Sounds like a mass spam attack. If we can't get that many on boring Boxing Day, God knows what would happen on a quite, far too humid early Tuesday morning.
Wow, good spot! I can only assume as DCat says it was a spamming attempt. Bizarre though that there weren't any spam posts unless Rizzo removed them without telling me!
Only other option is a computer error at Sotic's end, but I doubt that. I'll keep my eyes open on that one!