residents who had apparently been paged with a seven-digit number -- all beginning with the numbers 911.

Over 20 calls were received within a half-hour period, none of which were emergency calls.

Acting Superintendent Sinclair White said members of the public were unable to say from where the numbers on their pagers had originated, but at least one of the callers had subscribed to an overseas callback service, and the fact that calls may have had their origin overseas has not been ruled out.

"So far we are dealing with it,'' he said: "The majority of the calls started around 2 p.m. but officers have been receiving the bogus calls throughout the day.

The department of telecommunications has been informed of the situation and is investigating further.

In the meantime, Police are advising members of the public who receive any pages beginning with 911 and followed by either a four digit or seven digit number to ignore them.

The emergency system is located in Prospect at the Police Operations Complex and routes emergency calls to the Police, Fire or Ambulance Services as required.