According to German news site Nachrichten, a passenger at the Linz airport set off alarms when his suitcase full of bacon was mistaken for a bomb. The story was translated with Google, so it's high on hilarity and low on verifiable detail.

Apparently when asked to identify the suspicious material in his luggage, the passenger replied, "There is fat inside." This explanation understandably failed to allay concerns and the passenger was forced to remove the offending pork products from his suitcase. Evidently, bacon has a similar "nuclear density" to certain types of bombs.

The other items accompanying the bacon were weird enough to warrant an investigation anyway: He also had a hotel-quality electric shoeshiner and a package of some sort of electronic doll with wires and batteries.

It seems that he was concerned that the bacon actually might have been a bomb planted by his estranged wife, who packed it for him, but eventually it was determined to be a safe, if bizarre, item for carry-on. No word on whether the new "checkpoint friendly" bags are bacon-compatible. [Boing Boing]

Send an email to Dan Nosowitz, the author of this post, at dnosowitz@gizmodo.com.