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Modern Urban Legends?

I found this UL of interest because a Work colleague (~20 years ago) actually had the newspaper clipping on his Office wall.
Taken from Snopes.com

A report has revealed that two traffic patrol officers from North Berwick were involved in an unusual incident whilst checking for speeding motorists on the A1 road between Oldhamstocks and Grantshouse.

Last May, they were using a hand-held radar device to trap unwary motorists on the Edinburgh to London trunk road. One of the unnamed officers used the device to check the speed of an approaching vehicle, and was surprised to find that his target had registered a speed in excess of 300 miles per hour. The £5000 machine then seized up and could not be reset by the bemused PC’s. The radar had in fact latched on to a NATO Tornado aircraft in the North Sea, which was taking part in a simulated low-flying exercise over the Borders and Southern Scotland.

Following a complaint by Sir William Sutherland, Chief Constable of the Lothian & Borders Police force to the RAF liaison office, it was revealed that the officers had a lucky escape – the tactical computer on board the aircraft not only detected and jammed the “hostile” radar equipment, but had automatically armed a Sidewinder air-to-ground missile ready to neutralize the perceived threat. Luckily the Dutch pilot was alerted to the missile status and was able to override the automatic protection system before the missile launched.

The Police have so far declined to comment, although it is understood that officers will be advised to point their radar guns inland in future.

The current version of Snopes' online article on this UL can be accessed at:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/police-radar-missile/

Further discussion of this UL can be found at:

Police Radar Unit / Speed Trap Pings Fighter Jet (UL)
https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/police-radar-unit-speed-trap-pings-fighter-jet-ul.467/
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Bad Bungle said:
I found this UL of interest because a Work colleague (~20 years ago) actually had the newspaper clipping on his Office wall.
Taken from Snopes.com

A report has revealed that two traffic patrol officers from North Berwick were involved in an unusual incident whilst checking for speeding motorists on the A1 road between Oldhamstocks and Grantshouse.

Last May, they were using a hand-held radar device to trap unwary motorists on the Edinburgh to London trunk road. One of the unnamed officers used the device to check the speed of an approaching vehicle, and was surprised to find that his target had registered a speed in excess of 300 miles per hour. The £5000 machine then seized up and could not be reset by the bemused PC’s. The radar had in fact latched on to a NATO Tornado aircraft in the North Sea, which was taking part in a simulated low-flying exercise over the Borders and Southern Scotland.

Following a complaint by Sir William Sutherland, Chief Constable of the Lothian & Borders Police force to the RAF liaison office, it was revealed that the officers had a lucky escape – the tactical computer on board the aircraft not only detected and jammed the “hostile” radar equipment, but had automatically armed a Sidewinder air-to-ground missile ready to neutralize the perceived threat. Luckily the Dutch pilot was alerted to the missile status and was able to override the automatic protection system before the missile launched.

The Police have so far declined to comment, although it is understood that officers will be advised to point their radar guns inland in future.
Click to expand...


There was also a story about someone finding what they thought was a microwave oven dumped at the roadside and driving off with it in the boot. As it was actually a police radar speed trap and they were seen taking it, the police gave chase and high jinks and hilarity ensued.
 
maximus otter said:
If you mean the Snopes “Killer in the Backseat” page, l can assure you via an impeccable source that such things do happen.

My wife and I are both former police officers. Unfortunately l’ll have to mung the following details severely, for reasons that must be obvious. Read on:

A woman was alone in her car in the hours of darkness when it ran short of petrol. She pulled into a convenient filling station in a large city, topped up and paid at the kiosk. She hadn’t locked the car when she left to pay.

She drove off, only to have the horrifying experience of seeing a man sit up on the rear seat.

She managed to convince the suspect that she was going to be sick and parked the car opposite another business. She fled to that building, blurted out the story and the police attended and arrested the suspect.

My wife was personally involved in this case. The offender was a young man who was not in any way “on the radar” of the police. His motive was never made clear.

He went to court for the incident (offence charged and case disposition not known).

