Suddenly Sentient Ships

I'm accustomed to seeing Pirates and Trade Guild ships, with their respective faction tags. Although occasionally some randomly-named NPC ship will fly in, approach/touch another ship that doesn't have a pilot, and then BOTH ships start moving around, eventually BOTH flying off.

What is this?

Is there any way for admins to trigger unattended faction ships to do this? This would be quite a creative way to cleanup crowded protected sectors, where pilots couldn't be bothered to dock before...

Suddenly Sentient Ships