A letting agent was sufficiently disturbed by a tenant's diagrams of a video game, that he called the police.
A British games developer’s letting agency called the police after mistaking diagrams of his new game for a planned thermonuclear attack on Washington.
Henry Smith is a software engineer from Bristol working on a game called “Global Thermonuclear War”, which uses Google Maps to simulate an atomic conflict between nations. Smith was planning out the game using whiteboards in his home when his letting agent made a pre-arranged visit.
A few days later, the agent rang, Smith says, and told him that “the person who did the inspection did have some concerns about one thing. There were some … whiteboards? And some … drawings on them?”
Although Smith believed he assuaged the agents’ fears by explaining that the sketches were plans for a game, he received a follow-up email the next week informing him that the matter had been referred to the local police.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bob_super on Wednesday August 27 2014, @05:17PM
I like the part where the potential nuclear terrorist is informed that the police is looking into his case.
What could possibly go wrong?
(Score: 2) by nyder on Wednesday August 27 2014, @11:51PM
Ya, that struck me as funny.
In America the guy would of been probably killed by a swat team, but in the UK, they email you that the matter has been forwarded to the police. And I thought Canadians were nice!!!