I note with wry amusement that the left-leaning Snopes website turns this “UL” into a diatribe about sexism:

“Even as a horror legend, this one is sexist to the core. As mentioned earlier, the prey is always female and both the evil fiend and the rescuer are male — there are no exceptions to this typecasting (even though men are far more often the victims of killing by strangers than women are). Both male figures are seen as powerful: the fiend for his evilness and mad intent, the rescuer for his coolness...The woman, by contrast, is portrayed as completely and irredeemably ineffective.”

I’m sure that the female in the incident above would have preferred to (in my unsubstantiated personal theory) be abducted, raped and murdered in an empowered, diverse non-sexist atmosphere. :rolleyes:

People - especially ladies - lock your ****ing doors!

maximus otter
Click to expand...
You have any sources for that, other than a discussion you had with your wife? I'm sure Snopes would like to see it, and would update the page. For that matter, Wikipedia doesn't have any references for it actually happening, either, maybe you should update them as well?

Also, I'm not sure why you have to "mung" the details. I get not telling us the name of the victim, but how about the name of the city, or the police station that responded?

Apart from that, your version reads exactly like the version that has been circulating via mail, newspaper columns, and other FOAF fora since the 60s, so you'll have to excuse some skepticism.
 
Lord Lucan said:
That using a mobile/cell phone at a petrol/gas station will cause a fire or explosion. Apparently, this has never actually occurred.
Click to expand...

Years back I read something about the justification for the mobile phone warnings being questioned in the UK and a petrol station Manager confessing that the chances of an explosion were nil - just thought people using a mobile on his forecourt were a pain.
 
Anome said:
You have any sources for that, other than a discussion you had with your wife?

Apart from that, your version reads exactly like the version that has been circulating via mail, newspaper columns, and other FOAF fora since the 60s, so you'll have to excuse some skepticism.
Click to expand...

Did you miss the sentence where I said that my wife - a police officer - was personally involved in this incident?

maximus otter
 
Bad Bungle said:
Years back I read something about the justification for the mobile phone warnings being questioned in the UK and a petrol station Manager confessing that the chances of an explosion were nil - just thought people using a mobile on his forecourt were a pain.
Click to expand...
Notwithstanding his expert opinion, there's enough energy in a phone battery to cause a big fat spark, so while it's unlikely, given the utter idiocy of the average person, keeping active phone use off the forecourt seems quite sensible to me. Never mind some idiot spraying fuel everywhere because they're still looking at their phone and not what they're doing.
 
Bad Bungle said:
Years back I read something about the justification for the mobile phone warnings being questioned in the UK and a petrol station Manager confessing that the chances of an explosion were nil - just thought people using a mobile on his forecourt were a pain.
Click to expand...


If there was any *real* danger then Shell would never have allowed mobile phone masts to be placed in their forecourt signs.
 
maximus otter said:
Did you miss the sentence where I said that my wife - a police officer - was personally involved in this incident?

maximus otter
Click to expand...
No, but I only have your word for that. I've had people repeat similar urban legends and other old stories as if they happened to them, and I know they were lying. And those were people I could see. I don't even know if you have a wife, let alone whether she's a police officer.

I've also seen stories go from "friend of a friend" to "friend" to "I definitely saw it myself" as they got repeated. I've seen stories change from actual events to something else. I've even inadvertently done so myself, and only found out later.

What you are giving me is anecdotal evidence that this happened. Anecdotal evidence isn't worth the paper it's written on. Without at least a secondary source - say the police reports about the incident - there isn't really much for the rest of us to go on.
 
CuriousIdent said:
If there was any *real* danger then Shell would never have allowed mobile phone masts to be placed in their forecourt signs.
Click to expand...
It's the phones' batteries that are the likely danger...

It's probable (I sincerely hope) that the electronic/electrics in the pumps themselves are at least designed to be 'intrinsically safe' to prevent enough energy discharging anywhere and lighting the place up. Phones and their batteries are not. As I said, it's a thin chance, but it's quite real.
 
Anome said:
No, but I only have your word for that. I've had people repeat similar urban legends and other old stories as if they happened to them, and I know they were lying. And those were people I could see. I don't even know if you have a wife, let alone whether she's a police officer.

