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Inspired by Taito’s 1978 arcade game “Space Invaders” in which pixelated creatures try to invade the Earth, a circuit of mosaic tile street art was spawned in the late-1990s in major metropolises around the globe.

The originator of the movement, a masked artist who uses the alias “Invader,” embeds unique, colorful tiled critters on walls and other urban surfaces throughout a city in what is referred to as “the Invasion.”

In 1999 Los Angeles was one of the original invaded cities (along with Paris, London and Tokyo) and has since experienced several waves of invasion - the most recent of which was discovered in late 2006.

During that time, Downtown LA was adorned with four known invaders: two in Chinatown, one in the Arts District and one on the rooftop of the Standard Hotel.

Unfortunately, on a recent bike excursion, I discovered three of Downtown’s four creative tiled displays have been destroyed, leaving only chipped grout to mark their remains.

I haven’t been able to confirm the condition of the Standard’s invader, but as of April 2007, flickr user 14-2-1 shows it is still intact. He (or she) also has a great collection of other mini-invaders discovered in the Los Angeles metro area.

We may not have seen the last of our missing friendly space intruders, as several of them in other LA neighborhoods were restored during the recent Invasion Wave #6. Hopefully Downtown will get some cosmic love during the next raid.

UPDATE: Urban Memo confirmed the existence of the Standard invader last month.