Hello everyone. I'm having aggression issues with my boy (? not positive on sex)- I think he's around 2 years old and I’ve had him since September. According to his previous owner he has always been very docile, never aggressive, and that has been my experience as well until today.

Brief timeline of my snake's recent history:
A few weeks ago: escaped and was out of his enclosure for about 3 days total (just in case this could be relevant?)
Last Wednesday: Most recent feeding
Last Friday: Most recent handling before today (Monday)

Just so we've already ruled out hunger/lack of handling.

Today it was happysnakeyexplorationtime so I opened my snake's cage and just as I was about to pick him up like I usually do, he violently lashed out at me. I got away in time, and tried to touch him with an object that was not my hand and he tried to bite that and then tried to strike me again.

This was really really confusing because he has *no* history of aggression whatsoever, and gets handled on a regular basis (no more than two days between handling). Like I wrote above, he ate quite recently, and his previous owner and I have ALWAYS fed him in a separate enclosure.

After a minute or so, he cooled down and I was able to pick him up, have him crawl around on my arms and let him explore on my bed. In the mean time I decided I should clean his cage to see if it would help soothe any stress he might be facing. After it was cleaned, complete with fresh water and a new hidey hole, I put him back in. He seemed pleased with everything.
I let him settle for a little while (about an hour-hour and a half) before attempting to take him out again (he is used to frequent handling.. or so I thought). When I (slowly) reached for him, he made a noise like he was expelling air (like a sigh)—excuse my ignorance, but was that a ball python hiss?? I wasn’t sure, and I opted to just stroke him a little and he made the noise again. Maybe I was just paranoid and he was being his normal self again? He made no attempt to strike and did not make aggressive movements (just defensive).

Since then he has popped out of his hidey holes here and there to explore his newly cleaned enclosure.. and stare at me a lot, haha. He’s been very active since this ordeal began about 3-4 hours ago, but the moment he sees me he ducks back into his hides (although that’s not terribly abnormal for him).

This is very very weird. Snuggles has never acted this way before. He has always been quite an explorer/escape artist and he knows when I go to pick him up it means he gets to be outside, so I don't understand what could make him feel so threatened. He must be stressed by something, but he has regular feeding, a clean cage, heat, etc. I am afraid he might have some sort of health problem? He seems like a completely different snake now.

Any insight is appreciated.