Oregon L.O.W.F.I

Archive for August, 2010

This by way of Cliff Barackman,’s North American Bigfoot on Bigfoot author Thom Powell (The Locals.) Thom has written an article on offensive geographical place names in Oregon (a hot topic here) and a possible connection “between the word “squaw” and sasquatches.”  Both Cliff and Thom were speakers at the Oregon Sasquatch Symposium in June.

ABC News has picked up this story (see post below) of McMinnville, Oregon  high school students who came down with compartment syndrome, a rare illness and not one that affects the triceps, or so many people at once.

Odd report from McMinnville: MHS football players recovering; mass ’syndrome’ remains a mystery. Oregon.(McMinnville is home of the world famous 1950 Trent UFO sighting and site of the annual McMinnville UFO Festival held in May at Hotel Oregon.) Several high school students, all student atheletes, have come down with an unusual illness:

Ten Mac High School football players were hospitalized this week after experiencing intense muscle pain following workouts at a fall camp conducted by their new coach.

Seven were admitted to the Willamette Valley Medical Center on Wednesday night with sore and swollen triceps, and three were admitted the following night.

Diagnosed with compartment syndrome, three of the players in the initial group underwent fasciotomies designed to relieve the pressure and avoid permanent muscle damage. That could keep them out of action for one to two months, according to the surgeon who made the diagnosis and performed the surgical procedure.

Some 28 players underwent testing Thursday to determine the level of creatine phosphokinase or CPK in their blood, as that is an indicator of the syndrome. Sixteen were sent to the hospital for additional testing, and three of them were admitted, joining the original seven.

Additional players were tested Friday, but none of them showed elevated creatine levels.

There’s more: the students were doing an intensive series of workouts, it was very hot, and they stayed on campus, sleeping there while taking part in this football camp type thing.

The illness – “Compartment syndrome” — is rare, and doesn’t appear in the triceps, according to Dr. Peter Van Patten:

Dr. Peter Van Patten treated the players. He said compartment syndrome isn’t very common, and he’s never seen it strike the triceps before.

“In McMinnville, we do not see compartment syndrome very often,” he said.

The school district is looking into this of course, and asking the community for help and support.

The coastal town of Florence in Oregon has its Elvis brush with fame:
Elvis enjoyed the small town atmosphere of Florence back in the day’

And I had my own brush with Elvis, as I recently wrote about for UFO Mystic: My Claim to UFO-Hollywood Fame.

Footage taken by a man who works on a ranch in the Thurston area, a neighborhood in Springfield, Oregon not far from here, of a bobcat.

Cougars are becoming more plentiful, and visible, in Brownsville, Oregon (roughly fifty miles from here, in Eugene) and according to local news reports, six cougars have been trapped, and killed, in the past two months.

From the Register Guard, Eugene’s local newspaper:

A County Trapper trapped and killed 6 cougars in the last two months on her [Cathy Stepp] farm. Now she said she’s scared for her son’s safety and that more cougars may be lurking in the distance.

“I don’t let him out of my sight. We pack guns when we come out in the morning to do the feeding and the checking. We try to get a head count on them at least two or three times to make sure we’ve got the right number,” said Stepp.

Until the predators flee Stepp said she’ll keep her flock and family close.

Around here, as all over, wild animals have been seen more and more frequently in residential areas, and around humans generally. They’ve also become more aggressive, although, this is an interesting phenomenon; if the animals are more numberous, and being pushed out of their habitats for various reasons (lack of food, shelter, human encroachment…) we need to be careful of anthropomorphizing these situations. (Which doesn’t help much when cougars are attacking your horses (as happened to someone I know) and so on. )

A woman faces a fine for illegally creating a “major marine event.” Kala Thomas, a University of Oregon student, posted on her Facebook page that she was going to cool off down by the Willamette River. Who’s with her? she asked. Lots of people. Who told lots of other people, which is trouble, according to our local authorities, since Thomas didn’t get a permit:

Thomas never obtained one, so Lane County Sheriff’s officials say that if the float really does attract a huge crowd, she may be hit with a $190 citation.

“I think that would be appropriate,” sheriff’s Capt. Bill Thompson said. “There’s a responsibility people have to take when they do something like this.”

Thomas said she understands that authorities aren’t pleased with her plan.

“I guess I’m in big trouble,” Thomas said. “But how was I to know that 1,000 people would want to do this?”

Oregon State Marine Board officials learned of the unintentionally illicit float on Thursday, and sent Thomas a Facebook message instructing her to cancel it.

I’m curious to know how “the authorities” found out about this. Authorities are worried “chaos” will occur if the 1,000 or so people show up with inner tubes and rafts; there’s a lot of construction going on in the area, for example, that might be a hazard for people; or, vice versa. Authorities are also concerned about any rescue efforts they might have to make — this time of year, there are numerous rescues on the river, and emergency personnel might have trouble accessing areas.

The Lane County sheriff ordered Thomas to dis-invite people to the event, for whatever good that might do. If a lot of people show up and authorities feel it’s a problem, she’ll be fined. Some local businesses however have said they’ll help her with any fines she might receive.

For the record, in case any “authority” is reading this, I am NOT inviting anyone anywhere, including myself. Besides, I’m having far too much difficulty with my asthma to want to go out anywhere in this heat.

Besides the glowing shrimp and elks on the freeway in the middle of town, Oregon has the largest growing mushroom in the world:

The Armillaria ostoyae, popularly known as the honey mushroom, started from a single spore too small to see without a microscope. It has been spreading its black shoestring filaments, called rhizomorphs, through the forest for an estimated 2,400 years, killing trees as it grows. It now covers 2,200 acres (880 hectares) of the Malheur National Forest, in eastern Oregon.

The outline of the giant fungus stretches 3.5 miles (5.6 kilometres) across, and it extends an average of three feet (one metre) into the ground. It covers an area as big as 1,665 football fields.

People on the coast and elsewhere have reported that their shrimp and fish glow. According to Oregon State University, this is normal and the fish is safe to consume.

Shrimp and other seafood can appear luminescent, courtesy of certain marine bacteria that might be hitching a ride, said Kaety Hildenbrand, of Oregon State University Sea Grant Extension, which has been receiving calls from concerned consumers.

The thing to remember, said Hildenbrand, who works with coastal fishing communities, is that “glowing” shrimp is not a health risk and doesn’t reflect mishandling during processing.

I love some of the comments, such as:

“This seems to be a banner year for glowing seafood,…”

The following remark strikes me as very odd:

It’s also possible that there has been no increase in glowing seafood — just an increase in the number of people noticing it. That raises another question: Are more people cooking seafood without lights?

Complete story here.

And I was just over there in that area earlier today! Missed it; more odd animal tales.
“Randy Pape Beltline” (recently changed the name from I-5 for one of Eugene’s rich citizens. . .) is the freeway! Fortunately, sounds like the elk is all right.

Elk runs through north Eugene neighborhood before crossing Beltline

By Jack Moran

The Register-Guard

Posted to Web: Tuesday, Aug 10, 2010 02:48PM

A bull elk ran through a Santa Clara neighborhood and ran across Randy Pape Beltline this afternoon, prompting a police search for the animal.

The elk reportedly swam to an island on the Willamette River, but later left it. Police at the scene said the animal was last seen in thick vegetation north of the river.

Read more in Wednesday’s Register-Guard.