Would you recognize a missing kid if he were right in front of you? What if you had just seen a poster with his picture on it? Before you answer "yes" too quickly you need to check out our hidden camera investigation. The I-teams John Mercure joins us with the shocking results.
Few things are as chilling as reports of a missing child.
Parents and friends often turn to posters as a way to get the word out.
But do they work?
Check this out.
Posters.
Amber alerts.
Flyers.
Information about missing kids is more immediate and prevalent than ever.
But does it make a difference?
Armed with posters, hidden cameras, and a seven year old we conducted an experiment in this grocery store.
This is jason.
With his mom's permission, we sat Jason right below this poster with his picture on it..
Many people saw our poster and our seven year old and never made the connection.
"What does this tell you about how observant you are?" we ask.
"That i’m not. I’m not very observant."
We were more shocked at the behavior of those who *did* recognize Jason.
"I noticed it, but I didn’t say anything, so I’m really bad."
Our findings were disappointing to veteran police officers.
"Uh, I’m not surprised."
Mid-day at the grocery store.
Lots of people.
Lots of looks at our poster.
Few noticed that the boy sitting two feet from it, was the boy on it.
This lady clearly sees Jason's poster then walks right by him.
"I noticed that you saw our poster. You saw it on the way in."
"Yeah."
"Did you see him?"
"Actually yeah."
"Well, this is Jason."
"Hi. I feel so bad. I did see him."
This woman also saw Jason... But said nothing.
And this lady stops right in front of Jason and the poster, does a 360, and walks into the store.
Not a word to anyone.
We thought some people might not be seeing our poster.
So we decided to put one right on the door.
More people did see it, but few recognized Jason sitting next to it.
"Sir, did you notice our poster? I saw you looking at it when you were coming in?"
"Yeah. I didn’t really recognize the child. I think its a good idea."
"Take a look right there."
"laughs....ok"
A camera hidden in our poster catches this guy looking.
But he never sees Jason.
This lady looks at our door poster...
...and passes right by Jason.
"I just walked right on by. I glanced at it and then just walked right on by. Sorry about that. Sorry about that, jason."
We showed our video...
...to Waukesha county detective Steve Pedersen.
"They’re looking at the picture and going, 'have I seen this boy in my neighborhood? Do they look familiar to me?' If not, then they move on."
"We ended up with three posters..one right on the door... The other two as soon as you come into the store. Despite that, most people walked right by the posters, right past Jason, without noticing at all."
"You get so consumed in your day, and there’s so many hours in the day, they tend to have some tunnel vision and really not see what’s going on around them and stay focused on what their task is ahead and everything else is kind of oblivious
to them."
A few people saw the poster and then noticed Jason... Including this guy.
"Is that you?"
"Yeah"
And this woman.
Lady in yellow to Jason
"That's you, Jason?" "oh" "uh huh"
"I saw the sign and it said missing boy and his picture was there...Jason. I walked a couple of steps and i said, 'you're Jason.' and he said, 'yeah, uh huh'
We noticed something else interesting. Women we watched seemed to be much more observant than men.
"I saw the picture on the door coming in and the first thing I noticed was the little boy standing by hisself."
Detective Pedersen tells us, “Women sometimes are better at picking out distinguishable features on people in general and children especially."
Jason's ok... Not lost.
Police say people really do need to be more observant.
Each year more than 800 thousand children are reported missing.
Experts believe 25 percent of them end up on missing children posters.