These Just In From Our WTF? Desk

Homemade yellow submarine missing from Santa Cruz County berth

(02-21) 12:05 PST Felton, Calif. (AP) -- A 3 1/2-ton yellow submarine has fallen off the radar.

The 10-foot-long sub, built by a resident to patrol Monterey Bay during the 1940s and 1950s, was reported missing Feb. 15 from its Santa Cruz Mountains berth on Steinmaier Road by owner Carl Barker.

"It sounds bizarre," said Detective Kevin Coyne of the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office. "All I know is ... there's no suspects."

Irven Thomson built the vessel from an old propane tank about 60 years ago. He added a turret, hatch, windows and a cement keel, rudder and navigational instruments.

"I think they launched it a couple of times," Barker said.

There were no arrests.

"One of the neighbors said they saw a tow truck loading it up," Barker, 38, said. "Someone knew they wanted it and came and took it. I don't think they stole it for any kind of recycling value."

Barker said Thomson would go on vigilante patrols of the bay and used the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf as his home base. Neighbors said the sub worked, but that Thomson quickly gave up the patrols and beached the vessel on his land in south Felton.

Thomson left the yellow submarine on the property when he moved to Watsonville years ago. Family members lived on Steinmaier Road until 2003, when they sold the property and moved to Red Bluff.

Explicit Recordings Disrupt N.M. Mass

(02-22) 09:25 PST Santa Fe, N.M. (AP) -- Three CD players hidden under a cathedral's pews blared sexually explicit language in the middle of an Ash Wednesday Mass, leading a bomb squad to detonate two of the devices.

Authorities determined the music players were not dangerous and kept the third one to check it for clues, said police Capt. Gary Johnson.

The CD players, duct-taped to the bottoms of the pews, were set to turn on in the middle of noon Mass on Wednesday at the Roman Catholic Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi.

The recordings, made on store-bought blank discs, featured people using foul language and "pornographic messages," Johnson said. He would not elaborate because of the ongoing investigation.

Church staff members took the CD players to the basement and called police, who sent the bomb squad, Johnson said.

The bomb squad blew up two players outside and kept the third one to test for fingerprints or DNA and trace its components, he said.

Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent, which marks a 40-day period of fasting and penitence before Easter.