What the...?  

This Is Not the Elephant You're Looking For

Credit: BILL HEFTON/AP Photo

A couple of things struck me in this article about a vehicle/animal collision in Oklahoma:

"Didn't have time to hit the brakes. The elephant blended in with the road," driver Bill Carpenter said Thursday. "At the very last second I said 'elephant!'"

Elephant? "Blended in with the road"? Really? How old was this guy?

Carpenter, 68, said he swerved his SUV at the last second and ended up sideswiping the 29-year-old female elephant on U.S. 81 in Enid, about 80 miles north of Oklahoma City.

So not that old. But apparently, this was one elephant that really had a talent for camouflage:

Enid veterinarian Dr. Dwight Olson said the elephant was hiding in some bushes just off the highway when he arrived shortly after the accident. Handlers from the circus were able to calm it down, and Olson cleaned the leg wound and gave it some pain killer.

Dr. Olson said the elephant escaped major injury.

The unnamed elephant's powers to cloud the mind extended even beyond its immediate surroundings:

A booking agent for the circus, Rachael Bellman, said she was unaware the incident, and a telephone message left with circus officials wasn't immediately returned.

Your client's elephant escapes, and gets hit by an SUV? Yeah, I wouldn't admit to knowing anything about it either.