Two text messages circulating around the territory are causing needless worry and are patently false, Police Commissioner Novelle E. Francis Jr. said Thursday.
One text message says that criminals at gas stations are giving out free key chains that have tracking devices in them. This would allow the criminals to track you to your home and rob you.
The second text message informs motorists that “police” have issued a warning not to flash your headlights at a car driving with no headlights on. According to the message, this is a gang initiation; and if you flash your lights, then the gang members will kill everyone in the car.
The "lights out" rumor has actually been around since the early 1980s, according to the urban legend website, snopes.com.
Francis said, “Intelligence gathered by my office indicates there is no evidence or validation that either one of these rumors are true or that they are occurring or will occur in the Virgin Islands.”
Francis referenced Snopes, which is hailed as the best-known source for validating and debunking urban legends, saying the site has labeled each of these as hoaxes. The lights-out rumor, specifically, began as a fax that purports to come from a law enforcement agency. It has made the rounds periodically, causing panic, then disappearing, only to resurface a couple of years later. Now it has migrated to cell phone text messages, but it is still not true.
"Lights out" has circulated in the United States, Canada and London.
The key chain story began circulating around 2008, according to Snopes.
“The website indicates, and I concur, that burglaries are mainly crimes of opportunity rather than a crime that employs elaborate electronic tracking devices,” Francis said.
Francis said these scares pick up additional believability depending on who is doing the forwarding. He urges anyone receiving these messages to be cautious and thoroughly validate any information before forwarding it on to other persons.
