Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2011
By MICHAEL NEWSOM - mmnewsom@sunherald.com
Isolated within a sprawling buffer zone protected by highly secure entrances, the John C. Stennis Space Center is an easy target for paranormal stories.
The large site’s mystique has spawned some wild theories about what goes on inside it and its buffer zone -- 212 square miles of mostly wilderness and swamp. Stennis workers get some strange inquiries about what goes on there from those interested in UFOs and other topics, said Marco Giardino, NASA historian at Stennis.
“You get some strange phone calls that all NASA centers get,” Giardino said. “You know, people who wear aluminum-foil helmets or are being looked at by aliens. There are people who think we caused climatic change by landing on the moon. There are people who don’t think we landed on the moon. You get a cross-section of crazies that all NASA centers get.”
But despite the calls, there’s nothing odd going on there, Giardino said.
“We have a very vibrant tourist program,” Giardino said. “People get to come here on tour buses all the time. The mainstream public is pretty well aware of what we do, and none of it is sneaky or nefarious.”
Cajun Sasquatch?
The rocket-testing center is bordered by two large marshlands -- Honey Island Swamp and Devils Swamp. Some interesting tales have come from Honey Island Swamp, Giardino said.
Some believe the “Cajun Sasquatch” roams the Honey Island Swamp, which is on the western side of the Stennis buffer zone near the Louisiana state line. The creature is also known in south Louisiana lore as the “Honey Island Swamp Monster” or in some cases la bête noire, which is French for “the black beast.” The creature has been described as hairy, with fur colors ranging from orangey, black, grey or brown, in various news stories and television interviews dating as far back as the early 1970s. Some descriptions say it’s about 7 feet tall and weighs 400 pounds.
“(La bête noire) is what the Cajuns call their Bigfoot,” Giardino said. “Old Cajuns swear that it jumps on their flatboats and also leaves huge footprints.”
Giardino said Stennis officials don’t get as many calls about the beast as they did years ago.
There are other legends about something called the “loup garou,” which is French for werewolf, living in the nearby swamps of Louisiana
“It is such a massive wilderness that it has been identified as one of the potential places that bigfoot, or ‘la bête noire’ or the other mythical swamp beasts live,” Giardino said. “On its own, it’s really a place full of mystery, and still has bears and alligators and God knows what-all in it.”
Ivory-billed woodpecker?
In addition to menacing, mythical swamp beasts, there have also been reports of the elusive ivory-billed woodpecker living in the woods around Stennis, Giardino said. The scientific community has been at odds over the last several years about whether the large woodpecker, long thought to be extinct, has actually died out. There have been some sightings of the bird near the facility, as well as other areas across the southeastern United States.
In spring 2005, after various alleged witness accounts from across the country surfaced, along with a reported video of one of the birds taken by a University of Arkansas at Little Rock professor, some scientific groups declared the ivory-billed woodpecker wasn’t extinct. Others in the scientific community disputed that claim.
Giardino said there have been reports of the relatively large woodpecker, which has a wingspan of up to 3 feet, living in the buffer zone. It’s often confused, though, with its common, smaller cousin, the pileated woodpecker.
Whether there’s a Sasquatch, or the rarest of birds, living there, the sprawling marsh of Honey Island Swamp can capture the imagination, Giardino said.
“It’s huge,” Giardino said. “As you drive toward Louisiana, there is nothing but trees and waterways. It’s a really beautiful place, but I wouldn’t be there at night, bête noire or not.”
http://www.sunherald.com/2011/10/26/3534149/sasquatch-rare-woodpecker-among.html
ScienceDaily (Apr. 29, 2011) — Dr. Michael Collins, Naval Research Laboratory scientist and bird watcher, has published an article titled "Putative audio recordings of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker (Campephilus principalis)" which appears in the March issue of the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. The audio recordings were captured in two videos of birds with characteristics consistent with the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. This footage was obtained near the Pearl River in Louisiana, where there is a history of unconfirmed reports of this species. During five years of fieldwork, Collins had ten sightings and also heard the characteristic "kent" calls of this species on two occasions.
