Los Angeles residents must have thought they’d been smoking something when they woke up to a new year to find their famous Hollywood sign had been changed to read ‘Hollyweed’.

Security cameras caught a vandal, dressed in black, scaling the sign in the middle of the night, covering the Os in huge tarpaulins so they looked like Es.

The Hollywood Sign Trust, which maintains the world-famous, 50-foot-tall landmark, is to look at boosting security on the back of the incident, which is being investigated by police.

It’s thought the prank could be a knowing reference to voters in California approving a law which means the recreational use of marijuana will become legal from 2018.

However, it’s not the first time the sign has been changed to read Hollyweed. A college student first did it on January 1 1976, exactly 41 years to the day.

The original sign was first put up in 1923 and read Hollywoodland to promote a housing development. However, the last four letters deteriorated and were removed in the 1940s.