It sounded potentially ominous: a call made to police about possible human remains in a cave in Washington state. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Police responded and did indeed find a skull and spinal column—that together made up a plastic beer bong. In a Facebook post, the department explains a concerned paddleboarder spotted something skull-like while inside a cave on the Pend Oreille River near the Canadian border.
WDFW Officer Erickson and a Pend Oreille detective rode jet skis to the cave entrance and swam inside to investigate. "What appeared to be a skull could be seen at the bottom inside the cave, so Officer Erickson dove down to get a closer look using goggles some kind boaters had loaned the officers," reads the post. What he ended up finding was a plastic skull beer bong that someone had apparently stuffed with rocks "and sunk to the bottom to prank people. Little did they know the trick worked, maybe too well."
Fox News reports this story may not take the cake when it comes to "funny false alarm[s]" in 2023: In May, officers with Florida's Treasure Island Police Department in Florida went to investigate a report that a large alligator was on a beach—and arrived to find a pretty lifelike sand sculpture of a gator. See a photo here. (More strange stuff stories.)