FLIGHTY DRUG COURIER NETTED

OSLO, NORWAY - An apparent drug smuggling effort was foiled when the
exhausted courier -- a pigeon -- landed on an offshore oil platform to
rest.

The crew of the Norwegian B-11 platform in the North Sea spotted the
bird on Sunday afternoon, and saw something taped to its legs, the
newspaper Verdens Gang reported yesterday.

They caught the bird, and found what appeared to be five grams of
hashish, the newspaper said.

'NEW WAY?'

"We've never heard of anything like it," worker Endre Nodeland was
quoted as saying in the paper. "Is this the new way of smuggling drugs?"

The bird is being cared for by the crew.

Nodeland said he'll turn the hash over to police when he returns to
Norway.

The B-11 platform, 304 km south of Norway, transports natural gas to
Germany.