As we all know, America loves Halloween - they've given us a wealth of classic movies centred around the occasion, including our beloved Hocus Pocus, and pretty much every US TV show has a Halloween episode or two. Every year American celebs document their wild costumes all over social media (most of which channel Regina George's Halloween style over Cady Heron's), and Trick Or Treating is a rite of passage for kids over the pond rather than a reason for British mums to repeat their stranger danger lecture. Apparently, Americans spent $8.4bn (£6.2 BILLION) celebrating on October 31 last year, according to the National Retail Federation. Some seem to love it so much that they started decorating as early as September... which has lead to a host of panicked passers-by calling up the emergency services to report one very realistic and unseasonal display in Tennessee.
Tennesse's Greene County Sheriff's Department have had to issue a statement on Facebook asking people to NOT call 911 about a dead man with his head stuck under a garage door covered in blood... because it's a (very early) Halloween display, and the decapitated figure is actually a scarecrow.
Clearly, the display was so convincing that it prompted an influx of emergency calls, which the officers were becoming tired of answering.
Instead of ordering the display to be taken down, or at least signposted as fake, the Sheriff's Department social media account suggested that people should 'congratulate the homeowner on a great display.'
The officers said that they received calls about a 'suspicious person lying in a driveway with bloody handprints on the garage', which they promptly investigated, to discover that the 'person' was a straw-stuffed puppet.
The Facebook plea has since been shared nearly 6,500 times, and the display has attracted mixed reviews.
Not everyone agrees with the Sheriffs' admiration of the display: the current top comment reads 'I might be a buzz kill but I just don't think this is a good idea... I don't encourage everyone to put up decor like this cause someone may very well be hurt and people will drive right by saying- oh it's just Halloween...'
Maybe at least wait until it's turned October before putting out your Halloween dummies this year.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.