Power Outage Sparked by Flying Fish, Police Report

Charlie Dwyer

SAYREVILLE, NJ – Police in a New Jersey town have concluded a recent power outage was caused by a flying fish.

Residents of Sayreville found themselves without power on August 12, and the cause was as astonishing as it was unprecedented. A fish, believed to have been dropped by a bird in flight, fell onto a transformer, causing an outage that cut electricity to a significant portion of the community.

Workers from Jersey Central Power and Light Company discovered the fish on the transformer while addressing the unexpected interruption of power service in this New Jersey town southwest of New York’s Staten Island.


The Sayreville Police Department took a lighthearted approach to the unique situation, naming the fish “Gilligan” and describing it as a “hard-working family man” and “father to thousands of children.” The department’s statement whimsically requested information about the “suspect,” a bird last seen flying south, and directed inquiries to Detective John Silver, humorously noted as handling “all of our fish cases.”

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