California wildlife officials produced some scathing lab results while investigating a man's incredible story that a black bear saved him from a mountain lion late last month.
In Robert Biggs' nerve-racking account, a momma black bear ripped the gigantic cat off his back in an attempt to save his life during the scary day-hike incident.
But officials at the state's Department of Fish and Game weren't convinced and launched a probe, largely because Biggs broke free from the attack with little more than a cat scratch.
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"Mountain lions don't scratch," Department Communications Manager Kirsten Macintyre told The Huffington Post. "There's a very distinct pattern of injuries when a mountain lion attacks a person or a deer. They don't just run away -- even if a bear comes along."
Knowing this, a warden retrieved 69-year-old Biggs' backpack, which the cat had reportedly latched onto when it was trying to kill the man. Macintyre said that DNA testing turned up only a few results corroborating Biggs' story: a bit of Bigg's blood and a half-inch tear.
No saliva, no bear hair, no mountain lion hair.
"We do not believe there was a mountain lion," Macintyre said.
On the phone from his home in Paradise, Calif., on Tuesday, Biggs wasn't about to make any retractions.
"It's 100-percent true -- I swear to God," he told The Huffington Post. "Of course only my blood was on the backpack. It was everywhere! More fantastic things than this have happened before."
He chalked up the cleanliness of the pack to the fact that he'd left it in the rain before wildlife officials showed up days later.