Recent accounts of a Beartooth Mountain sightseer forgetting to put their automobile in park — and then watching their vehicle roll away and plummet thousands of feet over a cliff — appears to be less fact than fiction.

After rumors were shared on social media last week, the Park County, Wyoming, Sheriff’s Office and Search and Rescue reported they had not responded to an accident fitting the description. They suggested maybe the mishap might have happened on the Montana side of the pass.

However, subsequent calls to the Carbon County and Park County, Montana, sheriff’s offices resulted in referrals to the Wyoming Highway Patrol.

Finally, Lt. Lee Pence, division supervisor for the patrol in Cody, was able to provide an answer.

“We had a report of that happening,” Pence reported, “but there was nothing found up there — no vehicle over the mountain or stranded driver.”

—By Mark Davis