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Who Ya Gonna Call? (Calling Cops About Fortean Incidents)

gattino

gattino

Justified & Ancient
Joined
Jul 30, 2003
Messages
2,522
Reading this slight article on yorkshire police releasing reports they'd received from ufo witnesses, it solidified a thought that's bubbled up over the years. Why do people call the police, what are they expecting, and how would the (UK) police respond to such calls?

https://www.coasttocoastam.com/arti...y-of-bizarre-ufo-and-alien-reports-from-2021/

Many major/famous cases over the decades include police involvement in the recounting. Whether that's alleged spacecraft, cryptids or poltergeist infestations. Enfield comes to mind. The notion of the "upright and trustworthy trained observer" is usually a key selling point.

But imagining myself as the witness to these things i can't imagine how i would justify calling the police. Ok maybe the beast in the undergrowth..could be an intruder or escaped wild animal. But if i saw an uncanny light, even a craft in the sky..or if objects were flying around my living room, why would the police even enter my head other than by familiarity with these past anecdotes? Would you ring 999? Or the local station? What would you expect them to do about it? What crime is assumed? And how would the operator in real life react to such a phone call...treat you as a nuisance caller, or actually send officers out? To do what?

The reason i emphasise the UK police is because perhaps some of those US tales are more relatable to the community, if we're talking small towns with sheriffs offices and some nominal personal familiarity between the residents and their protectors. But a central big city police force in this country would surely think you were wasting their time whether the phenomenon is real or not...wouldn't they?

I want to know in case my home ever gets infested by a spook.

Actually thats another thing. Suppose i was convinced i was getting psychic messages from a murder victim....how would I , or rather in this case you, approach the police, and how in reality would they respond to that approach?
 
As with so many things it depends on individual officers -my local police wildlife officer startled me by informing me that he was convinced there were two ABCs in the area and he had been out looking for them! Again however this is a fairly rural area of England not a city.
 
Floyd1 said:
It wouldn't make any difference here. I once called the police about a non ufo/Fortean incident and was told "we have no one to assist- well, it is a Sunday". I jest not.
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Yeah, the police these days don't seem an incredibly useful resource if you're the victim of an actual crime, so I can't imagine they'd be much use unraveling the most subtle mysteries of the Universe. However, I think some people just want their experience on official record. I doubt many people expect the police to go and arrest some extraterrestrials or caution bigfoot. Perhaps experiencers hope that their reports will be combined with corroborating reports.
 
gattino said:
Suppose i was convinced i was getting psychic messages from a murder victim....
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I just heard a podcast, (I believe Weird Darkness) that mentioned a case where a "normal" woman (not someone who claimed to be psychic) had a "vision" of where a murdered girl's body was to be found.

She reported this to the police, and then went out searching herself, as she had a feeling the cops didn't follow up too hard on her report. She ended up finding the body... and eventually being arrested for her involvement in the murder. (edit: she had nothing to do with the murder.)

The cops literally couldn't believe she could know what she did without being involved. She won a wrongful arrest lawsuit.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-03-27-me-381-story.html
 
gattino said:
Reading this slight article on yorkshire police releasing reports they'd received from ufo witnesses, it solidified a thought that's bubbled up over the years. Why do people call the police, what are they expecting, and how would the (UK) police respond to such calls?

https://www.coasttocoastam.com/arti...y-of-bizarre-ufo-and-alien-reports-from-2021/

Many major/famous cases over the decades include police involvement in the recounting. Whether that's alleged spacecraft, cryptids or poltergeist infestations. Enfield comes to mind. The notion of the "upright and trustworthy trained observer" is usually a key selling point.

But imagining myself as the witness to these things i can't imagine how i would justify calling the police. Ok maybe the beast in the undergrowth..could be an intruder or escaped wild animal. But if i saw an uncanny light, even a craft in the sky..or if objects were flying around my living room, why would the police even enter my head other than by familiarity with these past anecdotes? Would you ring 999? Or the local station? What would you expect them to do about it? What crime is assumed? And how would the operator in real life react to such a phone call...treat you as a nuisance caller, or actually send officers out? To do what?

The reason i emphasise the UK police is because perhaps some of those US tales are more relatable to the community, if we're talking small towns with sheriffs offices and some nominal personal familiarity between the residents and their protectors. But a central big city police force in this country would surely think you were wasting their time whether the phenomenon is real or not...wouldn't they?

I want to know in case my home ever gets infested by a spook.

Actually thats another thing. Suppose i was convinced i was getting psychic messages from a murder victim....how would I , or rather in this case you, approach the police, and how in reality would they respond to that approach?
Click to expand...
Well, my answer is ~ yes I did call the local police station with a report of our UFO encounter as witnessed, and the police did turn up within minutes, and did carry out an extensive survey of the area of our garden for a couple of hours. After the officers had finished taking samples of soil, leaves etc, they left saying we'll be in touch with what is found, but then we heard, and were told nothing more.
Initially we thought it was the local bobbies that had carried out the tests, but on reflection they were probably from HQ in Perth (Scotland) or from elsewhere.
So, end of story, even after retelling the encounter to a local newspaper reporter, he reported to me that nothing further was known of the event. So, effectively the whole episode was made officially dead.
 
