Strange: @SFPD collects at least 15 bats w/nails found chained to poles across city. Weapon or zombie prop? #abc7now pic.twitter.com/kwz2RZ9Wz9

— Katie Utehs (@KatieUtehs) November 27, 2015

Remember those spiked baseball bats that mysteriously started appearing all over the city last November? Of course you do. How could you not? Like something out of Mad Max or a bad zombie movie, the weapons showed up in the middle of the night and were left chained to poles and bike racks. Well, thanks to Hoodline, we finally know what the hell was going on with those things: It was an art project.

The site, possibly via Instagram, discovered the 44 bats were the work of artist Matthew Bajda. "I was getting fed up with all of this fear in the media," Bajda, who reportedly works with the RVCA Gallery, told Hoodline. "There's a lot of common-sense stuff getting twisted, and it's getting harder for people to sift through what's real and what's contrived.

"People shouldn't be so afraid of the world around them," he said of his motivation in placing scary things in the world around people.

San Francisco police did not see the artistic merit in the weapons, and KRON 4 reported at the time that the bomb squad was called on a metal bat that was mistaken for a pipe bomb.

Of what message he hopes people will take away from his project, Bajda explained he wants people to question the media. "Don't think news is instantly credible because it comes from a popular source," he told Hoodline. "Go out into the world around you and find out where people are really coming from, then decide if your fears are truly warranted."

Got it?

Previously: More Bizarre Weaponized Baseball Bats Pop Up In SF, This Time Outside Zeitgeist, At Fishermen's Wharf

Breaking away from the Bay Area, let's talk about Hawaii, yes? Specifically: A ghostly, possibly new species of octopus was recently discovered near our fiftieth state, found around 2.5 miles deep in the briny ocean off of Necker Island. It was uncovered by Deep Discoverer, an ROV (remotely operated vehicle) on February 27.

The little octopod looks adorable or utterly terrifying, depending on your view, but more on that later. First, let's read what Michael Vecchione, of NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service, had to say about the discovery:

"As the ROV was traversing a flat area of rock interspersed with sediment at 4,290 meters, it came across a remarkable little octopod sitting on a flat rock dusted with a light coat of sediment. The appearance of this animal was unlike any published records and was the deepest observation ever for this type of cephalopod."

Why, just look at this thing in action:

Vecchione goes on to note that, in addition to its depth, its appearance stood out too. He says:

"A distinctive characteristic was that the suckers were in one, rather than two, series on each arm. This animal was particularly unusual because it lacked the pigment cells, called chromatophores, typical of most cephalopods, and it did not seem very muscular. This resulted in a ghostlike appearance, leading to a comment on social media that it should be called Casper, like the friendly cartoon ghost. It is almost certainly an undescribed species and may not belong to any described genus."

Sounds delicious. But looks scary. Don't know about you, but octopi seem downright terrifying, these ink-blasting tarantulas of the sea. SFist's Eve Batey disagrees, saying, "It looks adorable!" Different strokes.

Some other animals that are considered cute, but should be feared:

• Hippopotamuses
• Monkeys
• Tigers
• Elephants
• Bears
• Swans
• Ferrets
• Ferret owners

.@SFPD now says 27 bats some w/nails found around the city. Another found this morning at 9a. #abc7news pic.twitter.com/YMH4TPE3Nm

— Katie Utehs (@KatieUtehs) November 27, 2015

Those creepy spiked baseball bats that appeared across San Francisco Thursday were apparently not a Thanksgiving Day prank, as even more appeared as of Friday morning, police say — but they still have no idea WTF they're supposed to communicate.

As previously reported, officers from the San Francisco Police Department had been called to 15 locations across the city Thursday on reports of metal and wooden bats with spikes, nails, and bolts protruding from them chained to utility poles.

By Friday afternoon, SFPD spokesperson Sergeant Michael Andraychak says that "27 incidents have been reported from various locations in San Francisco," with the most recent one "in the Fishermen's' Wharf area."

In addition to the Stonestown discovery reported yesterday, ABC7 reports that a bat turned up at Mission and Rolph in Crocker-Amazon, with a witness saying "It's pretty bizarre and it's weird that there's so many all over the city, but at least they're not going around swinging at people."

Hoodline reports that "readers have noted bats sighted near Trax Bar on Haight Street, in the Lower Haight, and outside Zeitgeist on Valencia."

While these bats hardly constitute the crime of the century, they are indeed odd. And according to Andraychak, "since the bats have been altered with spikes," SFPD is investigating them as prohibited/deadly weapons "which would be a felony under State law."

Andraychak asks that anyone with information on the bat battiness call SFPD's Anonymous Tip Line at (415) 575-4444 or to text them a tip at TIP411, just begin the message with "SFPD."

Previously: Bizarre Weaponized Baseball Bats Found Chained To Poles All Over Town

As many as 15 scary, weapon-like baseball bats, some with nails protruding from them, were found chained to utility poles across town on Thanksgiving Day. Police report finding the bats in various locations starting Thursday morning, with the last bat — which appeared to possibly be a pipe bomb, prompting the bomb squad — discovered at 4:45 p.m. at 19th Avenue and Buckingham Way near the Stonestown Galleria, as KRON 4 reports.