I've also seen stories go from "friend of a friend" to "friend" to "I definitely saw it myself" as they got repeated. I've seen stories change from actual events to something else. I've even inadvertently done so myself, and only found out later.

What you are giving me is anecdotal evidence that this happened. Anecdotal evidence isn't worth the paper it's written on. Without at least a secondary source - say the police reports about the incident - there isn't really much for the rest of us to go on.
Click to expand...

To be fair with some jobs you just can't give details.
 
This post isn't an Urban Legend (probably) or even Fortean, I couldn't find a thread for stories you thought were probably a UL but turned out to be probably true (love those): The demise of Banzai.

Banzai was a prog on E4/Channel 4/Dave that encouraged the Viewer to bet on the outcome of a series of surreal stunts (how many helium balloons are required to make a chicken float for example) - all done with exaggerated asian accents.
It disappeared off British TV around 2002 and the story I heard involved the funeral of the Queen Mother. Apparently a WPC on crowd control on the Processional route of the hearse, noticed a film crew acting oddly - they were filming the pavement and not the crowds or the cortege. The WPC and her colleague spotted chalk markings on the kerb and came to the conclusion that Banzai were attempting to measuring the speed of the QM funeral procession and so gave them 'some advice'.
Queen Mother died 30th March 2002, Princess Margaret died 9th Feb 2002, Princess Diana died 31st August 1997. Channel 4 declined to comment on an intended Banzai Right Royal Funeral Grand Prix - who fastest ? prace your bets now !!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/1921494.stm
 
They weren't exaggerated Asian accents, they were perfectly authentic - Burt Kwouk did one of the voiceovers. For some reason the US version was taken off the air when it received complaints it was racist, even though it was presented by actual Asians with actual Asian accents. Maybe because it was a comedy show? If it had been a serious WW2 documentary series, would they still have complained?
 
Lord Lucan said:
That using a mobile/cell phone at a petrol/gas station will cause a fire or explosion. Apparently, this has never actually occurred.
Here's what SNOPES has to say on the topic.
Click to expand...

When our local huge new Tesco opened I went inside up the 'Travelator' and watched Techy filling his car in the petrol station below. I rang him to say 'Hey I can see you! Can you see me waving at you?'

He answered the phone and while we were talking there was an announcement over the petrol station PA telling him to get off his phone as it was a safety hazard.

He said 'Gotta go, I have to get off the phone as it's a safety hazard!' and the attendant repeated it all again over the PA, quite snarkily this time. He then had to go inside and pay, and everyone stared at him because he was The Man Who Used His Phone At The Pump.

He was furious and told me all about it when he joined me in Tesco, and I of course fell about laughing and made it worse.
 
escargot said:
Heh yup, Techy once flooded the kitchen and soaked himself and I laughed so hard at him that when I went off to take a shower, still roaring, I tipped my head back and spilled shampoo straight down my throat!
Click to expand...

Oh god brilliant! In return I offer....

howling with laughter at Mr Frideswide's attempt to pitch my tent, which was unfamiliar to him. I neatly dodged and caught the climbing boot he lobbed at me. And then I fell over a guy rope, knocked myself out on a stump and we had to spend the next 8 hours in Newtown Hospital. :boozing:
 
Frideswide said:
Oh god brilliant! In return I offer....

howling with laughter at Mr Frideswide's attempt to pitch my tent, which was unfamiliar to him. I neatly dodged and caught the climbing boot he lobbed at me. And then I fell over a guy rope, knocked myself out on a stump and we had to spend the next 8 hours in Newtown Hospital. :boozing:
Click to expand...

Hahahahah, that'll teach'im!
 
Bad Bungle said:
I found this UL of interest because a Work colleague (~20 years ago) actually had the newspaper clipping on his Office wall.
Taken from Snopes.com

A report has revealed that two traffic patrol officers from North Berwick were involved in an unusual incident whilst checking for speeding motorists on the A1 road between Oldhamstocks and Grantshouse.

