With your aunt and uncle and some ranch hands standing by, you very gently tap the egg with an axe, hoping it will split open without frag- menting.

“Wait a minute!” Uncle Howard cries out. “I’m ready to believe you, but I think we better get a naturalist down from the University to see this first.”

You are relieved that your uncle feels this way, because it seems like a terrible responsibility – cracking open an egg like that and possibly killing a rare monster before it is born.

Uncle Howard calls the naturalist, a famous pro- fessor of paleontology, who agrees to come down the following Saturday. You place the egg in a large bowl in the middle of the dining room table.

The next day is Friday, and that evening the whole family goes out to the movies. When you return, you find the house has been broken into and the egg is missing.

Neither you, your aunt and uncle, nor any of the ranch hands, nor the police are ever able to find the egg. Most people you tell your story to just smile and say, “Sure.” But Uncle Howard, even though he is a skeptical man, tells you he knows you were telling the truth.