Midnight Blue Corolla
Puzzler time!
This one is lengthy and complex, and obfuscated, and full of useless information... So make sure you pay attention.
I'm gonna set the scene.
Here it is.
Our producer, Doug Berman was walking home from work late one afternoon. As he approaches his house, he notices that there's a car parked in front of his house and the engine is running. He sees there's a man in the driver's seat.
And while this car is sitting there, he notices someone coming from the direction of his house, carrying what looks like a huge pile of rags. The guy opens the back door and throws the rags in the back seat. He jumps in the car, the driver puts the thing in gear, and they speed away. They take off very quickly.
Doug shrugs it off and thinks nothing of it, then he goes into the house. He goes about his day. He plays with the dog, makes dinner, takes a nap... all the things he does.
Some time later, he notices that all of his clothes have been stolen. So he calls the police to make a report. The police come down to talk to him.
The inspector comes down and says, "Well, what happened here?"
Doug explains everything he saw that afternoon.
The inspector asks, "Did you noticed anything specific about the guys?"
Doug says, "No, they were average height, average build, average weight."
The inspector says, "What about the car? Do you notice anything about the car?"
Doug says, "Well, I happen to be a student of the automotive field, and I did notice that it was an 1989 Corolla, midnight blue. I noticed, of course, that the engine was running. I noticed that it had Massachusetts license plates and there was a dent in the trunk."
And the inspector says, "We'll get back to you."
Weeks go by, and Doug hears nothing from the inspector about the theft of his clothes.
Then one day, the inspector calls him up and says, "We have the car and the two suspects. We just need you to come down to the station and see if you can identify them."
So Doug goes down to the station. But since he didn't get a good look at the guys that afternoon, he doesn't recognize the suspects.
But he goes to the parking lot and sure enough, there's the car. There's a 1989 Corolla, midnight blue, with Massachusetts plates and a dent in the trunk.
And he is feeling excited, like he might get his clothes back. And then he remembers that there was one thing he forgot to tell the police about the car.
He walks over very quickly and looks inside the car for one second, and then walks away and says to the inspector, "That's not the car. These aren't the guys."
What did he look at? In that one second, what did he see that convinced him these guys were innocent, and this was not the right car?
