A band of Star Trek rebels killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan ... at least according to a German television news station.

The station, N24, featured a logo of what it thought was the emblem of the US Navy SEAL Team Six on a large screen last week while its presenter Mick Locher spoke about the raid on the terrorist leader's compound in Abbottabad on May 1, US media reports said.

Locher reportedly commented on the design of the logo, saying: "And they also have the 'Team Six', that carried out the mission. They don't have the skull in their emblem for nothing."

But there was a hitch.

The logo was not Team Six's. It was a fictional badge created by a Star Trek fan organisation based on the Maquis, a 24th-century rebel group of beings and unhappy Starfleet officers.

The error was screengrabbed by German media watchdog blog BILDblog and posted online.

The Trekkie group, Maquis Forces International - which calls itself the first "completely internet-based Star Trek fan organisation" on the web - had created the logo for what it envisaged to be the US Navy's Special Operations Force SEAL team for the 23rd and 24th century.

The fan site TrekMovie jumped on the mistake, pointing out in a post: "Locher didn't seem to notice (or care) that the skull in question was from a Klingon and included a bolted-on eyepatch.

"He and N24 also appear undeterred by the emblem's inclusion of a phaser, 3 Klingon bat'leth swords and the word 'Maquis'."

The real SEAL (SEa-Air-Land) teams were formed in 1962 by then US president John F. Kennedy.

Historically, they specialised in fighting on the seas but have in the past decade taken part in battles on land in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Team Six, which is formally known as the US Naval Special Warfare Development Group, is based at Dam Neck, close to Virginia Beach in Virginia in the United States.

The team's members are an elite within an elite and comprise soldiers recruited from other SEAL teams.

Andrew. :)