For years Star Trek fans – known as Trekkies – have been the butt of jokes about their penchant for wearing pointy ears and attending science fiction conventions.
But the police feared British fans of the cult American show might boldly go a little too far one day.
It has emerged that Scotland Yard kept a secret dossier on Star Trek, The X-Files, and other US sci fi shows amid fears that British fans would go mad and kill themselves, turn against society or start a weird cult.
The American TV shows Roswell and Dark Skies and the film The Lawnmower Man were also monitored to protect the country from rioting and cyber attacks.
The cast of the original Star Trek series (Rex)
Special Branch was concerned that people hooked on such material could go into a frenzy triggered by the millennium leading to anarchy.
An undated confidential report to the Metropolitan Police, thought to have been filed around 1998-99, listed concerns about conspiracy theorists who believed the end of the world was nigh.
"Fuel is added to the fire by television dramas and feature films mostly produced in America," the report said.
"These draw together the various strands of religion, UFOs, conspiracies, and mystic events and put them in an entertaining storyline.”
It added: "Obviously this is not sinister in itself, what is of concern is the devotion certain groups and individuals ascribe to the contents of these programmes."
Who knew I was so dangerous?!
