An Unbelievable Story

Senior Bethany Johnson Becomes Famous with Sloth Sighting

*Duluth, MN

Bethany Johnson, an 87 year-old resident at the Franciscan Health Center on Park Point, in Duluth, MN discovered a three-toed sloth on April 23rd, 2006.

Johnson was out for her usual walk to the lake when she saw the sloth resting in an ask tree. Johnson said, "It was the strangest, yet cutest thing I've ever seen. I know my memory and my eyes are beginning to fail me, but at that moment, I knew that what I had seen was real. And it was a sloth."

Johnson immediately returned to the nursing home to alert the staff. The staff memebers ignored Johnson's claim, regarding it as one of her, "usual delusions." Staff memeber Mike Mancini said, "Johnson has seen unicorns before. At other times she's claimed to be a representative of the CIA. We just don't have the time to believe and check out every resident's story."

After fruitlessly pleading with several staff members to come see the sloth, she finally called her daughter, Rachael Sophia, who is a zoologist at the Lake Superior Zoo. Sophia said, "T I knew that my mom was telling the truth was because she perfectly described the anatomy and behavior of the three-toed sloth. I realized that she had to be right there in front of it to get it right, she wouldn't have been able to memorize the description otherwise."

Johnson left her post at the penguin exhibit and headed straight for The Franciscan Health Center on Park Point. Johnson identified the sleeping creature as a thee-toed sloth. She called the Zoo Director, Jessie Farwell, who also came to witness the sloth. After that, local press, The Duluth News Tribune, were called. Local television stations arrived, and by the end of the evening a crowd of two-hundred gathered to look at the sloth.

The sloth was named "Hobart" by Johnson, and the Mayor Herb Bergeson came by to take pictures and meet the creature. "hobart" was brought to the zoo, where he is now being held and inspected to find his origination in order to bring him home.

"Hobart" is taking visitors at the Zoo, where hundreds of locals have brought him potato-salad casseroles, ice-sculptures and other fine Duluth specialties.

Joanna Kunze, Duluth local summed it up as, "The most amazing and fantastic thing Duluth has ever seen"