On Tuesday, the 1^st of February, the police station received a number of calls at around 7:40 PM in which someone coughed and became short of breath, after which the connection was broken. When they tried to call the number back according to the existing protocol, there was no connection. The same number called a third time where the caller simply said “Mount Scenery” and disconnected again. Based on these conversations, a search operation on Mount Scenery was immediately launched by the police and fire brigade. Through various trials, people have walked up the mountain, but without result. The search was called off at about 9:30 PM to be resumed in the morning.

The control room, as one of the tools used in these cases, sent a standard message to the caller’s phone. The message indicates that the reporter gives permission for the central station to receive his/her location at that time by clicking on a link. The ‘location setting’ must be enabled on the phone. There was no response to this.

Early this morning, the search continued until a call came in from the same number at the control room where children’s voices could be heard in the background. The search was immediately stopped and this report was marked as a fake report.

This search cost both the police and the fire brigade many man-hours. False reports are punishable. For adults, this can mean a fine and/or prison sentence and children are sent to HALT or the juvenile court and also run the risk of receiving punishment or fine. This case is under investigation.

KPCN