A radar clocked someone going nearly double the speed limit. It turned out to be a duck — and a "repeat offender."
Police in the town of Koniz, near the capital Bern, were astounded when they went through radar images snapped on April 13 to discover that a mallard was among those caught in the speed trap, the municipality said on its Facebook page over the weekend.
The duck was caught going 52 kilometers per hour (32 mph) in a 30-km zone, the post said, along with a photo of the fast fowl.
Police say the duck was likely a repeat offender after being snapped in the same spot in 2018.
Facebook / Gemeinde Köniz
The story, first reported by the Berner Zeitung newspaper on Monday, got even stranger.
It turned out that a similar-looking duck was captured flying in the same spot at exactly the same speed, on exactly the same date seven years earlier, the Facebook post said. Officials called the duck a "notorious racer and repeat offender."
The municipality said it had considered whether the whole thing might not be a belated April Fool's joke or a "fake" picture.
But the police inspectorate said it was impossible to doctor images or manipulate the radar system.
The computers are calibrated and tested each year by Switzerland's Federal Institute of Metrology (METAS), and the photos taken are sealed, the municipality explained.
The Facebook post concluded: "We hope you enjoy pondering curious coincidences, criminal activities of animals and the maximum flight speed of ducks."
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