Police Mistake Pool Of Goldfish For Sharks Swimming Round Christmas Tree In Apartment

Oct 19, 2021 by apost team

It's not uncommon for people to mistake one animal for another, especially if they look pretty similar. For example, breeds of dogs are often mistaken for each other. Another example is mice and rats, who, depending on their size, can look pretty similar. The following story shows that even police officers are liable to mistake animals but unfortunately for the officer in question, the whole world found out about his mistake. 

The incident took place last Friday in a suburb of Sussex, UK called Haywards Heath, a town that's landlocked, situated about 15 miles from the sea. Local police officers were called to a ground floor apartment and upon arrival, they found a strange scene. 

Inside the flat was an odd makeshift aquarium in the front room. Despite the fact that it was only early October, there happened to be a Christmas tree in the middle of the setup and fairly quickly police surmised that there were sharks inside the pool. 

Unfortunately, before the situation was investigated closely, one policeman named Darren Taylor couldn't wait and decided to post about the bizarre find on Twitter. As reported by Sussex Live, he wrote

"Just when you think you have heard it all! Team attended a premises over the weekend, only to discover a 8ft swimming pool in the front room. In the swimming pool (apart from water) were small sharks swimming around and an artificial Christmas tree in the middle! I kid you not!"

Considering how outlandish the situation was, it didn't take long for the news to go viral around the world!

But after police inspected the premises more closely, it turned out that the "sharks" in the pool were simply goldfish. In a statement to Metro, the police force said:

"Officers were called to a neighbour dispute and not a disturbance as has been reported. Several types of goldfish/fish commonly kept as pets, were found in a children’s paddling pool fitted with pumps and filters, not a swimming pool, and none were sharks."

They added:

"The property landlords were contacted over concerns about the volume of water in the property, but there were no concerns over the welfare of the fish. We are not releasing any further information about the incident and are not waiving copyright control over photographs that were on the tweet which has since been deleted. No further use of the images is permitted."

Since the mixup was clarified, Taylor has admitted he was mistaken and has since deleted the tweets. Unfortunately for him, though, his posts had already traveled around the world, making his mistake a very public affair.

Before the police had clarified that it wasn't sharks in the pool, the public had their fun with the news. Many replies to Taylor's original tweet poked fun at the incident, with one follower named John Lawrence writing, as reported by Sussex Live:

"I bet their "Jaws" dropped when they saw that."

Meanwhile, another user named Ann wrote, "Was there any people there or were they breakfast." A third person named Deanna Pennington commented, "Please tell me someone started up the chorus for Baby Shark."

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Can you imagine how someone would mix up sharks and goldfish? Do you know of a similar mixup happening in your personal life? Let us know and pass this on so others can have a laugh about the incident too.