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Howling at the moon

In a wonderful blend of modern crimefighting techniques and astrology, more police will patrol a city’s streets during the full moon because of a rise in antisocial behaviour during the peak of the lunar cycle. Sky News reports that Sussex police have made a link between levels of violent crime and the lunar cycle after studying external factors in people’s behaviour.

Full moons and paydays were identified as particular times when aggressive behaviour rose among drinkers in pubs and nightclubs in Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, said a force spokeswoman. “Research carried out by us has shown a correlation between violent incidents and full moons,” she said.

Inspector Andy Parr 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 generally.”

The link between full moons and extremes in human behaviour has been identified in past scientific studies. One theory is that as human beings are mostly made of water, the lunar gravity pulls them in the same way as it does the sea.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .