It looked like a grisly recovery scene was about to unfold when a sighting of the remains of a human leg was reported at a reservoir in Holmfirth.

Police hurried to Ramsden Reservoir after getting the call, which was made by a worried walker who noticed what appeared to be a leg bone in a trainer in the slipway when he was walking across a bridge.

Fortunately the incident did not turn into a real life detective thriller after sharp-eyed police sergeant, Simon Haigh, realised that it was in fact just a branch.

It was just one of the strange and sinister calls made by worried residents that Kirklees Rural Neighbourhood Policing Team have had to deal with over the last few years.

Sgt Haigh said: “You have calls like this now and again and obviously we check them all out because you never know what it could be.

“Whilst some have luckily turned out to be nothing sinister I have been called out to jobs in other parts of the county where it’s been a lot worse than we initially thought.

“This is the first such one of the year and fortunately, in this case, after I scrambled down to take a closer look I realised that it was only a piece of wood but it did look really convincing from where the caller saw it.

“And having a look myself saved the time of a lot of resources like the fire service and our under water search team.”

One call which whipped emergency services and the media into a frenzy was placed in 2007 when his force was alerted to reports of human remains in Wessenden Head on Saddleworth Moor, near to where it was popularly believed moors murderer, Ian Brady, had buried his victim, Keith Bennett.

Police teams from Saddleworth and Kirklees cordoned off half an acre of moorland during the excavation, which turned out to be the remains of a sheep.

More odd still was the time he went out to Holme Moss around four years ago, when a skull and other bones were found by a carpark.

Forensic archeologists from the University of Sheffield took part in a tense 24 hour dig that only ended when the lead digger suddenly began smashing his spade into the ground.

Instead of human remains, he had uncovered a set of plastic skulls, a tank and the skeleton of a 20 foot python that had been buried some months previously by its former owner.

Sgt Haigh said: “Over the months the soil that was placed on top of the tank had eroded and exposed it.

“The expert showed us the skull and you could see the plastic joinings.

“It’s always best that people ring us straight away if they see anything strange like this so that we can go and check it out.”

He predicted that the number of strange reports could be set to increase when the Tour de France rolls into town next month.

He said: “People like to ring us for all manner of issues, so I’m sure we’ll get some interesting calls then.”

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