New Delhi: Authorities in ‘Gotham City, Missouri’, were searching for a purple and green 1978 Dodge 3700GT — an ‘emergency alert’ sent out by the Missouri State Highway Patrol said Tuesday evening, leaving people wondering what it was all about. 


There is no Gotham City, Missouri, Batman fans would know. It’s a fictional place, home to Batman, the Joker and many other DC Comics characters.


And if the car number referenced in the alert sounds familiar, it's the same one used by the Joker in the 1989 “Batman” film. 


The alert went out around 4:45 pm on Tuesday.


Turns out it was a mistake. The Missouri State Highway Patrol sent another one later, asking people to disregard the earlier one, AP reported.


In a statement, the patrol said they were conducting a routine test of Missouri’s Blue Alert system, and the message was inadvertently transmitted statewide. 


“During the test, an option was incorrectly selected, allowing the message to be disseminated to the public,” the news release said. 


The system has been designed to let the public know when a police officer is killed or seriously injured on duty, according to the AP report.


Meanwhile, many people took to Twitter to express their amusement after getting the alert.


Most of them, it seems, had figured the Batman reference.