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Blog: What Went Wrong? Mosquito Trap? Drugs? Alien Probe?
February 10, 2010
What in this world, or out of this world, went wrong for it to take hours to identify a mosquito trap as a “mystery object”? Why were deputies and firemen unable to identify an object that was suppose to be clearly labeled as property of Escambia County Mosquito Control?
Perhaps surprising to some, the answer is a story about things that went the right way.
The buzz all over Escambia County Tuesday was our story about the mystery object glowing in the woods of Bluff Springs. Everywhere you went in the county, people were guessing what the object might be. It was truly the talk of the town. Our phone here at NorthEscambia.com rang a lot Tuesday, with people trying to get the inside information. We did live television interviews, and another local web site proclaimed “Alien probe found in Century”. (Alien probe? That was a stretch. It’s Bluff Springs, not Gulf Breeze.)
It all started about 10:15 Monday night when a resident on Dawson Lane off Bluff Springs Road called and reported that he thought he saw a small fire in the woods near his home. Members of the Century Station of Escambia Fire Rescue responded; they did not find a fire. Instead they located a glowing light in the woods. The wind blowing branches had made the light appear to flicker like a flame to the resident.
Let’s draw a mental picture of the scene. The area of Dawson Road where the object was found is pitch black dark — nothing but woods, no streetlights. The woods were thick and very dark. The object was several feet into the woods.
Following their training, firemen attempted to determine what they were dealing with before they entered the woods. With their flashlights, they could see the light, a battery pack and what appeared to be a cooler. Some reported to see the cooler smoking. What did their training tell them? Stay out of the woods.
From what they could see from the edge of the woods, the object could have been most anything. Likely suspects were some sort of portable meth lab, a crude explosive device, or…there were lots of possibilities. Mosquito trap was not on the immediate list.
Since the item may have been a meth lab (bad guys can make meth inside a moving vehicle this day, so anything’s possible for a meth head), it might have been a crime scene. Firemen are trained not to walk around crime scenes so that they don’t destroy evidence.
“We followed our protocol for safety and to protect and preserve any possible crime scene,” said David Adams, a volunteer for the Century Station of Escambia Fire Rescue. He’s also the Emergency Management Director for Escambia County, Alabama. “We didn’t know what it was. You look at what you think you might have and take the worst that it can be and work to eliminate the hazards.”
Adams called for the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office to respond. Two deputies did. In their report, they wrote that they observed a “glowing object” and a cooler that was wrapped with black duct tape. Ice was forming on the duct tape. Thinking a possible meth relationship, the deputies followed their training and called for the department’s narcotics unit to respond.
In retrospect, perhaps it seems like a lot for a funny little mosquito trap that was suppose to be clearly labeled with Escambia County stickers.
“The equipment and cooler have Escambia County labels for easy identification,” said Sonya Daniel, Escambia County’s public information officer.
It was at about this period in our story where the picture you see on this page was taken. Understand what you see in the photo is not what you could have seen with your naked eye on Dawson Road with a good flashlight. The flash on our camera can light up and entire football field; so the camera was able to provide a view that could not be seen in person. There are no Escambia County labels visible in the photo.
About 15 minutes after we took the photo and left the scene, the narcotics officer did arrive on the scene. They are trained to approach a possible meth lab, which can explode at any moment. Their report indicates that they did find the Escambia County Mosquito Control stickers on the mosquito trap. Problem solved.
Why then did we report about the mystery object for hours before posting that it was a mosquito trap? Simple. That was the latest information available. Before the spokespersons in the Sheriff’s Office can release a report, it must first be filed by an officer and approved by a supervisor. That sometimes takes hours, as it did Tuesday.
There were, by the way, a surprising number of people working to find answers for us on Tuesday. But answers take time.
If NorthEscambia.com were a printed weekly paper, none of this story would have been the talk of the county. It would have been, if reported at all, a small paragraph on page 12 or something. But in the world of 24/7 news as it happens on NorthEscambia.com, it sometimes takes time for a story to unfold. It’s that drama that makes what we do so appealing to tens of thousands of people everyday.
It may or not catch mosquitoes in February, but the little light sure did catch our attention.
Click here for our original Tuesday story.
Comments
15 Responses to “Blog: What Went Wrong? Mosquito Trap? Drugs? Alien Probe?”
For EMD,
Mosquito trapping at this time of year is not strange at all, in fact it is what every county and mosquito control district is doing if they consider having an integrated mosquito control management program prescribed by the Florida Mosquito Control Association.
Birds and mosquitoes both carry arboviruses with birds being reservoirs. Some mosquito species over winter with these viruses. Early detection of these viruses by testing mosquitoes can help determine the frequency in which amplification of viruses will exist.
For more information about arboviral mosquito/avian cycles, contact the Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory in Vero Beach Florida …….Dr. Jonathan Day. Or, pherec.org Public Health Entomology Research and Education Center.
As far as the individual who set the Center for Disease Control Light Trap in Escambia Co. ‘ Bravo Zulu’, I trained her myself.
Mosquitomanbill
Santa Rosa Co Fl.
IT WAS A …………..ONE EYED, ONE HORN, FLYING PURPLE PEOPLE EATER, YES A ONE EYED, ONE HORN, FLYING PURPLE PEOPLE EATER AND IT SHORE LOOKED……….WHAT’S THAT …………. TO mE!!!
HAHAHAHAHHA METH!
Imaginations run wild, back in the 60s on a stretch of hwy 31 between Wawbeek and Flomaton, You could see a white light that seemingly came from out of the sky and momentarily reappeared as a red light and went back up to the sky and disappeared. People came from miles around to view this strange phenomenon. After about a week and literally thousands of visitors two men with a pickup truck and two CB radios solved the mystery. One stayed on the spot on the Hwy and the other drove to Upper Creek Road. A large area of timber had been cut and exposed the area of the road. Surely enough the headlights came down the hill and made a turn and headed back up the hill and disappeared. Henceforth the aliens that had been invading our area for the last many days disappeared.
Yes, those must be alien mosquitoes
Yes, but just how much tax dollars are we spending to try and catch some mosquitoes in February? Do they actually catch any in these temperatures?
And for the lack of a simple $2 label of some descriptive sort, the county just spent how many thousands of manhour and equipment dollars to respond to investigate this “glowing object in the woods” ?????? It is laughably sad.
Yes Earthlings, er, I mean people, it was a mosquito trap. There is nothing to induce fear in your cranial cavities. Listen to the implausible explanations of your elected officials and continue with your daily biological and socio-economic activities. And if your auditory senses experience unknown stimuli such as high-frequency buzzing it’s only a coyote.
Glad to know what this really was, and I do understand that it does take some time to get the whole story before it can actually be submitted for view on the news… Thanks William for keeping up with the news on this and getting the proper details…
“That was a stretch. It’s Bluff Springs, not Gulf Breeze.”
ROFL!!
I agree with EMD ——–very strange to set out a mosquito trap in freezing temperatures.
But, on the other hand, if they have found a trap that actually works, please let everybody know where they can buy one.
LOL….people who live outside our community are probably thinking that we all need to get a life! Oh well, it gave us a good laugh and took our minds off of the more serious issues for awhile.
Alien skeeters makin’ dope!!(LOL)
Alien mosquitos!!!
PS. I find a mosquito trap in February, to be strange in itself.
In the comments on the story yesterday, one reader commented simply that the object was a mosquito trap. It seems this simple, one sentence comment was overlooked in the midst of the other more lengthy ones.