Tuesday 14 June 2011

Fake Tiger Sparks Police Scare

POLICE are today trying to trace the owner of a toy life-size tiger which sparked a major operation involving armed officers and a force helicopter.

The alert was raised by several members of the public yesterday afternoon when they spotted what they believed to be a live white tiger in a field near Hedge End, Southampton, Hampshire.


The police helicopter was scrambled and a golf course cleared after police arrived at the scene and confirmed the sighting.

Armed police were called to the scene in case the animal came too close to members of the public.

Specialist staff from nearby Marwell Zoo also attended to advise and potentially tranquilise the wild animal.

A local golf course was evacuated and plans were put in place to close the nearby M27 motorway if necessary in case the tiger moved in that direction.

But as police officers carefully approached the "wild animal" they realised it was not moving and the helicopter crew, using thermal imaging equipment, realised there was no heat source coming from it.

A spokeswoman for the force said: "After a brief stalk through the Hedge End savannah, the officer realised the tiger was not moving and the air support using their cameras realised there was a lack of heat source.

"The tiger then rolled over in the down draft and it was at that point it became obvious it was a stuffed life-size toy.

"This incident will definitely be the highlight of our day. The CCTV footage convinced us all we were dealing with a real tiger.

"It's not often an incident leaves our staff with a smile on their face and it just goes to show the diverse type of incident we are called to deal with."

Releasing a photo of the toy tiger, a force spokeswoman said:
"The toy tiger is life-size and is like one that you would win at a fair.

"It is being treated as lost property but we don't know how it came to be in the field and whether it may have been a hoax."

- Story taken from http://www.thesun.co.uk/

33 comments:

  1. Hahah, dang. I thought the picture was a real tiger for a moment there, not surprised they thought it was real at a distance.

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  2. Hahaha that's epic! Fragile humans SMH.

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  3. Well, I guess it's better than them thinking it's a stuffed toy and it goes on a kiddy eating rampage :P

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  4. Haha this reminds me of that time when the police had to track and shoot a crock somewhere in the US... turned out to be a statue to scare kids off the yard whehehe

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  5. wow that is a lot of fail XD

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  6. lol i thought it was real too. omg. so many people got involved into that.. someone must be having a good laugh.

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  7. looks exactly like a real tiger. funny stuff

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  8. Whoever pulled off this prank probably thinks that they're G-g-g-g-g-g-reat!

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  9. heh from a distance it kind of looks like a real tiger, i guess you can't blame them.

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  10. huge waste of resources, but pretty funny that it happened

    i guess since i dont pay taxes in england it is a net gain for me, hah

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  11. haha wow some people really are idiots

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  12. Woah, that's pretty pathetic. :/

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  13. Tiger's man... they are serious problems real or fake you gotta get em before they evolve into a Liger and become unstoppable.

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  14. hahaha how stupid, funny read

    followed!

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  15. ahahaha, how does this happen?

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  16. Lol, there was something like that here, these cops were called out to a property that had a small pond because there was an alligator sitting near the edge. Because it was really close to a residential area they decided to just shoot it from the distance. The cop shot it twice and nothing happened, when they checked the body it was a concrete statue lol

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  17. It looks real until you look at the rounded off paws with no nails. You would hope that they would send someone from the force down to get visual evidence themselves next time before launching a full on helicopter attack.

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  18. How is it even possible not to spot it from a normal one. That's just pathetic!

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  19. at first hilarious but when you think about it it's sad

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  20. Funny story, I thought it was real at first.

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  21. lol they all got fooled, i remember having one of these!

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  22. How could they mistake it a being real? This is absurd.

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  23. I remember this from HIGNFY. America is crazy!

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  24. That's hysterical! They actually called a helicopter in!

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  25. WOW I have the exact same tiger in my bedroom and I won it at a local fair when I was a kid (13 years old)

    This is amazing I wonder if the police in Belgium will do the same :)

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  26. Lol! that is hilarious! Who ever did that, you're a hilarious person :D

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  27. Man I'm tired
    I didn't even realize the pic of the tiger was fake until 5 seconds after reading the title, lol.

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  28. This is just plain good comedy! Good thing their police force can take a joke. :)

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  29. How could that cute feline scare anything?!

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  30. That tiger looks awesome. It would look even more awesome in my living room. Damnit, now I want one...

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