Was Pole Deer a Hoax?

I would expect someone very shortly to call you up and say "Ya, he's right. We found this deer by the railway tracks with its legs off. We got a rope and a pulley and hauled it up to the top, and we've been chuckling ever since." Dr. Jasper McKee, physics professor at the University of Manitoba comments after investigating the story and photos of a deer found 25 feet up on top of a hydro pole.

In a story published on this site two days ago, I reviewed the story and photos of a deer found 25 feet up on top of a hydro pole just west of Headingly, Manitoba, Canada. My story also looked at the possible link to the mysterious story of a deer found 12 feet up a tree in New York State at the end of November. Thousands of people from all over the world logged on to read the deer story and look at three photos that I had received in an E-mail.

On January 9, the local Winnipeg CBC affiliate was talking to Chris Rutkowski, a public relations officer at the University of Manitoba, looking for any story releases from the University. During that conversation Chris asked if CBC had looked into the unrelated mystery of the deer on the pole. Fascinated with the idea CBC began an investigation.

During that investigation the station found a witness who had actually been to the site and had taken a video tape which confirmed that the photos I had received by E-mail were not a hoax. They talked to a conservation officer in Headingly who speculated that the deer had been hit by a CNR train, and launched to it's position high up on the pole. This conservation officer stated that there was a deer trail quite close to the location of the incident.

Questions, however, remained. Firstly, when questioned the CNR stated that they had received no reports from train engineers about anyone hitting a deer in that area. Secondly, the train story did not explain why parts of both back legs were missing from the deer, or how a deer hit hard enough to be projected to the top of a 25' pole remained almost totally intact. Thirdly, and most importantly, the question of how the deer got up remained unresolved.

Jasper McKee, a prominent physics professor at the University of Manitoba, who used to have a small science segment on CBC radio, cast grave doubts about the train theory. "Whether you could get it up to 20 or 25 feet I would doubt," McKee said, "and whether the deer would wrap itself conveniently around the top of a hydro pole and miss all the wires - I have no idea that that would be likely."

McKee, according to CBC said that "although the train theory not entirely impossible the deer would have to have been hit at just the right time, at just the right angle for things to have happened this way."

Dr. McKee then proposed his best guess. "I would expect someone very shortly to call you up and say 'Ya, he's right. We found this deer by the railway tracks with its legs off. We got a rope and a pulley and hauled it up to the top, and we've been chuckling ever since.'"

The chances of finding a definite solution to this mystery are diminished by the fact that the Manitoba Hydro officials who removed the deer destroyed the animal. Perhaps now that the story is out in the local media someone will come forward with important new information, or we will get other reports from other cases such as occurred in New York that will shed new light on this bizarre new mystery.