Oulu police find no Cat in the Hat, detain SpongeBob-clad group

Oulu police received several reports in October of children and teenagers encountering people dressed as the Cat in the Hat, but officers found no such figures, Yle reports. Police communications chief Tero Väyrynen said the scare was largely “much ado about nothing”.

Police patrols checked the reported sightings, but neither officers nor nearby adults saw anyone in the costume. Väyrynen said the reports stemmed from misunderstandings fuelled by social media images, videos and rumours, rather than prank calls from children. Some of the youngest children who were frightened were just eight years old.

AI-generated images of the character had circulated online, and an account had been set up to claim the figure was heading to different places, Väyrynen said. Police have not ruled out that someone may have worn the costume in public after the story attracted attention. The latest report came the week before the article was published.

In a separate incident, police detained a group dressed as the animated character SpongeBob SquarePants in central Oulu in the early hours of October 24. One person in the group wore a Cat in the Hat costume. Väyrynen said the group had run short of SpongeBob costumes, so the choice was improvised.

Police said the group was causing a disturbance and tried to flee, so officers detained them under the Police Act to prevent the disruption from continuing. Väyrynen said the SpongeBob incidents were separate from the Cat in the Hat scare. The people in SpongeBob costumes had received money or other forms of approval for causing disturbances at certain artists’ performances, he said.

The Cat in the Hat character appeared in a 2003 film and originally came from a 1957 children’s book by Dr. Seuss.