HARRISBURG — In announcing the results of its investigation into an alleged mountain lion attack on Oct. 9, Pennsylvania Game Commission officials said last Tuesday there is no evidence that the attack on Samuel Fisher, 42, of Lancaster County occurred.

Game commission officials were called when Fisher alleged he shot one large cat and then was attacked and injured by a second large cat, according to a commission news release.

A state police helicopter searched for the alleged animal using a infrared thermal imaging camera. Search dogs trained to find the trail of cats detected no cat activity in the area, other than a small house cat.

Game commission officers gathered numerous samples at the scene alleged to be blood and sent them to the State Police Crime Lab for testing. All those samples tested negative for blood.

While the testing did indicate the presence of blood on the knife that Fisher allegedly used to stab the animal, the lab also found the knife contained deer hair. The knife was sent to the East Stroudsburg University for further analysis of the blood to identify what type of blood it is, the news release states.

Investigating officers found no evidence of mountain lion hair, scat or tracks at, around or in the vicinity of the alleged incident.

Charges might be filed against Fisher for making false statements, the news release states.

"The Pennsylvania Game Commission has no evidence of wild, breeding populations of large cats in Pennsylvania to date," said Doug Killough, game commission southeast region director.

"With that in mind, we do acknowledge that numerous people do have exotic animals which escape or are released illegally. While this incident is considered to be a hoax, we will continue to investigate credible sightings or evidence of exotic wildlife."