Last month, the Coast Guard received a prank phone call from a man in Gavelston, Texas who said his boat, named Scallywag, was "taking on water." Last week, a false distress call was made near Sandy Hook, New Jersey. In that 20-second call, a man said he was reporting an explosion on a boat called the Blind Date. He identified himself as the boat's captain and told the Coast Guard, "We have 21 souls on board, 20 in the water right now. I have three deceased on board, nine injured because of the explosion we've had... I'm going to stay by the radio as long as I can before I have to go overboard." Now, officials are saying that the two instances may be connected.
"The voice was similar and had similar mannerisms of speaking," Captain Gregory Hitchen, deputy commander of the Coast Guard's New York region, told The Detroit News. He pointed out that both callers used nautical terminology and phrases, like calling the passengers on board "souls" and referring to the automatic signaling device on the life rafts as a "beacon" Also, both callers were male and each said that their antenna was down or that the GPS wasn't working. Other similarities include that the position of the vessel was given within tenths of a mile in both instances, and orange life rafts were mentioned.
Making a false distress call is a federal felony offense. According to the Coast Guard, anyone convicted of making such a call could face a $250,000 fine and reimbursement for the cost of the search, plus a maximum of six years in prison. This doesn't stop prank callers, though. Last year, there were 300 calls to the Coast Guard that were suspected to be hoaxes from the Canadian border down to Sandy Hook, the Huffington Post reports.
Authorities are offering a $3,000 reward for any information that leads to an arrest and prosecution of a suspect in the New Jersey case.
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