by jahdakine - on Maui-Flickr The Moon image:41439:3::0

Control: "South Wales Police, what's your emergency?"

Caller: "It's not really. I just need to inform you that across the mountain there's a bright stationary object."

Control: "Right."

Caller: "If you've got a couple of minutes perhaps you could find out what it is? It's been there at least half an hour and it's still there."

That was a portion of the 999 call received by the police in Wales from a South Wales resident and when the police were dispatched to observe the "stationary object" that concerned the resident, they discovered it was the moon, not an unidentified flying object.

The police then called their control room to report their findings and that call went as follows:

Control: "Alpha Zulu 20, this object in the sky, did anyone have a look at it?"

Officer: "Yes, it's the moon. Over."

A police spokesperson admits that they can see the comical side of this whole exchange but that the phone call wasted time and could have blocked "a genuine call for vital seconds and put lives at risk."

They cited other calls just as time wasting as the first but one has to wonder about people that can mistake the moon for an unidentified flying object.