A robotic penis being tested at the government’s Human Analytics Facility in Orange County, California has disappeared. Officials said that the electrically powered prosthetic has an internal guidance system, and may have left on its own after a power surge caused by a thunderstorm moving through the area deranged its onboard computer.

An artist's drawing of the device which is on the loose.

Lab director Dr. Michael Merkin said that he’s concerned for the safety of anybody who stole the penis, or comes into contact with it. “This is a powerful device,” he said, “and could be very dangerous if it falls into unskilled hands.”

Federal agents are combing the area in search of the penis. A house to house search has thus far failed to turn up the artificial organ. A crew utilizing special infrared sensing equipment has been dispatched by helicopter, but report that they are unable to distinguish the heat signature of the penis from above because it is too similar to that of bald pedestrians.

Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger of California invoked his emergency powers to force bald men to either wear hats or remain off the streets for the duration of the emergency. “We must all co-operate together during this emergency,” the governor said, “even though we are Californians.”

According to lab officials the penis has been classified “at the highest levels” under the National Security Act. They could not say why. In addition to state and local police, over three hundred members of the White House Secret Service detail were involved in the search. A Secret Service spokesman declined to comment.

As a result of Freedom of Information Act requests, liberal government critic Tom DeLay (not related) has learned that the penis grew out of a cigar smoking machine that had been built for the California governor and his staff to prevent them from having to extinguish and thus ruin expensive cigars when they temporarily left smoking areas to work. The machine was developed at a cost of 135 million dollars, but scrapped because it could only smoke 10 cigars at a time, and the governor has more than 10 cigar smoking staff members. “It could not be reconciled with equal opportunity statutes and the special interests forced us to get rid of it,” the Governor commented. Sources say that it also wheezed.

To create the penis, the cigar smoking machine was combined with a computer chip and body parts removed from a beluga whale that was swept ashore during a recent typhoon that struck Carmel, California. The storm also leveled 58 of the town’s 417 art galleries.