© CNN


(CNN) -- Was it a theft? A prank? A roundabout effort to bring some holiday cheer to the police? Authorities in Harwich, Massachusetts, are probing the mysterious appearance of a piano, in good working condition, in the middle of the woods.


A police officer examines an oddly placed piano in the woods of Harwich, Massachusetts.

Discovered by a woman who was walking a trail, the Baldwin Acrosonic piano, model number 987, is intact -- and, apparently, in key.

Sgt. Adam Hutton of the Harwich Police Department said information has been broadcast to all the other police departments in the Cape Cod area in hopes of drumming up a clue, however minor it may be.

But so far, the investigation is flat.

Also of note: Near the mystery piano -- serial number 733746 -- was a bench, positioned as though someone was about to play.

The piano was at the end of a dirt road, near a walking path to a footbridge in the middle of conservation land near the Cape.

It took a handful of police to move the piano into a vehicle to transport it to storage, so it would appear that putting it into the woods took more than one person.

Asked whether Harwich police will be holding a holiday party in the storage bay -- tickling the ivories, pouring eggnog -- while they await word of the piano's origin and fate, Hutton said with a laugh. No such plans.

Harwich police have had some fun, though. Among the photos they sent to the news media is one of Officer Derek Dutra examining the piano in the woods. The police entitled the photo "Liberace."

At least it wasn't a nice grand...

A police investigation?
What a waste of taxpayer's dollars.

Someone didn't want to to pay the fee at the dump.
Case closed.

Maybe they thought if they planted it, it would grow into a concert grand

:D I've always wondered if my S&S B might grow into a D if I watered the the D-C enough... :p

MIT- Massachusetts Institute of Technology - somebody there is the guilty party.

Maybe it was a piece of installation art......

Perhaps some nature-loving pianist was trying out music therapy on the trees, thinking they'd grow taller and denser if treated to a concert?

Was it was a composer seeking inspiration?

Or maybe a terminally ill pianist whose dying wish was to play one last symphony amidst the trees, surrounded by nature, before going home to meet his maker?

i'm going to go water my Estonia


(maybe it was an art attempt)

I was waiting for it to be a Bosendorfer, last seen in an Arizona hotel room!

Those were actually pretty good little pianos. Many of them still providing good service.

I wonder how a Dampp-Chaser would hold up if you did that...

Probably not so well...

Better dumping your piano in the woods before going on vacation than the grown out puppy...

Here you go one last tuning and after that you are on your own...

There might be a body inside the cabinet.

Maybe it's the piano Norbert sold to those guys with the camping trailer.

Reminds me of that guy who donned an asbestos suit, approached the open grand piano on a beach, torched it, then sat on the bench and played until the soundboard burned up and the strings snapped, all in the name of "art". Same goes for leaving a piano to the elements in the woods. Makes one wonder about people like that.

Now why do I never find a piano in the woods when I'm out walking? Sigh. Some people have all the luck.

Maybe it wants to be a Waldenstein when it grows up?

I bet my father had something to do with this...

Funny Eric, just what I thought when I realized it was down the Cape.

I wonder if he tuned it after he moved it?

Not nearly challenging enough for MIT:

:D Moving a piano into the woods doesn't require much engineering skill – just brute force!

It needs a vinyl piano cover to protect it via the morning dew and occasional rain.As for color criteri, the wood finish goes much better in a nature setting as opposed to black.

Funny, I was just out that way a few weeks ago shopping for a new zip code but my wife was disinterested in the Harwich side of the cape. She got a good laugh when I showed her what she might have missed.

Here's some more coverage with a new theory relating to the movie "Twilight"...
http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=6322065&page=1

Howard

The piano flew there. Ron Weasley's dad was enchanting Muggle artefacts again.

Every good and decent piano outlives its owner. This one is unusually poetic. The police should know better than to meddle in poetic affairs.

Its former owner had just bought home a nine foot Fazzioli and it was crawling off in shame.

Hehe. I just bought a Baldwin Acrosonic two weeks ago. My serial number is 783892. It is a great piano for what I paid for it. The funny thing is the mover brang it in all by himself, he didn't need four cops. hehe. I also had a dream about playing it in the woods the night I had got it in my house, so ironic and funny.

It's a time bomb. Oh noes.