Police link full moon to aggression
Fred Attewill
Tuesday June 5, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Police have linked full moons to a rise in aggressive behaviour among drinkers on the streets of Brighton.
Senior officers have decided to deploy more officers this summer to counter trouble they believe is linked to the lunar cycle.
A Sussex police spokeswoman said today: "Research carried out by us has shown a correlation between violent incidents and full moons."
Another monthly factor which police chiefs identified as fuelling violence in pubs and nightclubs in Brighton and Hove was pay days.
Inspector Andy Parr told the Brighton Argus evening paper he would be interested in discussing the police findings with academics. He said: "I compared a graph of full moons and a graph of last year's violent crimes and there is a trend. "People tend to be more aggressive.
"I would be interested in approaching universities and seeing if any of their post-graduates would be interested in looking into it further. This could be helpful to us."
Brighton bouncer Terry Wing agreed with the theory. "It's so true. When there is a full moon out we look at the sky and say, 'Oh no, all the idiots will be out tonight.' I will start looking at the back of people's hands for hair next time." The link between full moons and extremes in human behaviour has been identified in past scientific studies.
In 1998, a three-month psychological study of 1,200 inmates at Armley jail in Leeds discovered a rise in violent incidents during the days either side of a full moon.
During the first and last quarter of each lunar month there was a marked increase in violent incidents.
But during the other period of every lunar month, there were far fewer incidents and none at all on some days.
The Oxford English dictionary defines "lunatic" as "affected with the kind of insanity that was supposed to have recurring periods, depending on changes of the moon."
However, any link between the lunar cycle and human behaviour has yet to be explained scientifically.
3 comments:
Cue the very obvious joke about how I used to be a werewolf but I am all right nooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!
It also takes only the tiniest bit of research to establish that late night revellers tend not to fight when it's raining heavily. So if it rains on the night of a full moon, the officers can go home....
Maneatingcheesesandwich: My foster dad had this pet theory that my behaviour was somehow connected to the full moon...
Post a Comment