TOWN OF FARMINGTON - Journalists, by nature, are typically a suspicious, cynical lot.

Taking everything with a grain of salt is our credo, embedded by life experience - especially in us old timers - that everything is not simply what it appears to be.

The old saying, "show me, I’m from Missouri" comes to mind here.

So, when Brode Powers from the town of Farmington called Tuesday to report some "very strange footprints on my property," the first thoughts were: ‘OK, there must be a full moon coming.’

But after checking out the story and seeing the footprints first hand, it must be reported: these are some very strange footprints.

Dare we say Bigfoot?

Powers is a 41-year-old UPS driver, living on a wooded, bucolic, 10-acre parcel of land on Shalom Drive with his wife and two, 20-pound cairn terriers of the licking persuasion.

A couple of weeks ago his wife, Katherine, mentioned she saw some funny tracks in the snow, but like many husbands, Brode dismissed it out of hand. He’s not now.

"I was clearing the driveway (Wednesday morning) and there they were," he said.

The prints - about 2 feet in length and spaced about 4 feet apart, measured in stride, from heel to toe - start on his neighbor’s adjoining parcel to the south and continue on to the front and past his home. What’s really surprising is that the prints are almost linear, like the, er, creature, was balancing a tightrope. Another puzzling aspect is that the prints track straight to a 7-foot tall archway he has on the property, but then instead of going through, go around.