ABC 7 has video of the sawed off bat that was discovered last, which also had a square piece of metal attached to the end of it.

SF resident Gerrie Burke found one of the bats, with bolts protruding from it, at Mission and Rolph Streets, in the Outer Mission. As he tells ABC 7, "They had to drill holes in it. They knew what they were doing. Whoever did this put it together, this was not put together in an hour." He suggests it could be an "art project," but it did succeed in freaking everyone out, whatever it is.

The SFPD's Sgt. Michael Andraychak is just calling it "very strange."

The Thrillpeddlers’ Shocktoberfest 16: Curse of the Cobra (playing through Nov. 21 at The Hypnodrome) concludes with an exhilarating, terrifying three-minute musical sequence that messes with your depth perception, makes great use of darkness and serves up the wildest and spookiest special-effects theatrical set-piece of the Halloween season. But the two-plus hours of theater that lead up to this finale scene are not nearly as memorable.

Shocktoberfest 16: Curse of the Cobra, the 16th annual installment of the Thrillpeddlers’ Halloween stage show, presents five one-act horror performances in the graphic and shocking French Grand Guignol tradition. Any anthology or “collection of shorts” usually ends up being a little uneven, but Shocktoberfest 16 is especially so. It’s something like a Twilight Zone musical revue with a lot more drag and plenty of severed limbs. The music, drag, and gross-out humor are all winning elements, but the show spends too much time on dramatic turns focusing on alcoholism and sexual violence. These lengthy and serious scenes aren’t sardonic enough to work as black humor, and aren’t compelling enough to work as drama either. Most of the play falls into an awkward middle zone that presents morbid subject matter that doesn’t fly as funny or moving or anything other than cringe-worthy.

The musical numbers all pop, however, and I just wish there were more of them. In particular, the second vignette is a glorious little ditty called “Down at the Donner Party Diner”. It’s sort of a Country Bear Jamboree interpretation of the horrific Donner Party cannibalism incident of the 1840s, composed by ex-Cockette Scrumbly Koldewyn. I would gladly watch a two-hour Donner Party musical! But this segment only lasted four minutes, leaving the audience hungry for more.

Shocktoberfest 16’s short segments are its best moments. A Gold Rush-era horror vignette called “Cracking the Vein” is highlighted by Dee Nathanial’s musical number, but is otherwise predictable and fails to connect. The longest segment “The Model House” seems like a chore for the audience to get through. The sort-of titular segment “The Revenge of the Son of the Cobra Woman” features great costumes and music, but does not feature a sensible or riveting narrative.

The show maintains the gross-out Grand Guignol tradition, and SFist had the pleasure of watching the show next to theater author Mel Gordon, whose 1997 book The Grand Guignol: Theater of Terror and Horror was first English-language book on the topic. “One thing about the Grand Guignol, it saved the one-act play,” Gordon told SFist. “It alternated six one-act plays or sketches with ‘hot and cold showers’. The hot showers were sexy, funny farces and the cold showers were plays of mutilation and terror that were so realistic that the actors counted how many people fainted in the performance. Usually it was about six to eight and it was usually men, because they didn’t cover their eyes.”

Since Shocktoberfest has been running for 16 years, surely the Thrillpeddlers are doing something right. But in this year’s edition, they’re not doing enough of it right. The musical numbers and graphic splatter scenes are all tremendous fun, but Shocktoberfest 16’s stabs at legitimate drama should have been severed and chopped off.

'Shocktoberfest 16: Curse of the Cobra' runs Wednesdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m. until Nov. 21 at The Hypnodrome. Tickets are available online.

Though the notorious Night Stalker killer has been dead for nearly a year, a new report proves that he hasn't lost the power to scare us. A source now says that the serial killed plotted not one, but two escape attempts during his incarceration in the Bay Area's San Quentin prison, including a scheme planned with one of his many groupies.

Richard "Night Stalker" Ramirez spent June 1984 through August 1985 raping and murdering people across Los Angeles and San Francisco. In 1989, Ramirez was tried and convicted of 13 murders, five attempted murders, 11 sexual assaults and 14 burglaries, but authorities believe he may be responsible for many others. He was sentenced to death, and spent his remaining years on San Quentin's death row appealing the sentence, He died at Marin General hospital last June at the age of 53, due to complications of B-cell lymphoma, an illness that was exacerbated by "chronic substance abuse and chronic hepatitis C viral infection."

According to the New York Post, those appeals weren't his only plan on how to duck his sentence. Ramirez was actually caught in the midst of two escape attempts, one in 1993 and another in 1998, both planned so he could, they say, "continue his bloodthirsty California rampage and go down in a blaze of glory."

“From the moment Ramirez came to San Quentin, it was in his mind to escape,” an anonymous source told the Post. “If he went free, he would have killed a lot more people before the cops cut him down. That’s how he wanted it."

