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National Police Air Service (NPAS) police helicopter
People have been drawing depictions of a certain part of the male anatomy for their personal amusement for thousands of years. However, police in England had to deny that a helicopter pilot had any intention of doing so after the shape of its flight path managed to turn some heads.
The art of phallic graffiti is a nearly universal and age-old phenomenon to the point where there’s a Wikipedia page dedicated to a practice that’s been ingrained in cultures around the globe for millennia.
The first recorded penis-shaped insignia, believed to be carved as early as the sixth century BC, was discovered on an island in Greece in 2014, and more than a few examples have been found in the ruins of Pompeii courtesy of the Romans who left their mark before Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD.
It’s a juvenile pastime that has united mischief makers for countless generations, but police in the United Kingdom are doing what they can to deny a helicopter pilot attempted to add a unique entry to the canon during a recent flight.
The National Police Air Service denied that a helicopter pilot purposefully followed a phallic flight path
Phallic graffiti is usually manifested in a physical form, but some pilots have also gotten in on the action while in the air. Earlier this year, some cadets training for the Finnish Air Force caught some heat for following a penis-shaped flight path, which is the route a Lufthansa pilot opted to take after being hit with a delay in 2023.
According to the BBC, it looked like a helicopter pilot for the National Police Air Service, which provides support for agencies in England and Wales, decided to get in on the fun during a flight that was operated over the English county of Hampshire on the night of Monday, November 2nd.
A resident named Gordon Bird said his two-year-old daughter was woken up by the noise of the helicopter around 11 PM, and he was caught off guard by the image he was greeted by when he went to look up its flight path.
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Bird came to the conclusion that the path was intentional and took issue with “the waste of resources.”
However, an NPAS spokesperson asserted the shape was entirely coincidental, saying, “The flight was conducted for a legitimate policing purpose, in support of Thames Valley Police” and adding the helicopter was “orbiting the locations they were directed to as part of the search for a vehicle that had failed to stop for police.”
Whatever you say, NPAS. Whatever you say.