Crash barrier's thorns

I can't understand this news.

It all started last Monday, May 30th. "A junior high school student was injured by a small metal piece attached to a crash barrier in the Saitama prefecture."  That news was announced on Yahoo News. That same day, 4 more small pieces were found in the area. People thought some delinquent placed it there on purpose for their own sadistic pleasure. But two days later, they found 50 more objects of the same type on a crash barrier in Fukushima pref, just down the road from Saitama. But people still thought, that perhaps it was a group of delinquents who were responsible instead of just an individual, sooner or later the police would find the criminals. But on June 2nd, the same objects were found in 6 more prefectures in Northern Japan. The number of pieces was now over 200. The media suspected it would be fault of the crash barrier manufacturers or something. But the company quickly protested" no way" because the parts in question were not parts of the original crash barrier construction. Yes, I will agree with them. Then a few days later, Saitama Police found one piece that matched a crashed car's body,  and they said maybe those pieces were related to some car accidents. They got it?!  All those strange metal thorns were attached to the crash barriers by hundreds of car accidents? 

But! On June 3rd, we found out that over 42 prefectures have found them, That means we could find these strange pieces almost all over Japan. Then today the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure announced that the number of pieces attached to crash barriers is over 21000.  Ha?  Now  we are totally confused.

Basically, they have a triangle shape, some are very small, some are over 25cm = 8 inches. Some are very old and rusty, some are caught between the barrier and a bolt. Which ones are man-made, which ones are naturally occurring?  Nobody knows.  And I don't know why this suddenly became an issue just three days ago, especially if some are so old as to be rusty.  Do some types of Japanese crash barriers make their own thorns? Did aliens attach them? Is it a code or something?  It would be interesting if all 21000 pieces point out the same direction, ha ha ha. 

Comments

[Mari]

I used "prick" first. But robert and David let me know it means another in slung or something? Ha ha ha I laughed and I wonder it would be nice to leave it without changing, but ま 下品ネタはさけました。

[abraxis]

Hmmmm. All pointed in the same direction?

Mari, you were an X-files fan, weren't you? =P

[robert]

why not pricks Noswonky? Those grow too. ;)
heh heh. Personally I think it's a giant robo from one of the Gainax Movies that got blasted to bits, embedded, shard by shard along the heavily travelled byways of greater Japan. Yamato? Hey whatever it is, I bet you could sell the heck out of it on Ebay! Especially if you find one with some religious figure, or Ichiro on it..wow. think of the money you could make. Alien Ichiro Shard! who wants to be top bidder?

[Noswonky]

There might be a scientific explanation. It's well known that metal can "grow" due to a chemical-electrical process
like this.
However, it's I've never seen anything so big.

Also, I suggest you call them "spikes", not "pricks".

[クレア (Claire)]

Why would anyone do such a thing? 悪いことなあ。

[Tom]

That is very strange - please keep us posted if they ever figure it out.