CHESTER, WV -- If it was someone's idea of a joke, Chester Police Chief Kenny Thorn does not find it funny. Especially not while the nation remains at a high level terrorism alert.

Just after 6:00 Thursday, residents of the 3rd and Indiana Street block say a small single-engine propeller-driven airplane roared overhead dumping what appeared to be garbage bags full of toilet paper on homes and yards. Witnesses say the plane was small and red with yellow trim.

"The plane was flying real low," says Angie Bell, who saw the plane. "It kept going around and around within a block. I thought for sure the plane was going to hit the top of the church. It was just a matter of two or three hundred feet off the ground."

Police also searched a nearby playground where witnesses say another one of the suspicious packages landed, but they found nothing.

In all, the Chester Police department took reports of three different locations where the bags were dropped, but they only recovered one bag in an alley.

Now that bag is at a state laboratory in Charleston.

"I think I'd be remiss in my duties if I would take a chance and assume it was nothing," says police chief Kenny Thorn.

But the search for the pilot has left police frustrated.

"We've contacted all of the local airports and has been unable to ID the aircraft," says Chief Thorn.

The search is ongoing. Investigators have checked local airport radar, but the plane was flying too low for radar detection. So far no local airports have any record of a plane matching the eyewitness' description.

Residents say they hope the pilot is caught, grounded and prosecuted.

"I just hope they find the stupid guy that did something like this," says Angie Bell. "There are a lot of elderly people in this neighborhood and a lot of kids."