Two Canadian teens walked across the American border last Thursday due to the new gaming phase Pokémon Go. The augmented reality game has landed more problems for today’s teens after engaging almost the whole words in an everlasting Pokémon catching and battling adventure. ABC news reported that the two Canadian teens were caught by border patrol agents after being spotted crossing southbound to Montana from the Canadian Providence of Alberta. The border patrol agents commented that the teens seemed unaware of their international cross because they were so caught up in the Pokémon Go app.
Michael Rappold, an officer of border patrol’s public affairs, claimed that both young teens were so enthralled by their game that they lost track of where they were heading. They crossed the border unknowingly, Rappold commented, and the teens eventually were reunited with their mother safely. Border patrol has refused to release the teens names, ages, and what type of terrain they crossed over to get to Montana. The only thing Border patrol has released was that the teens were found in Sweet Grass, Montana.
Since the release of Pokémon Go early this month in North America, there have been many reports of odd incidents and problems resulting from the game play. On July 8th a nineteen-year-old woman in rural Wyoming discovered a body while playing the Pokémon Go app.
Not all Pokémon-related incidents have recently ended with a positive outcome like the case in Wyoming. Missouri robbers reportedly used a Pokéstop beacon to lure players to them and rob them at gunpoint. In Phoenix, Pokémon Go created a beacon near an old historic hotel that was turned into a halfway house for registered sexual offenders. The halfway home is reported to have over forty-three registered sexual offenders and has yet to be amended off as a Pokémon stop.
In other cases, some individuals have been offended about the appearance of Pokémon figures in historic museums. Officials in the United States Holocaust museums and at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Poland have demand Niantic, the Pokémon Go creators, to remove these historic sites off the game’s navigation. The museum officials commented that these historic sites are meant for mourning victims of Nazism, not as a place to play a game.
