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Villager tells of spy van mystery
Friday 8th May 2009, 11:28AM BST.
Villagers near Whitchurch feared they were being watched when a mysterious van “bristling with cameras” turned up.
A small white van with cameras on its roof was spotted in Whixall yesterday afternoon.
John Harrison, 62, saw the vehicle in Post Office Lane at about 1.30pm.
He said it had a sign saying “mapping your area” but the driver made off when he approached the vehicle.
He said the vehicle did not appear to be the Google car, which has been spotted in Shropshire recently.
“We had cameras around here yesterday in Whixall, only it’s not the Google car it was a small, white van with Belgian number plates and a sign across the back saying ‘mapping your area’. It was bristling with cameras on the roof.
“He beat a hasty retreat when we tried to talk to him.”
Mr Harrison said the van looked like a Peugeot 206.
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Presumably it was either the Google street view van or possibly someone mapping the streets for sat-nav or other purposes.
Don’t people in Whitchurch read the papers?
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The chap said he ‘approached the vehicle’ what he really means is that he was running after it because it was the first time he had seen one of these new fangled ‘horseless’ carriages
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These vehicles should have soem form of identifcation stickers or painted on to them. Get the reg plate and at least report it to the police. Im sure they can quickly checkup on the national computer for the registration plate owner.
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Google Street View cameras I suspect
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whitchurch and most of the surrounding villages have been photographed for google street view, but this was done more than a month ago, by a black car with google stickers all over it.
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It was the ‘Men In Black’ my friend. Your house has been chosen as the battleground for an intergalactic alien conflict. Millions will die or the lucky ones sold into eternal cosmic slavery.
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bigbeasts,
Please don’t bring aliens into it. You know full well the Star will jump on any opportunity to bring in their UFO ‘experts’ to comment..
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He probablydidn’t even see the villager walking towards the van. Driver wasdistracted by all the cameras!
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Well a little dramatic .However what is all the fuss about being watched or filmed??? .It is not against the law .Hunt monitors follow the hunt every day during the season and some times venture on to private land filming what they say could happen ????? all very weird .The google camera is takeing pictures of areas and people what have the complainers got to hide?????
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Its just a mapping van. The guy obviously drove off because he reallised the place isn’t worth mapping. Get over it.
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Could it have been a covert police operation?
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Andrew: Indeed I was filmed by these home grown terrorists you refer to. I don’t know what was happening but the lane was blocked and knowing the area, I knew I could drive in a stubble field and out the other end and did so, to relieve the traffic jam, in case an ambulance needed to get through (I could see the police there).
Anyway, these terrorists, all turned their cameras onto me and filmed me driving past them in the field. I understand that they put this material on the internet as example of the arrogance of country folk even though you are not connected with the drag hunt – but am I moaning? Well yes I am – what if I hadn’t done my hair and it was on U-tube!!!!
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Perhaps it was the labour party looking for it’s supporter!
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Your all getting a bit silly – then again this is the natural home of the Monster Raving rural party. If you got nothing to hide why worry about being filmed? Haha.
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google ‘mapped our area over 3 months ago! unless they missed a street they should be long gone!
yes we do read papers peter!
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