Even in a world where pins and needles have contaminated Girl Scout cookies and deadly cyanide has tainted Tylenol capsules, the Pepsi-Cola mystery is unusual in its oddity and scope.

Every year, hundreds of real and imagined product-tampering incidents are reported throughout the United States. But the Pepsi syringe scare has elements of the surreal and inexplicable, carried across the county this week by some strange contagion.

"I can't think of anything we've handled that is more bizarre than this," said Betsy Adams, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. "\o7 Bizarre \f7 is the word that I have used quite a bit in describing this. The entire circumstance is, well, bizarre."

It all began nine days ago with a report from an 82-year-old man in Tacoma, Wash. Another report surfaced in that state two days later.

Then, propelled by mysterious overtones and powerful imagery, word of the case spread rapidly from coast to coast. By Monday, claims began pouring in from Bakersfield to New York, and by Wednesday, Pepsi drinkers in at least 23 states reported finding needles and syringes in their Pepsi cans.

PepsiCo spokesman Andrew Giangola called the public's fascination and the media attention a "feeding frenzy," the likes of which industrial executives have never seen.

"Perhaps the reason is that Pepsi is so ubiquitous and the reports are so graphic, and there is such an aura of mystery about it," he said.

The mental pictures evoked by the combination of a can of Pepsi and a hypodermic syringe are especially disturbing and incongruous. The needle is a frightening symbol, particularly in this age of AIDS, while the familiar red, white and blue Pepsi can is a universal symbol of consumerism in a world where brand names are as recognizable as family names.

The case also has captured the public's imagination because of its puzzling circumstances. It does not follow the typical pattern of products either accidentally contaminated in manufacturing or intentionally altered. The contaminant was not the usual sliver of glass, scrap of metal or rat dropping, but a large syringe.

And there seems to be no logical way that syringes could get into so many pressurized, sealed soft drink cans, in widely scattered locations, because Pepsi has 400 automated, high-speed assembly plants. Just as unlikely is someone tampering with and then resealing cans on grocery store shelves.