Police Apprehend Escaped Unicorn

In the sort of story you don't see every day, police in Madera, California were tasked with apprehending a unicorn named Juliette who escaped from a photo shoot last Wednesday night. It is not clear why she fled the photo shoot, or where she was trying to go while police attempted to chase her down. They initiated their pursuit after receiving calls reporting an unaccompanied unicorn roaming the streets - and everybody knows that unaccompanied unicorns mean nothing but trouble.

The horse had been "posing with kids" during a photo shoot, when she "became frightened" and broke away from her owner. She had been a little unruly earlier in the day (you can't tame unicorns, you know), trying to make a break for it once already before being thwarted. On her second attempt, Juliette was a bit craftier, and got away.

She ran to the streets of Madera Rancheros, at which point onlookers began phoning the California Highway Patrol, reporting that they were seeing a unicorn trotting about the city.

As is typical of unicorns, Juliette was stealthy and elusive in avoiding capture, for at least a few hours. After location efforts proved unsuccessful, the CHP intensified their retrieval procedures.

"The search became so desperate," KTLA 5 reports, "that the local police had to use a helicopter and thermal imaging to locate the pony, which was hiding out in an orchard."

Juliette's owners insist that she is not a unicorn, but rather a pony with a unicorn horn stuck to her head. But that's probably what I would say too if a story made it into the papers reporting on my ownership of such a rare and magical creature. It also explains the enlistment of police, since clearly a real unicorn would be far too valuable to simply allow to run loose in the streets. Who knows what dark magick somebody could accomplish if they managed to get their hands on the horn?