Strange but True

It was a sad state of affairs.
Their Mother, "Butt Breath," Could Not Be Reached for Comment
"Dumb Face," a female grizzly bear at the Denver Zoo, died of cancer at age 26. She was survived by her brother, "Fat Mouth."

The Lost World
For the third year in a row, someone stole a statue of "Dino," an eight-foot-long, 100-pound green dinosaur mascot of the Sinclair Oil company, from a metro-area filling station.

Officers on Patrol, Part 1
After waiting five years for a new police car, Northglenn detective Mark Forsyth finally got one--and got in a fender bender two hours later.

Straighten Up and Fly Right
A cadet at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs was injured when he tried to rappel off the side of his dormitory.

Men in Blecch
A Thornton couple checked into St. Anthony's Hospital complaining of nausea and rashes and told authorities they had been sprayed with a "white substance" by an alien spacecraft. Police later determined they had driven under a crop duster.

The mayor of Roswell, New Mexico, asked Denver mayor Wellington Webb for advice on security and crowd control when his city held "UFO Encounter '97" to commemorate the supposed crash of an alien spacecraft in 1947.

Five Colorado residents joined former University of Colorado music major Marshall Applewhite and other members of the Heaven's Gate cult in committing mass suicide, in the belief that they would get a spaceship ride to heaven aboard an alien craft that was trailing the Hale-Bopp Comet.

The UFO International Association continued to meet in Federal Heights.

The Colorado Army National Guard continued to operate the "137th Space Warning Squadron" in Greeley.

Keep the Change
A Fort Collins man was struck by a freight train while attempting to put a quarter on the railroad tracks. A police officer later said the man "had the highest blood-alcohol content I've ever seen."

Bear Country Jamboree
Law enforcement officials received reports of a bear busting out car windows in a campground near Jefferson Lake and stealing picnic baskets.

After a bear broke into a Douglas County home and planted himself on the living-room couch, a teenage boy entered the room and said, "Hey, Dad," before realizing the hirsute couch potato wasn't kin and hopping onto the kitchen counter. The bear then grabbed a plum from the fruit bowl and left.

A 175-pound black bear was killed by sheriff's deputies after it broke into another Douglas County residence in search of food. Commented a spokesman for the Department of Wildlife, "If the bear wasn't around human influences, he might still be alive, doing what bears do."

A bear was seen leaving a home south of Denver "with a tortilla in his mouth."

The Really Mod Squad
A mechanic doing repair work on a Durango Police Department cruiser reported finding five bags of cocaine stuffed inside the upholstery under the driver's seat.

You Should Have Seen What They Did With Bullwinkle
A Rocky Mountain News column lampooning people who eat squirrels triggered a flood of letters from angry locals, including a man who fondly reminisced about how, as children, he and his brothers would fight over who got to "crack open the squirrel's head like a walnut" and spoon out the brains.

Waiting to Inhale
Greeley's odor board continued to sniff out offensive smells. Asked why the city should continue funding the stench squad, one boardmember replied, "All I know is, Greeley still stinks."

The town of Avon went blue in the face over a leaky sewage-treatment plant operated by upscale neighbor Beaver Creek. Fumes from the plant sent what locals dubbed "The Schtink" wafting through town and led to allegations that the especially pungent odor stemmed from the diet of foie gras and Brie favored by Beaver Creek's wealthy residents.

Passengers on a Continental Airlines flight from Houston to DIA reported an "absolutely horrible" stench in the cabin. "It was a very pronounced odor of putrefaction, like somebody was dead for six weeks," said one passenger. The airline traced the stink to a load of foul fish put on the plane in Florida.

Rio Grande County officials told local potato farmers to quit dumping excess spuds at the county landfill after a mountain of rotting tubers produced an unbearable reek last summer.

Colorado Springs-based Family News magazine published a letter from a nine-year-old girl listing 31 reasons why "Girls Are More Better Than Boys." Most involved smelliness.

A nine-year-old boy wrote to Family News in his defense, noting, "Boys are proud of their odor."

The Denver Post reported exclusively that "pumpernickel bread" actually means "devil's fart."

Pull Up to the Bumper
Denver-area police apprehended a bank robber after tracking his car by its "Mean People Suck" bumper sticker.

Bumper-sticker slogans successfully marketed by former stand-up comic Paul Rosa of Colorado Springs:

* "DARE to keep cops off donuts."
* "My kid beat up your honor student."
* "I'd rather be spanking the monkey."
* "Discourage inbreeding. Ban country music."
* "Careful! I'm not wearing clean underwear."

Praise the Lord and Pass the Phone
A Northglenn woman who suffered a head injury in a buzz-saw accident reported being kicked out of her church because her preacher got tired of having to stop his sermon and call 911 every time she suffered a seizure.