Spoiler alert: The answer to the joke “Why did the chicken cross the road?” is “to get to the other side.” But for the police in the town of Dundee in Scotland, it was worth their time to arrest an innocent avian citizen crossing the road just to figure that out.
The police claim that drivers passing by called in with their concerns. The police then picked up the chicken and took her to the station. They then made the Facebook post below, looking for the owner and possible motive for why the chicken in question crossed said road.
And also I’ve saved you the time googling the joke’s origin so you can get back to work. Wikipedia says “The riddle appeared in an 1847 edition of The Knickerbocker, a New York City monthly magazine:
There are ‘quips and quillets’ which seem actual conundrums, but yet are none. Of such is this: ‘Why does a chicken cross the street?[‘] Are you ‘out of town?’ Do you ‘give it up?’ Well, then: ‘Because it wants to get on the other side!’
According to music critic Gary Giddins in the Ken Burns documentary Jazz, the joke was spread through the United States by minstrel shows beginning in the 1840s as one of the first national jokes.”
Related: Marge the Hen overcame her disability and became one cool chick