The preceding photos are authentic and document an actual phenomenon verified by eyewitnesses — the carcass of a full-grown deer found draped over a rural power pole near Winnipeg, Manitoba in December 2002. The accompanying email tale about a power outage in Baltimore is therefore fictional.

No one knows how that carcass got up there. Bystanders interviewed by CBC Radio theorized that the doe may have been flung up onto the 25-foot-tall pole from nearby railroad tracks by a fast-moving train — an explanation that seems rather implausible given the lack of visible trauma (apart from missing hooves, which were more likely chewed off by a scavenger). Another proposed scenario is that the animal was placed there as a prank, though the perpetrators would have needed access to heavy equipment such as a crane or a cherry-picker to accomplish it.

Detail: Shape of deer carcass isn't evident in shadow of cross-beams

One reader who forwarded the email to me suggested the images themselves may have been faked, pointing out that the carcass doesn't seem to cast a shadow in Photo #2 (see detail at right). It's possible given the angle of the sunlight and the distance between the shadow and the photographer, however, that the deer's shadow is simply obscured by that of the cross-beam. If the photos were faked, it would mean all the alleged eyewitnesses were complicit in the prank and managed to fool the local media — which is possible, of course, but no more likely than the other scenarios proffered. In all likelihood, we'll never know what actually transpired here.

A similar incident was reported around the same time in a remote forest of Delaware County, New York, where hunters found the carcass of a 70-pound buck wedged 12 feet up a tree. It was judged to be a prank. Also, for several years now hunters have been finding huge sandstone boulders weighing hundreds of pounds each unaccountably perched high atop sycamore trees in the Yellowwood Forest of Indiana. Officials have been unable to explain the phenomena, known locally as URBs (Unexplained Resting Boulders).

~ David Emery

Sources and further reading:

Pole Deer
From the Presidents UFO Website

CBC Radio Interview (RealAudio)
Eyewitnesses describe seeing deer's carcass atop 25-foot power pole, 9 January 2003

Look Out for Flying Deer
The Ithaca Journal, 17 January 2003

Unexplained Tree-Top Boulders Found in Forest
Brown County Democrat, 22 October 2003

Last updated: 10/29/03