ROUND ROCK, TX — We hope to God they're just kidding around.

On the Round Rock Parks & Recreation Department Facebook page, officials alert to the sight of what appear to be menacingly large footprints at outdoor recreational spots throughout the city. There's a photo attached that will make you do one of two things: 1) feel as if invited into the inner circle of a whimsical ruse perhaps steeped in local folklore or 2) make you lie awake in horror each night afraid to fall asleep for fear of whatever it is that made that footprint. "Our park ranger surveillance has captured strange footprints at various parks & trails in the area," officials say chirpily and matter-of-factly on social media as if merely describing benign flora or fauna. "If you find these, or other unexplained phenomena, tag Round Rock Parks and Recreation Department on FB, or @roundrockpard on Twitter & Instagram. #RRSightings."

The accompanying photo appears to have been left by a bipedal, but one larger than a human man as illustrated by a comparison. And by the looks of it it's one big bipedal. Some responding to the Park & Rec post have theorized it may be a footprint left by a Texas version of the fabled Bigfoot. One observer attributed the sighting to a natural formation created by rain drops. Those less predisposed to the child-like joys derived from suspension of disbelief figured it's a municipal marketing ploy to drive foot traffic.

True Round Rock natives have speculated it might be the Hairy Man, a locally inspired creature dating to the city's pioneering days. As noted in texastripper.com, legend has it that a young boy fell from a wagon along the portion of the Chisholm Trail running through town, only to be inadvertently left behind by kin. It's said this boy was left to his own devices, gradually adapting to the harsh wilderness that became his home while growing into a half-man, half-beast.

But surely that hapless boy couldn't possibly have survived all these decades later. After all, the first drive to originate from Williamson County occurred in 1867, when 35,000 cattle were driven north to the market at Abilene, Kansas, as local records indicate. Why, that would make the Hairy Man one really old hairy man indeed. Assuming the wagon-disenfranchised boy was five at the time he fell, he would be more than 155 years old today, assuming he was even on that first cattle drive that effectively linked the county to the storied Chisholm Trail to begin with.

What's more, what could the Hairy Man (then a mere Hairy Boy) possibly have eaten out there in the wilderness now enjoyed as open space to make him so darn big? I mean, it wouldn't be until much later (1926 or therabouts) that the first Round Rock Donuts batch would be created, and even then the Hairy Man (by then a Hairy Middle-Aged Man) surely would've been spotted by the town folk in making pastry runs and summarily captured and/or lovingly welcomed back into the fold.

Or could it all be part of a clever commemoration for the 150th anniversary of that 1867 cattle drive that begat the Williamson County link to the Chisholm Trail that in turn begat the local legend of Hairy Man? It could be a number of things. But until it's revealed, people of Round Rock, you might want to start training on how to sleep with one eye open. Just in case.