By Tim Binnall
A woman in England was inundated with distressing phone calls following a bizarre incident wherein someone posted flyers about an escaped python and used her number for the contact information. The very strange story reportedly began earlier this month in the village of Grange when notices concerning a lost 19-year-old Burmese Python suddenly appeared at various spots throughout the community. The seemingly well-meaning sign offered a fairly sizeable reward for help in locating the missing snake which was described as being a "beloved member of our family" that had "escaped from its tank." However, the call to action turned out to be a hoax that appears to have been aimed at one unfortunate resident of the village.
The unnamed woman says that the individual behind the signs used her phone number for people to contact the 'heartbroken' pet owner with tips on the missing snake's whereabouts and that this has caused her considerable consternation. "I've had some horrible calls," she lamented, "I've had people in hysterics, panicking, calling me." While some might suspect that perhaps the inclusion of her phone number was some kind of mistake, the woman has her doubts about that, since "for the poster to go up in my town with my number, it was too much of a coincidence for it to be a wrongly entered digit."
Her theory was echoed by Mike Potts, of the UK's National Exotics Animal Rescue Services, who argued that "no genuine lost pet owner would behave like this, putting the wrong number down, of a person in the same town, not responding to any appeals." He went on to note that the organization quickly concluded that the posters were a hoax in part because the picture of the python featured on the flyer "actually originates in America." Potts also mused that if such a sizeable snake had escaped, it would not be all that hard to find and that with "all the factors together, it's pretty obvious" that the posters were the work of a misguided prankster.
As for the woman victimized by the hoax, she conceded that she is mystified as to why her phone number was listed on the flyers. "I'm not a member of any associations," she declared, "I'm a quiet person, I don't have any enemies, and it wasn't even just on one poster on my street." In an effort to put a stop to the endless phone calls concerning the lost python, the woman indicated that she has "scribbled out my number from at least four posters," though presumably left the flyers behind because she is still unsure if they are genuine. "I don't want to think it's a hoax, and that it's a coincidence, because otherwise, it's just cruelty," she said, "I just don't understand it."