Extra police officers are to be deployed on the streets this summer after research established a direct link between the full moon and violence.

Analysts at Sussex Police found a rise in unruly incidents at full moon while investigating external factors that influence people’s behaviour.

Together with the most common paydays, the full moon was identified as a particular time when aggressive behaviour rose among drinkers in pubs and nightclubs in Brighton and Hove, East Sussex.

Inspector Andy Parr said that he would like universities to examine further the link with the lunar cycle.

“I compared a graph of full moons and a graph of last year’s violent crimes and there is a trend,” he said. “I’d be interested in approaching the universities and seeing if any of their postgraduates would be interested in looking into it further. This could be helpful to us.”

Mr Parr admitted that the idea might sound fanciful, but he added: “There are many things we are still learning about. The Moon has a strong influence on tides and magnetic forces can influence people’s psyche.”

Scientific studies have identified the link between the full moon and extremes in human behaviour. In a recent paper, The Lunar Cycle: Effects on Human and Animal Behaviour and Physiology, Michal Zimecki, of the Polish Academy of Sciences, analysed studies that took into account lunar activity.

He claimed that a full moon could affect criminal activity and health, leading to an increase in crime and admissions to hospital. He said that the effects were so marked that it “may be helpful in police surveillance and medical practice”.

In 1998 a three-month psychological study of 1,200 inmates in the maximum security wing at Armley jail, Leeds, discovered a rise in violent incidents in the days before and after a full moon.

Superstitions involving the Moon can be traced back centuries. In the 17th century, Sir William Hale, the Chief Justice, was explicit about the connection between the Moon and a person’s mental state: “The Moon has great influence on all diseases of the brain, especially dementia.”

As well as madness, the full moon was associated with lycanthropy, in which a man becomes a werewolf.

People are also more likely to be or to feel ill. Research at Leeds University found that the number of requests for GP consultations rose by 3.6 per cent when the moon was full.

But for all the studies that claim to have found a link between the lunar cycle and human behaviour, no one has been able to explain it. Some believe that, as humans are mostly made of water, lunar gravity pulls us in the same way as it does the sea.

The next full moon is on June 30.

Lunar lunacy

— The Lunacy Act 1824 stated that people were liable to go mad when the moon was full

— Robert Graves was so in thrall to the mystical power of the Moon that he was known to bow to it

— The saying “The Moon is made of a greene cheese” – meaning not aged – is from John Heywood’s Proverbes (1546)

Source: Times database

Times Recommends

• The bright side of this winter rain
• Story behind the picture: Snow Leopard, 2008
• Times Charity Appeal: The Place2Be