POLICE IN FOUR COUNTRIES ARE GETTING REPORTS ABOUT THE CAT IN THE HAT

The internet has decided the scariest thing in the world is a seven-foot Dr. Seuss cat standing in a driveway at 2 a.m. Some clips are a person in a costume, a lot of them are AI slop. Either way, police departments around the global are getting reports of the strange occurence. In Grand Junction, Colorado, cops got word of a post claiming someone dressed as the Cat in the Hat would turn up at West Middle School. By Monday had arrested a 14-year-old. The department's release said the posts are "intended to cause alarm and fear," which is a weird sentence to write about a rhyming children's book character. Tennessee's Office of Homeland Security said it has its Threat Assessment Center on this. Big league stuff. Overseas the cops got funnier about it. South Yorkshire Police confirmed no reports of the cat anywhere in the county and added that his associates Thing One and Thing Two are also unaccounted for. Gardaí in Wexford explained the whole thing is an AI prompt dropping the cat into photos of places you recognize, then clarified he is not hiding in Curracloe. In Canada, a teenage girl was chased down the street by someone in the costume. She got home safe. Police there called a "joke" that makes people fear for their safety extremely concerning. New Jersey reports no major incidents yet, which in New Jersey means give it a week.

Why you should give a shit: The 2016 clown panic needed a guy, a mask and a cornfield, and this one needs a text prompt and nine seconds, so every cheap scare now comes with a real squad car attached to it.