  We investigate the origin of the GRB 060912A, which has observational
properties that make its classification as either a long or short burst
ambiguous. Short duration GRBs (SGRBs) are thought to have typically lower
energies than long duration bursts, can be found in galaxies with populations
of all ages and are likely to originate from different progenitors to the long
duration bursts. However, it has become clear that duration alone is
insufficient to make a distinction between the two populations in many cases,
leading to a desire to find additional discriminators of burst type. GRB
060912A had a duration of 6 s and occurred only ~10 arcsec from a bright, low
redshift ($z=0.0936$) elliptical galaxy, suggesting that this may have been the
host, which would favour it being a short-burst. However, our deep optical
imaging and spectroscopy of the location of GRB 060912A using the VLT shows
that GRB 060912A more likely originates in a distant star forming galaxy at
z=0.937, and is most likely a long burst. This demonstrates the risk in
identifying bright, nearby galaxies as the hosts of given GRBs without further
supporting evidence. Further, it implies that, in the absence of secure
identifications, "host" type, or more broadly discriminators which rely on
galaxy redshifts, may not be good indicators of the true nature of any given
GRB.
