The phone calls about the possible source of the crowing rooster noise in Anna and Andrew Smosna's home began to arrive at their Crafton residence about the same time other calls and e-mails suggesting potential "culprits" came into the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Mrs. Smosna, 78, a retired registered nurse, called the Post-Gazette after the sound of a crowing rooster awakened her about six times during the previous two weeks. She said the cock-a-doodle-doing occurred exactly at 12:59 a.m., according to her digital clock.

I asked if the clock's wake-up alarm featured a crowing rooster. It didn't.

She said the sound appeared to be coming from the middle of a floral-papered wall directly across from the foot of her bed. She put a 90-minute cassette into her tape recorder and recorded it.

Sure enough, it sounded like a proud bantam greeting the dawn.

I visited the Smosnas' two-story house, asked a lot of questions about their alarm clocks, cell phone and fax machine and inspected the attic for a toy rooster that one of their four children or four grandchildren might have left up there. There was no rooster or any other barnyard animals.

"It's a real mystery," said Mr. Smosna, 83, a retired LTV steel worker.

At the end of my Sept. 21 column, I asked readers for their ideas on how the sound of a crowing rooster might be transmitted into Mrs. Smosna's bedroom.

The response was overwhelming. I received more than a dozen phone calls and more than 20 e-mails.

I particularly enjoyed the "best guess" solution Amy Dering e-mailed because it included an explanation for what might have happened and a suggestion on how to determine who may have done it.

"I would ask the Smosnas to invite the four kids and four grandkids over for dinner and just before serving say: "All right, fess up. Which one of you dropped a toy or tape recorder or gadget down the heating duct?"

Ms. Dering speculated that the rooster-sounding device "either went down from the unfinished attic between the studs of the walls or a cover was taken off a heating vent. Not that I ever did anything like that when I was a kid."

Anna Marie Lukas thought the crowing might be coming from "one of those baby toys where you press a button and an animal 'pops up' making its various sound -- barking, mooing, etc. I have the toy for my granddaughter and she loves it, especially the rooster and dog sounds. It might have become lodged between the [Smosnas'] walls somehow."

Jack Diviney thought the sound might have come from a children's puzzle the Smosnas might have bought for their grandchildren. He said the puzzle has cutouts of farm animals and the animal makes its sound when its piece is removed. "We had the same issue [with] the sound emitting from the puzzle at random intervals," he wrote.

Jim Saint wondered if a dog or cat might have dropped a watch "or some other type of device with an alarm into her wall by accident" or a bird or a squirrel dropped something similar down the chimney.

Dolores Stephens said she had a similar problem and, "after much searching," found a pedometer in a dresser drawer that she had programmed to go off at 2 a.m. with the sound of a crowing rooster.

The overwhelming number of callers and e-mailers, including Chuck Komorosky, Ruth Fiddler, Patricia Finkel, Joey Lewis, Tom Koltz, Kathy Baker, Gary Brennan and Pam Matia, suggested that the Smosnas look for a watch that had a rooster alarm.

Mrs. Smosna already had found it when I called with that suggestion. She said it was in a box under a number of other things in a wicker basket next to the wall across from her bed.

"At least six people looked us up in the phone book and called us," she said. "They all told us to look for a watch we received for making a donation to the National Federation of the Blind.

"Aren't Pittsburghers wonderful?"