Man tries absurd disguise to elude Maine cops. ‘Is this an episode of Scooby Doo’?

A scene straight out of a cartoon played out this week in Belfast, Maine, when police found themselves confronting a “ghost” in front of a hotel.

It happened at 12:40 a.m. Sunday, May 1, at the Admiral’s Ocean Inn, and a photo shared on Facebook shows the “apparition” was seated in a chair. Belfast is about 30 miles southwest of Bangor.

“Here at Belfast Police Department we have seen some crafty ways of hiding from the police. This unfortunately is not one of them,” the department wrote.

Under the blanket was a 53-year-old man who police say was trying to hide — for good reason. The same guy had been removed from the property three hours earlier after causing a “disturbance” while intoxicated, police said.

He had been warned not to come back.

“Around 12:40 am Sgt. Cook was checking the parking lot and found someone in a chair hiding under a blanket,” police said.

“Sgt. Cook pulled the blanket off and found (the man) hiding under it. He was promptly arrested for criminal trespass and violation of bail conditions.”

As of May 3, the department’s post about the inept disguise had gotten more than 1,300 reactions and comments, including a lot of “Ghostbusters” puns and jokes about the “ghost chair” of Belfast. Some wondered how long the man sat that way before police noticed him, and at least one commenter suggested the police officer “should have sat on him.”

“Someone take this person back to kindergarten and teach them how to play hide and seek,” Jen Middleton wrote.

“Wait is this an episode of Scooby-Doo,” Crystal MacGown posted.

“The Not-so-Invisible Man,” Elaine Mack said.

This story was originally published May 3, 2022 at 4:24 AM with the headline "Man tries absurd disguise to elude Maine cops. ‘Is this an episode of Scooby Doo’?."