Yet region’s officials haven’t found reason to believe them

It’s a stunningly scary scenario for those who work or play in the woods, yet it’s as real as the 9-foot hairy creature rumored to live in Southern Oregon’s forestlands.

Eco-terrorists have placed PVC bombs with mercury- detonators in the lock cans of metal gates that block access to forest roads to all those without keys, the story goes. Reach into the metal bell-like covering for the gate’s lock and, boom, there goes your hand.

And when a Washington state agency spokeswoman last week issued a warning about the bombs after saying a spate of such booby-trapped gates occurred around Medford, the gate bombs joined the Kentucky Fried rat as yet other bogus story the public won’t let go away.

"It’s an urban myth, as far as we can determine," said Frank Mendizabal, a spokesman for Weyerhaeuser Co., whose Western Washington lands were among several where the bombs were rumored to have been found.

State and federal law-enforcement officials all say they know of no such bombs on forest gates in the Northwest. Ditto for Hampton Affiliates’ tree farms near Astoria, Longview Fiber Co. in Western Washington and others rumored in e-mails to have discovered the bombs.

Advertisement

"It’s a story that’s just not true," Mendizabal said. "But it just keeps going on and on."

Just like a Bigfoot sighting, the rumored bombs have created a life of their own.

On Thursday, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife became the latest agency to perpetuate the myth. Agency officials issued a warning to the ODFW’s 1,000 employees about the bombs, saying they were discovered on Hampton Affiliates lands.

The memo urged them to use "extreme caution" when approaching gates. "Do not attempt to handle or remove any suspicious device," it said.

"It sounded credible, and we err on the side of caution," ODFW spokeswoman Anne Pressentin Young said. "It’s kind of bizarre. I’m not sure where it came from."

The myth most likely germinated from a simple explosives case investigated three weeks ago in the BLM’s Glendale Resource Area by Detective Blain Allen, one of six bomb technicians with the Oregon State Police.

In what Allen called "a juvenile, uneducated effort," someone put smokeless powder in a plastic tube, added a crude fuse, taped it to the top of a BLM gate at a place kids drink beer and tried to light it, Allen said. When it failed to ignite, they left it, he said.

Allen issued a short report, which ignited a flurry of Forest Service and BLM e-mails, he said. Within a few days, the bomb had somehow grown into many sophisticated devices targeting gate users.

"It’s taken on a life of its own," Allen said. "I started getting calls from federal agencies back East, saying why haven’t they heard about it.

"The first couple calls were funny," Allen said. "Now, it’s just stupid."

The supposed quantity of bombs had jumped by the time Mike Davis, a Hampton Affiliates forester in western Washington, heard the rumor.

Davis said he wrote an internal memo June 10 about the rumor and urged company foresters to warn people who routinely use their many gates.

When Bud Henderson read Davis’ e-mail, he passed it on.

"We just notified the key holders to be extra alert when opening a gate," said Henderson, manager of Hampton Affiliates’ Big Creek Tree Farm near Astoria.

Henderson said he had "no clue" of the information’s origin, but that he "had no doubt in my mind that somewhere along the line, there was a pipe bomb."

Washington Department of Natural Resources spokeswoman Jane Chavey said her agency warned forest workers to be careful after a rash of booby-trapped gates near Medford.

"We were just telling people to be aware because we knew in Southern Oregon that this has happened," Chavey said Friday.

When told no such bombs were found anywhere, Chavey said she would look into it.

It turns out, she said later, that her warning was based on an unverified voice-mail message at the DNR.

"Looking back," she said, "we’re not sure where this came from."

Allen just shrugged.

"It’s getting completely out of hand," he said. "Can you make this just stop?"

Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail mfreeman@mailtribune.com