Last May, they were using a hand-held radar device to trap unwary motorists on the Edinburgh to London trunk road. One of the unnamed officers used the device to check the speed of an approaching vehicle, and was surprised to find that his target had registered a speed in excess of 300 miles per hour. The £5000 machine then seized up and could not be reset by the bemused PC’s. The radar had in fact latched on to a NATO Tornado aircraft in the North Sea, which was taking part in a simulated low-flying exercise over the Borders and Southern Scotland.

Following a complaint by Sir William Sutherland, Chief Constable of the Lothian & Borders Police force to the RAF liaison office, it was revealed that the officers had a lucky escape – the tactical computer on board the aircraft not only detected and jammed the “hostile” radar equipment, but had automatically armed a Sidewinder air-to-ground missile ready to neutralize the perceived threat. Luckily the Dutch pilot was alerted to the missile status and was able to override the automatic protection system before the missile launched.

The Police have so far declined to comment, although it is understood that officers will be advised to point their radar guns inland in future.
Click to expand...

My brother collects and restores AFVs (armoured fighting vehicles) and a few years ago bought a mobile missile launcher (yep, anyone can buy them, if you know where to look). He took delivery, and like any normal person, was excitedly playing with his new toy with his mates. They did get a very swift visit from a police Armed Response unit after some passing military aircraft got a ping from the targetting equipment, which should have been removed by the MOD when they decommissioned the vehicle at the end of its working life. (I believe the plane/helicopter wasn't targetted, but that modern aircraft detection kit is so advanced that it can pick up all manner of targetting signals - even low-tech anti-tank missile launcher, like my bro's new project)

The MOD are remarkably lax at cleaning up their old stuff, my bro often has to ring Mr Plod and report that there's a couple of unfired armour piercing Depleted Uranium bullets rolling around in the bottom of a new purchase. A Centurion (or perhaps a Chieftan) tank was delivered, complete with an obselete, though still very advanced and not available to the general public, 360 degree night-vision system installed. No-one ever came to retrieve it, apparently.
 
LordRsmacker said:
The MOD are remarkably lax at cleaning up their old stuff, my bro often has to ring Mr Plod and report that there's a couple of unfired armour piercing Depleted Uranium bullets rolling around in the bottom of a new purchase. A Centurion (or perhaps a Chieftan) tank was delivered, complete with an obselete, though still very advanced and not available to the general public, 360 degree night-vision system installed. No-one ever came to retrieve it, apparently.
Click to expand...
That is hair-raising. Your brother should get a Geiger counter or dosimeter.
 
LordRsmacker said:
My brother collects and restores AFVs (armoured fighting vehicles) and a few years ago bought a mobile missile launcher (yep, anyone can buy them, if you know where to look). He took delivery, and like any normal person, was excitedly playing with his new toy with his mates. They did get a very swift visit from a police Armed Response unit after some passing military aircraft got a ping from the targetting equipment, which should have been removed by the MOD when they decommissioned the vehicle at the end of its working life. (I believe the plane/helicopter wasn't targetted, but that modern aircraft detection kit is so advanced that it can pick up all manner of targetting signals - even low-tech anti-tank missile launcher, like my bro's new project)

The MOD are remarkably lax at cleaning up their old stuff, my bro often has to ring Mr Plod and report that there's a couple of unfired armour piercing Depleted Uranium bullets rolling around in the bottom of a new purchase. A Centurion (or perhaps a Chieftan) tank was delivered, complete with an obselete, though still very advanced and not available to the general public, 360 degree night-vision system installed. No-one ever came to retrieve it, apparently.
Click to expand...
I now have an amusing vision of your brother rolling through domestic streets in a tank, peering through night vision system, trying to catch couples 'at it' in the bushes.

A kind of very advanced dogging, if you will.
 
As a kid it was common knowledge that the Secret Service (MI5, MI6, Department S) had a Warehouse somewhere full of old televisions. Every time Agents broke into a property to find evidence or to plant bugs, they tried to cover their tracks by making it look like a burglary and so were obliged to steal the telly.
I'm unable to find a debunking on Snopes.com so far, so must be true.
 
