50 YEARS AGO: A hoax by two young brothers had about 40 fire emergency and police volunteers searching for a body in the West Branch of the Delaware River for about three hours Saturday morning. The search ended when the two youngsters, ages six and seven, confessed that they had made up the story of a young fisherman falling off a dam abutment into the rain-swollen waters. The youngsters’ names were withheld because of their ages. As the story was told, firemen were presented with a vivid image of a person falling, then struggling to escape the current and scratching desperately at a slick concrete wall before being washed downstream. Authorities became suspicious because no one was reported missing after each family in the area was contacted. However, there was a second actual disappearance when fireman William Coleman missed a ride back to Hobart from a downstream search area. He reappeared eventually, thoroughly soaked. The boys admitted their lie to their father. Sheriff Levon A. Telian declined to bring charges and later remarked, “At least we had a good drill.”
October 1975