My friend Gene lived in an area west of the town Noti, Oregon called Hale Valley. His family owned a farm there where often a gang of us teenagers would gather for an all-night game of Dungeons and Dragons. One summer night we decided to play "flashlight wars". Each person would receive a flashlight that would count as a "weapon". Spatial parameters were set up; a boundary to the north marked by a dirt road, to the west by a large meadow, to the east by a fence and the south was Gene's family farm. We entered forest and scattered.
The rules of the game are very simple. If you light up someone with your flashlight, and could identify them by name, that person is dead. However, upon entering the forest many of us began to team up. This way we could more readily watch our backs; there's power in numbers. My friend Patrick, who had brought along his younger brother and his cousin Hugh, was crouched near a stump when I came along. I saw him and ducked behind a bush. We were at a stand off. Soon we made a pact and were walking together through the forest searching for the others. We were pretty sure that Gene had already teamed up with Mike and it was likely Chuck had teamed up with Chris, and they may have all teamed up together. We decided it would be advantageous for Patrick and I to team up with his cousin and brother. The sides were being drawn.
As Patrick and I entered a small clearing, we saw a strange, tiny light move up and down. Patrick whispered to me that he suspected his cousin Hugh was smoking 'again'. It seems Hugh had tried to smoke before, but had promised to never try it again. Now Patrick appeared to have proof of his cousin's shame. Hugh wouldn't answer our calls; was he being stubborn, or trying to trap us? We arrived at the exact spot where we had seen the light, but all we could find with our flashlight were a few small beetles on the ground. As we left the clearing the light returned.
That next day I told my father of the experience but he didn't believe me. He thought I had imagined the whole thing since fireflies didn't live in Oregon.
Months later we were visiting our family friends John and Mary who lived in a lumberman's shack deep in the forest. John was some kind of caretaker/supervisor to the lumber camp and received a house as part of his compensation. He told my father and I a story about a nest of "glow worms" he'd found a while back. It had formed in a large broken tree situated in the middle of a marsh. When he got to the glowing ball, he hit it and the thing dispersed and fell into the water below. Upon closer inspection he found it to be made up of many tiny glowing larvae. John had reported the incident to the University of Oregon, but again was met with skepticism. They told him it was probably just a traditional "will o'the wisp" formed by swamp gases. Of course this didn't explain how he could catch up to the glowing ball, nor how he could have hit it and saw glowing larvae.
We know, statistically, there are more insect species on the Earth we have yet to discover, than there are insect species we have already discovered. Could it be the scientists don't really know if there small pockets of fireflies in the Pacific Northwest? After all, fireflies are found on nearly all of the continents, so they are a very distributed insect.
Lately, due to light pollution and industrialization, firefly populations are disappearing. Maybe some of them found a respite in the forest of Oregon? Maybe Bigfoot is breeding them.
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