Mount Pleasant

Mount Pleasant is one of those little suburban communities that seem to have spilled out across the rural Ontario countryside in recent years. Like many of its breed, it contains an endless procession of tidy, reasonably sized houses neatly lined up by the sides of streets with names like Sunnyview Road, Grovewood Drive, and Orange Tree Gate. Even the name of the community itself is unspectacular. As a matter of fact, there are eight different "Mount Pleasants" in Ontario alone.

However, on the morning of March 12, 2008, some of its residents awoke to a bewildering surprise. Alongside a small, sleepy road called Emmett's Circle, there appeared to be one more streetlight than had illuminated the road the night before. The mysterious lamppost stood as tall and weather-worn as its neighbors. Even the snow around it seemed undisturbed. Although, curious locals who drew near enough reported hearing a faint, directionless humming when in close proximity to it.

Inquiring calls were placed to the local Municipality Offices, but all were responded to in befuddled tones. It appeared no one had ordered the unusual nighttime installment. The world continued to turn though, and the sun set on March 12, leaving those who had witnessed the oddity with no more information than they had had at the beginning of the day. March 13 only brought more mystery. There lay only undisturbed, virgin snow where the perplexing lamppost had stood the evening before.

Media and the government workers who had been called down to inspect the peculiarity found nothing, and any investigation ceased, written off for the most part as an elaborate community gag. In the days that followed, another strange occurrence gradually surfaced.

Pleading signs and posters began to coat any accommodating surface of the streets. Nearly 15 outdoor cats and dogs, kept as pets in a surrounding radius of about two kilometers, were reported missing in the following week.

Many of them were last seen sometime between the 11th and the 13th.