We know she's beautiful, with the petticoats, and the bonnet, and the cute crook, and all. But it's no excuse. Apparently she fell asleep on the job, and now she has lost her sheep and doesn't know where to find them.

How does she propose handling this disaster? By leaving them alone! She says they'll come home. Excuse us? These are sheep we're talking about. Lassie might come home. A ladybug might fly away home, if her house was on fire and her children were gone. But a sheep? A sheep couldn't find home if you gave it a big lead off third base.

And how's this for a clue to their whereabouts? Bo Peep's sheep left all their tails behind them. Bo found them hanging on a tree to dry. What are we supposed to make of this strangeness? Some kind of phenomenon for "The X-Files," if you ask us ... brought to you by the same alien life forms who leave crop circles.

Word has it that the crisis is getting to Bo. She spends day and night wandering over hill and dale with those tails. When she finds a sheep without a tail, she tries to tack -- yes, tack! -- the tail back on it. The sheep, according to local observers, don't like it one bit. Bo's parents, Mo and Flo Peep, as well as her sister, Jo, a television weather reporter in New Zealand, are reportedly quite concerned.