We had a similar, but even more ludicrous experience at Christmas. We bought my son a set of Lazer Tag guns. They're fancy ones that record the hits from the other guns, so they're always sending and receiving I guess.
As soon as we turned them on the Samsung cable box went haywire, flicking through channels of it's own accord and allsorts of weird stuff. As soon as we turned the guns off it stopped. But the remote still wouldn't take control of the box again until after we'd rebooted the cable box...weird.
Now he doesn't play with them in the lounge where the cable box is...lol
Didn't effect any of the other stuff with remotes though, hifi, tv, video, dvd.