They will go to great lengths to ensure that the citizens are safe and help those who are absolutely in need.

Unfortunately, for this police force in a small town in the United Kingdom, their gesture of goodwill became the butt of all jokes.

Locating the owner of a silver ring

A Facebook post uploaded by the North Yorkshire Police last Wednesday (29 January) has gone massively viral on social media.

In the post, the North Yorkshire Police was appealing for the public's help to locate the owner of a distinctive silver ring.

According to them, the ring was recovered with property which had been stolen in a house burglary in York in February 2019.

Detective Constable Pete Wilson said in the post that they were unable to locate the owner, and as it is "such a distinctive piece of jewellery, we’re hoping that someone will recognise the markings and be able to tell us who it rightfully belongs to, as I’m sure someone, somewhere is missing it."

Here's a picture of the ring:

If you're wondering why the ring looks so familiar, yes, you're absolutely right; it is the One Ring from 'The Lord Of The Rings' movie franchise.

In 'LOTR', the One Ring is one of the most powerful artifacts created in Middle-Earth, as the ring gives the wearer an immense level of power.

The movies' main heroes, Frodo and Sam, were tasked to destroy the ring by throwing it into a fire pit on Mount Doom in Mordor.

Of course, netizens were quick to pick up on the North Yorkshire Police's lack of pop culture knowledge and boy, did they make fun of them:

Thankfully, the North Yorkshire Police themselves had a sense of humour, and they acknowledged that they need to "brush up on our movie knowledge".

And the good news is, they actually managed to find the owner of the ring, thanks to the viral-ness of the post:

Good to know that the ring is now back in the possession of its rightful owner.

We hope he would take better care of the ring, because we definitely don't want the one ring to rule them all laying around.

Here's the original Facebook post, if you want to check out the comments (because they're absolutely gold):