A flock of birds fly by as a super moon rises in Mir, Belarus, last year. Credit:Sergei Grits "It's going to be f---ed." Despite a study completed by a Brisbane police officer last month that discounted a connection – "It was like a kid discovering Santa wasn't real," he said – police swear a full moon turns people looney. Take one beat cop who responded to a report of a man bashed with a brass Egyptian cat statue on a full moon in Melbourne a few years back. The girlfriend of the victim burst into the apartment and, looking at the blood on the coffee table, cried "Is that my boyfriend's?!"

Mythmaker: Full moon over Melbourne. She then started to lap it up, declared her love for him then spat his blood at the officers. Another policeman patrolling the city streets came across a man taking his turtle for a walk on a leash. The stuffed turtle was dead as a doorknob. There's also the one about the woman police found hugging a tree in the inner north. "What are doing?" the policeman asked.

"Talking to it," she replied serenely. "Are you happy?" "Yes, I'm happy." The officer said he shrugged his shoulders; "I was like 'Ohhh OK then'. I looked at the ground and backed away slowly." Geoff Sheldon is a detective inspector based in Brisbane who released a paper last month with Charles Sturt University on whether police call-outs rose during a full moon.

A cop since he was 18, he had always been a firm believer it sent people crazy. "Harold Holt, full moon. Hoddle Street, full moon ... that's the way I thought for 30 years," he said. He was even called-out to one of the weirdest​ jobs of his careers in the middle of his PhD. "He had a tomahawk and a hammer in each hand just as a full moon was setting. I got an award on my wall saying I tackled a bloke who was trying to kill me on a full moon," Inspector Sheldon said. But, after examining more than 900,000 jobs attended by Queensland Police from 2004-2011, he found no increase in the 99 full moon events that occurred during that period.

"I was disappointed as buggery that it wasn't real," Inspector Sheldon said. "I was like a kid discovering Santa wasn't real." One of the most pertinent ideas that informed the theory was a 1972 study finding a disproportionate number of murders occurred during a full moon. Psychiatrist Arnold Lieber​ and psychologist Carolyn Sherin​ claimed the increase of homicides in Florida were caused by "human tides" – the movement of fluid in the body similar to that of oceans due to the full moon which affected behaviour. It kicked-off decades of research on the full moon's effect on everything from violence in ice hockey games, the Dow Jones, male sperm output and births in sheep.

"But there's no significant proof one way or the other," Inspector Sheldon said. Despite his own findings, Inspector Sheldon said his workmates still don't believe him. "It's an illusory correlation. You see something you want to believe so you do believe. Whilst cold, hard facts are still there that say there's no such thing, you never lose it," he said. Loading And as for cops working on the dreaded super moon, Inspector Sheldon said it won't make a difference.

"But if something does happen, you can bet everyone will pin the tail on to that." Best spots for a bumper view On Monday night the full moon will be the closest full moon to earth since 1948.

The best vantage point is watching the moon rise at dusk from a beach facing to the east, or if you are in the city, the tallest point with views to the east.

Weatherzone, owned by Fairfax, is forecasting a clear evening.

The moon can appear as much as 14 per cent bigger and 30 per cent brighter than a full moon at its furthest orbital point.

The moon will not come as close again until 2034.

There are three super moons this year: October 16, Monday and on December 14 - but this is the closest in more than 60 years.