During two encounters with an Ivory-billed Woodpecker, Collins heard high-pitched calls that seem to match the description of an alarm call that was reported by James Tanner in the 1930s but was never recorded. On both occasions, the calls came from the direction of the bird and began at a moment when the bird was alarmed. Several of these calls were captured in the first video, which received a positive assessment from an independent expert, Julie Zickefoose, whose paintings of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers have appeared on the covers of a leading ornithology journal and the leading contemporary text on this species. According to Zickefoose, the large woodpecker in the video has a large crest, large bill, long neck, and rared-back posture consistent with an Ivory-billed Woodepecker, and it has ponderous and heavy flaps and takes an unusual flapping leap that is unlike anything she has seen from a Pileated Woodpecker (the only other large woodpecker in Louisiana).
The second video shows a bird in flight with flaps that are radically different from the duck-like flaps that were expected, but a long overlooked clue in a photo from 1939 suggests that there had been a misconception about the flap style. The combination of the flap style and the size rule out all species native to Louisiana other than the two large woodpeckers, but several characteristics rule out Pileated Woodpecker. This footage was obtained when an Ivory-billed Woodpecker flew along the bayou below a tall tree that was used as an observation platform, providing a view from an advantageous perspective of the white stripes on the back and the white patches on the wings. A little over a minute before the bird flew into view, the video captured a putative double knock that matches a putative double knock that was recorded by Hill et al. in Florida.
Collins began searching for Ivory-billed Woodpeckers in November 2005, shortly after Hurricane Katrina passed through the Pearl River. His first sighting was on February 2, 2006, and then two weeks later he discovered a "hot zone" a short distance up the same bayou, where he had five sightings (two of exceptional quality) and also heard the characteristic "kent" calls of this species on two occasions (once coming simultaneously from two directions) during a five-day period. The first video was obtained in the "hot zone" on February 20, 2006.
During the summer of 2007, Collins started climbing tall cypress trees to watch for Ivory-billed Woodpeckers flying over the treetops in the distance. The idea was to increase the encounter rate by opening up a larger field of view. Professor Steve Sillett, of Humboldt State University, and his colleagues, Jim Spickler and Michael Taylor, donated their expertise and time as well as a full set of gear for climbing trees. The approach provided results less than a year later, but not as expected. On March 29, 2008, an Ivory-billed Woodpecker flew directly beneath one of the observation trees, and Collins saw the definitive white stripes on the back and white trailing edges of the dorsal surfaces of the wings. Just over a minute before the bird flew into view, the camera recorded a putative double knock that is consistent with a putative double knock that was recorded in Florida.
Based on historical accounts of a duck-like flight, the Ivory-billed Woodpecker was thought to have duck-like flaps in which the wings remain extended throughout the flap cycle. Although definitive fieldmarks were observed in the field, there seemed to be a contradiction when the video was inspected and found to reveal a flap style that is radically different from what was expected -- the wings are folded completely closed in the middle of each upstroke. This mystery was resolved by a long overlooked clue, a photo from 1939 of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker in flight with the wings folded closed. The observed flap style makes sense in hindsight since it is similar to that of other large woodpeckers.
The flyunder video provides the first putative footage of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker in cruising flight. Since the bird and its reflection from the still surface of a bayou are visible, it is possible to pin down the bird's position (which can't always be deduced from video footage) by triangulation. Since the bird was initially flying nearly directly toward the camera, it was possible to simultaneously extract from the video curves that define both components (horizontal and vertical) of the wingtip motion. Since the bird flew past reference objects, it was possible to estimate wingspan and obtain the first putative data on the flight speed of this species. The video also provides the first putative data on the flap rate. The combination of the wingspan and the flap style rule out all species native to Louisiana except the two large woodpeckers, and in fact an expert on the flight mechanics of woodpeckers, Professor Bret Tobalske, of the University of Montana, is "confident it is a large woodpecker." The Pileated Woodpecker is ruled out by the narrow wing shape, high flight speed, high flap rate, and large white patches on the wings, all of which are consistent with Ivory-billed Woodpecker. The video also shows a trace of white on the back/neck that is consistent with the dorsal stripes that were observed in the field.