Bad Bungle said:
As a kid it was common knowledge that the Secret Service (MI5, MI6, Department S) had a Warehouse somewhere full of old televisions. Every time Agents broke into a property to find evidence or to plant bugs, they tried to cover their tracks by making it look like a burglary and so were obliged to steal the telly.
I'm unable to find a debunking on Snopes.com so far, so must be true.
Click to expand...

Makes sense. I wonder if this happened in Australia too. My father had three televisions knocked off in the late 70s, though I doubt ASIO or ASIS had need to listen in on him.
 
Bad Bungle said:
As a kid it was common knowledge that the Secret Service (MI5, MI6, Department S) had a Warehouse somewhere full of old televisions. Every time Agents broke into a property to find evidence or to plant bugs, they tried to cover their tracks by making it look like a burglary and so were obliged to steal the telly.
I'm unable to find a debunking on Snopes.com so far, so must be true.
Click to expand...

I wonder if it was standard practice for the agent to curl one off on the living room carpet, to make it look even more like a real burglary?
These days they'd just text you that you had won a new super-dooper flat screen TV and then would drop round later with one of those Vizio Smart TVs. Surveillance the easy way.
 
LordRsmacker said:
I wonder if it was standard practice for the agent to curl one off on the living room carpet, to make it look even more like a real burglary?
These days they'd just text you that you had won a new super-dooper flat screen TV and then would drop round later with one of those Vizio Smart TVs. Surveillance the easy way.
Click to expand...

Maybe if you're really unlucky it doesn't work and you find out later it's an oven door.
 
Lord Lucan said:
Makes sense. I wonder if this happened in Australia too. My father had three televisions knocked off in the late 70s, though I doubt ASIO or ASIS had need to listen in on him.
Click to expand...
ASIO were easy to spot back then. They were the ones in Telecom vans working on the substation on the corner. You could spot the tapped lines, because they were the ones that had proper labels on the wires, while the genuine Telecom ones were tagged with bits of notepaper, and old luggage tags.
 
escargot said:
When our local huge new Tesco opened I went inside up the 'Travelator' and watched Techy filling his car in the petrol station below. I rang him to say 'Hey I can see you! Can you see me waving at you?'

He answered the phone and while we were talking there was an announcement over the petrol station PA telling him to get off his phone as it was a safety hazard.

He said 'Gotta go, I have to get off the phone as it's a safety hazard!' and the attendant repeated it all again over the PA, quite snarkily this time. He then had to go inside and pay, and everyone stared at him because he was The Man Who Used His Phone At The Pump.

He was furious and told me all about it when he joined me in Tesco, and I of course fell about laughing and made it worse.
Click to expand...

Whatever about petrol stations here's a phone combusting on a plane.

An Alaska Airlines Flight evacuated all of the passengers onboard after landing on Monday evening due to a fire caused by a cell phone in the plane's cargo hold.

The Port of Seattle Fire Department (POSFD) responded to reports of a fire on the Alaska Airlines's flight at around 8:30 p.m. on Monday after the aircraft landed at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in Washington.

An Alaska Airlines spokesperson told Newsweek that the blaze broke out on the plane "shortly after landing" when a passenger's phone caught on fire, prompting everyone onboard to be evacuated once it landed at the Seattle airport.

https://www.newsweek.com/alaska-airlines-flight-fire-cell-phone-evacuation-seattle-1622325
 
ramonmercado said:
Whatever about petrol stations here's a phone combusting on a plane.

An Alaska Airlines Flight evacuated all of the passengers onboard after landing on Monday evening due to a fire caused by a cell phone in the plane's cargo hold.

The Port of Seattle Fire Department (POSFD) responded to reports of a fire on the Alaska Airlines's flight at around 8:30 p.m. on Monday after the aircraft landed at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in Washington.

An Alaska Airlines spokesperson told Newsweek that the blaze broke out on the plane "shortly after landing" when a passenger's phone caught on fire, prompting everyone onboard to be evacuated once it landed at the Seattle airport.

https://www.newsweek.com/alaska-airlines-flight-fire-cell-phone-evacuation-seattle-1622325
Click to expand...
I'm assuming that phone was faulty rather than being a regular known risk.
 
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