An obsessive Japanese idol fan locating his target by analyzing the scenery reflected in her eyes in pictures posted to social media seems to be the peak of elaborate stalker efforts, a Japanese Twitter user may be alerting the public to another strategy stalkers use to harass their victims.

Pictured in the Tweet below is a store-bought cooked crab meal, lying on the floor of a subway station. Obviously, that's quite an unusual thing to stumble upon, so taking a picture of it and posting it to Instagram or Twitter to let one's friends know about such a bizarre discovery seems fairly harmless. A commenter on the photos, however, offers a theoretical explanation for why you might find something so weird lying around:

"By throwing super weird things on the ground, stalkers trace their target from the social media account of who posts it online. You should check to see if someone is lurking (when you take the pic)."

The idea of such a highly elaborate (and likely to fail) trap understandably raises some skepticism. It doesn't help that the Twitter account posting the interaction creates fictional Tweets, and the idea of buying such an expensive meal just to track someone who may or may not notice it is dubious. Still, several commenters have replied saying they have heard of the method. Dubious at it seems, the supposed method may be one of many that has led to a revision of anti-stalking laws in Japan.


By - grape Japan editorial staff.