Support Civil Air Patrol.....get lost!
It's a great organization.
I had a little encounter with CAP at my private airstrip a couple of years ago that has had me scratching my head ever since.
A couple of years ago I was on my way home from a trip when I got a call on my mobile from a woman who said she was with the CAP. How she got my cell number remains a mystery to this day. She said they were chasing down an emergency locator transmitter (ELT) that was going off. She said they weren't sure whether or not they had a downed plane or a malfuntioning ELT, but since they didn't have any reports of any overdue aircraft they assumed that it was a malfunctioning ELT. She called me as they were about to break the door down and enter one of my hangars in search of the ELT that was supposedly activated. I asked her how they'd determined that the ELT signal was coming from inside my steel hanger. She said they weren't sure, but via satellite they had narrowed it down to about a 5 mile radius and my hangar and airstrip were within that 5 mile radius. I asked her from what authority she derived the power to illegally enter a private building and for that matter what gave her the right to be on my property at all? She very arrogantly said she was a major with the Civil Air Patrol and that was all I should need to know. I was dumbfounded. I told her that if they broke down the door and entered my hangar I would file federal charges against them for tampering with an aircraft, tresspassing, breaking and entering. I further explained that my hangar did not have any aircraft with ELT's. At that time my hangar was full of sailplanes (we used to run a sailplane club from my strip) and one Restricted category tow plane which does not have an ELT. Apparently, they left. When I got to the hangar several hours later there were car tracks in the parking lot, but the door was intact. I never heard from them again. I contacted the local CAP, but no one had ever heard of this woman.