Tldr

From Superdickery

Summary

On the evening of November 8th, 2007, while trolling, Virgil noticed that the bans he was getting weren't sticking. In fact, not only were new bans not sticking, but trolls banned in the olden days had been unbanned by an unknown admin. Trolltastic chaos ensued as Dr. Orpheus, Jaap, and Minnesota President's sockpuppets Danger Bitch and Dragon-Wolfe Dolphinn returned. Jaap really didn't troll very much, but the others did.

While quelling rumors and panic in IRC, TSI temporarily rebanned some accounts and caught EspanolBot's hijacked account in the act of unbanning said accounts. EBot's account was un-admin'd and its password changed by its rightful owner in the morning. All was then well.

Psy Totally Freaks Ebot Out For, Really, No God Damn Reason

PsychosesMan, awake throughout the debacle, had the idea in chat that the account hijacker might have sent Joyuna a breakup PM, since Joy and EBot communicate mainly via PMs anyway. RadiationHazard and Pinky sent Joy messages on Facebook to make sure she knew that if such a message were sent it was false, because they are thoughtful and considerate people. Psy later expressed this idea on the forum, and Ebot somehow interpreted "I thought it might be a possibility that the culprit sent a breakup message or something" as "the culprit absolutely did break up with your girlfriend and all is lost", and he panicked. Psy later clarified.

How did the unbanned know to return? OMG CONSPIRACY!?

No conspiracy, they most likely weren't in on it. Virgil told Sota, Draghignazzo told Jaap, and Dr. O read the CE thread where Virgil pointed out that bans weren't sticking.