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There was an article in the Daily Telegraph years back (maybe before FT started) of local residents in Italy complaining to Police of a mysterious rain of stones falling out of the sky over an open courtyard. The Carabinieri turned up, got pelted by stones materialising above them, freaked out and started shooting the sky with automatic weapons. Do we have a 'rain of stones' thread ?
 
gattino said:
…imagining myself as the witness to these things i can't imagine how i would justify calling the police. Ok maybe the beast in the undergrowth..could be an intruder or escaped wild animal. But if i saw an uncanny light, even a craft in the sky..or if objects were flying around my living room, why would the police even enter my head other than by familiarity with these past anecdotes? Would you ring 999? Or the local station? What would you expect them to do about it? What crime is assumed? And how would the operator in real life react to such a phone call...treat you as a nuisance caller, or actually send officers out? To do what?
Click to expand...

Based on personal experience (23 years of patrol policing; 3 years in a Force Control Room as Radio Operator/Dispatcher), the police are very occasionally called re matters Fortean.

From memory, l can only dredge up one such call to which l personally responded: “The Devil is dancing in my garden!”

Anecdotally, l can remember a couple more weird ones attended by colleagues, e.g.: “There’s a giant man-eating spider in my house!” (The caller was otnay ootay ightbray, and someone had pushed a 4” rubber joke shop fly through his letter box.)

As time goes on, however, your chances of getting a police response to such a call are diminishing rapidly. With reduced staffing, mission creep and more and more calls for service, even legit callers have to be satisfied with a voice on the phone. ( l have a WPC mate who’s coming to the end of her service, and is attached to our Control Room; her entire job is ringing callers back, and trying to persuade them not to insist on seeing a bobby, and being satisfied with just a chat and/or a unique reference number to quote.)

maximus otter
 
I used to be in the fire service and you’d be amazed at the things people call the emergency services for. Admittedly I never attended an alien incident, but I think in times of stress , anxiety, fear or panic people call the services because that’s what we are taught to do from an early age.
If you’re in trouble or in fear call 999 because someone will help you. I think it’s understandable.
 
Perhaps maximus_otter, as a 'Recovering policeman', can answer a query that I have had for a while now? If police are called out to a fortean-type event, will there be a record of it kept - no matter how odd or outlandish it appears?

On the one hand, I would imagine that the tendancy might be to simply shrug their shoulders and say "there's not even any point in writing this down", but I imagine that there may be a policy within the police service to record anything - no matter how insignificent it might be - in case it proves to be of some importance at a later date.

As a kid I read some of the books of Harry Cole a London beat bobby who recalled in one of his early books being called out to a Council Flat by the residents because of poltergeist type activity. His initial impulse was that the residents were trying to get given a better (i.e. larger) flat by the council and so were making up their claims, but he came away completely confused by what he witnessed. I'm afraid that I can't recall any particular details about his experience after all these years. (If they're cheap for the Kobo I might look into buying those books again - I recall another vaguely fortean story in one of the books as well).

I suppose one situation where people frequently call the police following a ghost sighting is in 'phantom jaywalker/hitchhiker' type events - where people believe that they have hit someone with their car. In those situations the police are surely bound to attend. Usually the story then goes that the policeman on the scene remarks that 'this is the third time this month that someone's seen her/it' or words to that effect. :chuckle:

Police records could be a previously untapped treasure-trove of forteana - if only there weren't (obviously) privacy concerns about them being made public.
 
CALGACUS03 said:
Perhaps maximus_otter, as a 'Recovering policeman', can answer a query that I have had for a while now? If police are called out to a fortean-type event, will there be a record of it kept - no matter how odd or outlandish it appears?

On the one hand, I would imagine that the tendancy might be to simply shrug their shoulders and say "there's not even any point in writing this down", but I imagine that there may be a policy within the police service to record anything - no matter how insignificent it might be - in case it proves to be of some importance at a later date.
Click to expand...

Yes: Every incident we record and attend has a unique Incident Number, and every Incident had to have a write-off before being “put to bed”. Our computer program was called “Command and Control 3”.

If the incident were particularly notable or unusual, or was deemed worthy of further attention, the responding officer could also complete various paper forms, e.g. a Form 2 general report.

The problems from a Fortean researcher’s point of view would be:

a) There wasn’t a particular incident code for Fortean/supernatural incidents, nor was there;

b) A unique write-off code for such.

A job that might enthral a Fortean could just be recorded as “Suspicious sound/activity behind unoccupied premises” and written off simply as “ASNT”. (Area Search, No Trace); or “NCPA” (No Cause Police Action”.

maximus otter
 
maximus otter said:
Yes: Every incident we record and attend has a unique Incident Number, and every Incident had to have a write-off before being “put to bed”. Our computer program was called “Command and Control 3”.

If the incident were particularly notable or unusual, or was deemed worthy of further attention, the responding officer could also complete various paper forms, e.g. a Form 2 general report.

The problems from a Fortean researcher’s point of view would be:

a) There wasn’t a particular incident code for Fortean/supernatural incidents, nor was there;

b) A unique write-off code for such.

A job that might enthral a Fortean could just be recorded as “Suspicious sound/activity behind unoccupied premises” and written off simply as “ASNT”. (Area Search, No Trace); or “NCPA” (No Cause Police Action”.
Click to expand...

Many thanks, @maximus otter!
 
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