike.

This story is so odd that it has generated a lot of ongoing attention on The National’s website. And tell me the guy holding the photo of his missing bike does not bring back memories of Pee-wee’s frantic search in the classic 1985 movie starring Paul Ruebens.

If you haven’t seen the movie, you should. It is Pee-wee at his best. Frantic, obsessed, ingenious, naive and very, very odd.

In this case, the beloved, extra-special bike was snatched away by some evil person while the victim was at the Corniche. (Pee-wee’s bike was ripped off while he was in the magic shop.)

Pee-wee swung into action immediately, with the aid of Dottie and the Amazing Randy, but he was steered in the wrong direction by the sinister fortune teller Madame Ruby, who tells him his bike is hidden in the basement of the Alamo.

He sets off to journey from California to Texas (stopping in Cabazon, meeting up with Simone and seeing the giant dinosaurs), and arrives at the site of the famous 1836 siege, only to be told by a mocking tour guide (played by an unctuous Jan Hooks): “There is no basement in the Alamo!”

Our local guy, one Michael Sayers, has offered a 3,000-dirham (about $800) reward for the bike’s safe return. This after his frantic search in 1993, when he visited all bike shops and repair shops in the city, and held a meeting of all the students at his school to see what they knew about the crime.

He has never forgotten his bike (a boy never can) because it was of a rare vintage, with small wheels and a light frame. Or as our writer describes it: A “gunmetal gray, seven-speed cycle … hand-made in Britain by the Moulton Bicycle Company, one of only about 1,000 produced.”

Well, no wonder.

It gets weirder. In the past few days, people have called The National alleging to have seen the bike at recent sports events here in Abu Dhabi. Twenty years after the crime.
So far, no one has directed the 67-year-old economics teacher to trek to the Alamo, but we get the impression he might … if he crosses paths with Madame Ruby.