Odd Avatar Behavior

I've noticed a peculiar occurrence this week in a couple of adjoining sims, and was wondering if anyone else has seen this happening lately. A "ruthed" avatar suddenly pops into the sim and overflies in a continuous pattern at approximately 250 meters height, circling throughout the sim(s) over and over for several minutes. The pattern so far has been clockwise, and the individual avatar continues the circular pattern until it finally stops and hovers, slowly descending toward the ground. It then hovers at approximately 100+ meters and then "poofs" out of the sim, either teleporting or logging out. The two avatars that I saw this evening were both "born" on the same date: 12-11-06. One avatar was "ruthed" and had missing texture. The other avatar was "ruthed" and wore white underclothing, typical of the in-game clothing anyone can make.

I followed both of these avatars as they circled their respective sims. When the first one winked out, the second one appeared in the neighboring sim and I followed it. I attempted to chat with both of them when I was finally able to catch up with each of them. I asked what was going on, and why were they overflying the sim(s). Neither answered (I didn't expect them to do so.) I did make a note of both of their names for future reference, and took snapshots of both of them.

My curiosity has been piqued. Obviously some game is afoot (or a-fly). Has anyone else seen anything similar? Any ideas about what's going on?

Sounds like they may be Bots, possibly landbots scanning for cheap land.

Or a spybot

I know that sometimes when I fly across a sim boundary, something goes totally haywire, and I start flying uncontrollably, until I just go off the edge of the world and crash. I can't do anything, let alone chat. It wouldn't surprise me if on other people's screens I was Ruthed and/or wearing crappy underwear.

I've seen some of these white clothed ruths in the welcome area drop off and I saw one in a skybox apparently trying to get out but too stupid to teleport itself. LL really needs to do something about those... I guess they help inflate the numbers though.

Appreciate the responses very much. Prior to the two avatars that I mentioned, there was another avatar who also did an overflight of one of the sims. Its actions were very similar, but it more actively avoided my ability to draw close to it, and in fact it moved very quickly in the opposite direction when I attempted to get near. It eventually moved faster than I could fly to one of the sim boundaries and winked out as I tried approaching. I didn't attempt to chat or IM it, but did get the avatar's name and birthdate: 11-28-06. This avatar was also doing the clockwise circular flying pattern within the sim.

One of the interesting sequelae of the flyovers has been a perhaps coincidental immense amount of lag and wildly fluctuating time dilation immediately following the flyovers. It might not be related, but it is quite coincidental.

(I'm familiar with the problem of sim-crossings, but this is a deliberate pattern of flying within the sim.)

Thanks again for the responses.

Its probably this - sounds reasonble considerignt he "Ruthed"

the spy bot shouldnt have to do circle flying I dont think more just hop 512 meters at a time in straight lines across the grid.