YNOT – Police in Mason, Mich., near Lansing, can’t say life is dull in their small town these days. On New Year’s Day, they received an unusual complaint, and they’ve been investigating ever since.

According to the Lansing State Journal’s police blotter report, on Jan. 1 a Mason resident reported finding “subliminal messages” in an unidentified pornographic video he had purchased on DVD in nearby Jackson.

“The complainant replayed the portion of the DVD in slow motion for the officer, who did note four words he could read and a series of other words that passed so quickly they could not be read,” noted the police report reprinted by the newspaper. “The complainant stated he reported the incident only because he had read where Al [sic] Qaeda was inserting messages into pornographic movies.”

Shortly after the death of notorious al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, international media could not report often enough about the porn stash U.S. commandos discovered in bin Laden’s quarters inside a compound in Pakistan. Even before that, rumors abounded that terrorists were using pornographic steganography as a means to transmit covert messages.

In fairness, even Disney has been accused of inserting inappropriate subliminal messages in animated features marketed to children. YouTube overflows with compilation videos attempting to prove that claim — and just as many parodying the notion.

Regardless, Mason police investigators decided to take the matter seriously, especially after discovering an apparent link closer to home.

“The Department [sic] has since learned Al [sic] Qaeda is not the only purveyor of subliminal messaging through pornographic movies and that this is also an outlaw gang-related tactic,” the police blotter noted.

As yet, there has been no revelation of what supposedly subliminal message was embedded in the suspicious porn DVD.