I know of a story where a woman and her neighbor were in her front yard talking when they observed a signal flare launched from the river, about a mile east of her house. She started not to call, and then decided that perhaps she would just report what she saw and allow them to worry about it. She called, gave her address, and reported the relative position of the flare.
Since it was deemed by the locals to be a possible distress watercraft in distress, they passed the information to the coast guard. The coast guard took an initial look at it, and told the locals that they weren't responsible for aircraft that had crashed on land. Two ambulances, two companies worth of fire trucks, and six police officers showed up at the house looking for a plane that had crashed in the front yard.