Pillow Cases Full Of Snakes Keep Turning Up In A British Town

In February 2020, the Farrington neighborhood in Sunderland, England was trying to get through Storm Dennis just like every other community in the area. Well, to be fair, there was one small difference. As UPI tells us, they were also dealing with a mysterious infestation of pillow cases filled with snakes. Yes, you read that right: First, two pillow cases containing a total of 13 royal pythons was discovered in a trash container behind the fire station. A couple of days later, another pair of pillow cases materialized in the same location, one filled with 15 corn snakes and the other containing a carpet python. 

What's ... what's going on, here? Is some poor Sunderland native just really, really unlucky at buying pillows? Is someone trying to pull an ill-advised, snake-themed version of the old "horse head in bed" trick from The Godfather on local firemen? Or is there something far more nefarious at play here? 

While it's too early to say if the Farringdon Fire Station is plagued by some bizarre animal smuggling operation or haunted by a ghost with an oddly specific herpetological fixation, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is currently going by the assumption that the snakes were just abandoned there for reasons unknown. According to RSPCA's Heidi Cleaver, the situation was pretty much a horror movie come true for the snakes themselves: "We were in the midst of Storm Dennis at the weekend when these snakes, who need heat and light in order to survive, were left outside in the cold with just a pillowcase to contain them," she says. "It would have been very stressful for the snakes to be in such close proximity to each other as well." 

Fortunately, only one of the snakes (a royal python, for those keeping count) perished during the ordeal. The others are now at a special care center, and the RSPCA are trying to find out the people responsible for abandoning the serpents. The story doesn't say whether the animal rescuers plan to capture the culprits, wait until the next major storm and leave them outside in a giant pillow case, so for now, no one's stopping you from assuming that they totally are.