Passport? Check. Toothbrush? Check. Bat wrapped in barbed wire? Check.
This month the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) released a video of the 10 most unusual items it’s confiscated from passengers at security checkpoints this year, from a bullet-adorned gas mask to a “bladed dragon claw.”
“I just need these to open my bag of peanuts,” jokes TSA social media head Bob Burns about a five-bladed flogger.
Burns started the agency’s Instagram account in 2013, which now has 633,000 followers. Rolling Stone ranked the TSA’s Instagram account higher than that of Beyoncé and NASA on its list of the 100 best, calling the TSA’s finds “utterly fascinating, and — if we’re being honest — a little terrifying.”
TSA marks its checkpoint discoveries with the hashtag #TSAgoodcatch.
The TSA also crowdsources material. Not sure if your brass knuckles can fly? TSA encourages travelers to send via Twitter or Facebook Messenger photos of items and then will respond whether it can be brought on board in carryon luggage, whether it’s a potato (yes), a cow horn (yes), a movie prop of a rotting corpse (yes), a dog (check with the airline) or hatchets (seriously?).
The agency uses its Instagram account to inform passengers how to travel with weapons, a shocking variety of which can indeed fly, if they are in checked luggage.
Burns says some photos that come across his desk are not safe for work and he doesn’t post them, such as a face-harness sex toy and severed bear paws.
Here are some of the highlights of 2016:
Don’t try wearing this after holiday pie.
This could bring the battle for the armrest to a whole new level.
Cheerful weapons
Headed to Hollywood?
It’s a replica, TSA says.
Cute or dangerous?
The blood may be fake
Just no.
Not always good to have hobbies.
Pizza can fly.
“We don’t know it’s inert…”
Subtle.
Many pups can fly, but check with your airline.