The Meadows neighborhood blog reports that a hiker found two ropes dangling suspiciously from a high voltage transmission line at the top of Risinghill Road.  Investigation by SoCalEdison linemen found the following:

The linemen removed the object, which turned out to be a bolt cutter, jury-rigged to be activated by pulling on the pair of ropes simultaneously. The contraption, obviously, didn’t work. The perpetrators, apparently at a loss as to how they might retrieve the device, left it hanging on the wire

Our guess is that some not-too-bright copper thieves tried to cut down the wire and abandoned the project.  We’re not sure you can surreptitiously cut down active high-voltage transmission wire –the power will go out over a large area, leaving only the glow from your smouldering body to attract attention.