According to the source, Ramirez's first attempt to escape went down in 1993, when after a trip to SF court in yet another murder case, it was discovered that Ramirez had a handcuff key, a ballpoint pen, a syringe and, a sticker that read, 'I Luv chocolate' shoved up his ass. (We are not making this up.) The source says that Ramirez planned to fake an illness, then when he was being transported to the hospital, he would use the key to get out of his cuffs and kill his escorts.

“He would have then stolen a car and started to do his thing again,” the source told the Post. Frustratingly, the source did not explain what role the 'I Luv chocolate' sticker would have played in the plan. Ramirez ended up pleading guilty for attempting to escape, and lost 10 days of yard privileges.

Then in 1998, a fan angered by Ramirez' recent marriage to Doreen Ramirez (nee Lioy), was said to have been conspiring to help him escape from the prison. (For her part, Doreen, who once described Ramirez as "really a great person. He's my best friend; he's my buddy," separated from Ramirez in 2011.)

But back in June of 1998, Doreen's rival reportedly wrote “Ya know why women have done such crazy things like helping or masterminding prison escapes ‘cuz they are driven to temporary insanity — insatiable desire made them crazy,” to Ramirez. Prison officials, realizing that the woman had written the letter on the same day that she'd visited Ramirez, cut off her access to the killer. Neither were charged in that case, but the Post's source appears confident that a plan was in the works.

"Being incarcerated went against everything Ramirez was about," the source said. "He hated being cooped up in a cell, but he valued his freedom to roam the streets and kill.”

[NY Post]

We are a regular at the SOMA Whole Foods, but we failed to come across this bit of spookery. Doug Madey (of Ice Tubes), however, did. He writes, "Whole Foods SOMA has the most frightening sandwich board. Hands down." And how.

Yikes. A man, initially busted by cops for merely smoking a cigarette in Golden Gate Park, was arrested in the Haight for having several weapons, ammunition, and "a card that contained a list of several national politicians" inside his car. Robert Johns, 37, was busted on July 21 on the 1700 block of Waller Street near Schrader Street.

When cops came to his automotive residence, according to BCN/SF Appeal, "Johns made 'strange comments' to the officers, and gave them permission to search his car, where they found a loaded 12-gauge shotgun and a .22-caliber rifle." Subsequent searches uncovered "5,800 rounds of ammunition, as well as several knives, survival equipment, a rifle scope, marijuana and a methamphetamine cookbook."

Though no specific threats were made against any of the politicos on the card, he was taken to SF General and placed under mental health detention.

[SF Appeal]

Big news in the physics community arrives this week: Lawrence Livermore National Lab just successfully shot a 500 terawatt fusion laser at a single tiny target this week, which was the result of fifteen years of work. How powerful is 500 terawatts? That's 500 trillion watts, and it's 1,000 times more power than the entire country uses at any moment. It's also 100 times more powerful than any existing laser on the planet.

So yeah, big laser! It was actually the focused beams of 192 lasers, and it's the work of the National Ignition Facility, which has been working to try to harness nuclear fusion. In a laser. An MIT researcher said this Livermore laser shot created "unprecedented conditions in the laboratory that hitherto only existed deep in stellar interiors."

Basically, don't stand in front in it. Or park your country there either.

Update: Commenter Stephen Zielinski clarifies in ever-so-scientific terms, "500 terawatts, yes, but only 1.85 megajoules of total energy. This means the pulse lasted around 3.7 nanoseconds, with a total energy content equal to a bit over one and a half Snickers bars." Right, of course.

[SF Biz Times]

A plane heading to Australia "was forced to make an emergency landing at San Francisco International Airport early Tuesday after an engine exploded in flight over the Pacific," reports KTVU. (In the esteemed words of Rachel Zoe, shut the front door!) The plane, carrying 212 passengers, "had departed SFO around 11:10 p.m. and had been in the air for about 45 minutes when passengers heard a loud bang and felt the plane vibrate," prompting the emergency landing.

The explosion left a massive hole in one of the engines. Luckily, all passengers and crew members landed safely without injury.

As firefighters tame flames in a 375-acre wildfire burning in Mount Diablo State Park near Curry Canyon, they are also dealing with tarantulas. (Oh dear!) The firefighters, it seems, "also had to deal with tarantulas that are native to the hills," breathlessly reports KTVU.

The wildfire, which sparked around 4 p.m. on Tuesday, has scorched dry brushland "but has not damaged any structures or caused evacuations."

As of this morning the fire is 80% contained.

With a tagline of "Seeking a cure for Multiple Sclerosis, one laugh at a time," you can't mock San Francisco Clown College's Naked Clown Calendar 2009, which they've recently unleashed. While decried by The Village Voice as a "disappointment," the calendar isn't half bad. (For a truly bizarre moment, check out the video promoting the calendar, which goes from loud clown circus act to off-off-off-off-off Broadway musical in seconds.)

To order your this calendar, go here.

If semi-naked mimes don't do it for you, we direct your attention to the Men on a Mission 2009 calendar, featuring a bushel of barely legal, semi-nude LDS boys. You're welcome.