All of the early peeks that we've gotten at LG's new Nexus (often referred to as "Nexus 5" for now) so far are kind of strange in that they've come from official sources like Google and the FCC rather than random leaked reports. That's changing today, though, as the folks at 9to5Google claim to have received photos of the new Nexus powered on in the wild.

The device shown in these images does appear to line up with the Nexus 5 units that we've seen thus far. There's some horizontal, new Nexus 7-like "Nexus" branding on the phone's backside along with a large camera housing and a flash beneath it. An LG logo is tattooed on the unit's back as well.

Moving around to the front, we can a front-facing camera in the upper left that was present in the FCC's photos, as well as a larger circle in the middle of the phone's top that you can also faintly see in the FCC's shots. The curved top and bottom of this device also lines up with previous leaks. The final photo appears to show the same boot-up sequence used on the Google Play Edition Samsung Galaxy S 4 and HTC One. An extremely brief video of this alleged Nexus 5 that shows the device with a pattern lock screen has also been posted.

This mysterious Nexus-branded phone first popped up earlier this month in an official Google video showing the installation of its Android 4.4 KitKat statue. The clip was quickly yanked, but then the device then popped up at the FCC twice in the following week. Now the device appears to be back again, following in the footsteps of its predecessor by appearing in numerous leaks ahead of its official announcement. There's still no word on when LG and Google actually plan to announce this thing, but evidence like the Nexus 4 price cut, its upcoming one-year anniversary and this recent string of new Nexus leaks suggest that an introduction could be coming soon. Stay tuned.

Via 9to5Google