This story caught my eye, and apparently, there is no resolution, yet. I am not familiar with the area, but from what I can see on Google maps, Google Earth, and from what I have read, it is not an area where 'falling rocks' are likely. I can't figure this one out...WHO can throw a 10 pound rock far enough to not be seen from the vehicle? The cops are looking for info...and there are no overpasses nearby.

The first thing I thought of when this story broke was a sasq chucking rocks, and hit the vehicle. I know to most people outside this forum, that would sound cuh RAZEEE...However...

Daily Astorian

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Public help sought after falling rock kills woman
Oregon Coast motorists asked for help: Where did the rock come from?

Thursday, October 05, 2006


LINCOLN CITY - Oregon State Police troopers are asking for public help after a bizarre incident on U.S. Highway 101 Thursday in which a woman died when a large rock crashed through the windshield and struck her.

Troopers are asking for the public's help from anyone who may have been traveling through the area at the time who may have information to help identify where the rock came from.

At 11:40 a.m., a man and his wife were traveling north on Highway 101 near the traffic control light for the Salishan Lodge. The couple were in their 1995 Dodge Ram pickup towing a fifth-wheel trailer when a 10-pound rock crashed through the passenger side of the windshield and struck the woman passenger in the neck and shoulder.

Local emergency medical personnel transported her to North Lincoln Hospital where she was pronounced dead.

The couple's names are not being released.

Oregon State Police troopers are checking for any evidence to help determine where the rock came from.

Anyone with information is asked to contact OSP Northern Command Center dispatch at (800) 452-7888.

Daily Astorian linky



Orientation map of the area...This occurred near the traffic light for the resort entrance.

That's a very very heavy rock to throw !!!

That's what got me, Bobby. I weighed a few rocks in my yard, and found two that are similar in size and shape to the one that is shown below:



This is the rock that killed the woman from Oregon, according to this related story:

KTVZ report on same incident

I can throw a ten pound rock about 40 feet while standing flat footed, farther if I take a few steps for a wind up.

I am having trouble with the idea that the driver couldn't see someone standing close enough to the road to throw it...Or that someone would THINK they could remain unseen from that close. Forty feet from a fastmoving pickup pulling a fifth wheel is pretty darn close.

I would think that the cops would be asking for help locating a suspect if they thought a person threw it. Again, I am not familiar with this area, so I do not know if there are ledges or overlooks above the roadway (as there are here, where I live in BC). This may be totally unrelated, but I sure would like to hear from any locals to that area that may have seen it, and could describe it to us...Better yet, take a few pics.

It is also possible that it was thrown up from a passing truck...But if that is the case, wouldn't the driver have mentioned passing trucks? This just needs some blanks filled in!

Smitty

I actually thought a 10lb Rock would be bigger than that but it's still big..

What you said Smitty about the Driver/Passenger wouldn't have seen someone too or that the Person throwing the Rock didn't think they would be seen, was exactly what i was thinking ?????

Doesn't make sense !!

Whether this is BF related or not, this is quite an interesting story. Too bad to have a loss of
life. Maybe someone from Oregon will check out the area themselves.

A shot put weighs 12.2 lbs and the world record is about 75 ft. It would be interesting to see a photo of the spot where this rock made contact with that truck.

Might as well jump to the conclusion that the rock was dropped from a UFO. :doh:

A-HA! (Or maybe an airplane--perhaps an ultralight?)

Here's one possibility: a hundred feet of surgical tubing wound between two trees repeatedly, to form a strong slingshot. This is used by animal-house-type fraternities to launch rotten cantaloupes at rival houses from a distance of four blocks. (The perps were uncovered only after they hit a squad car parked outside their target.) But this device has such strong tension that several persons are needed to pull it back very far.

In any future case where a rock is recovered and a Sas is suspected, the modern Australian technique (described in one of my posts somewhere here--and in one of my articles on the former AIBR site) of lifting prints from stones and wood should be employed, and human handling should be minimized.

There is also an Ottawa-developed inexpensive technique, described in my same article, for extracting DNA from fingerprints. The use of these two techniques together is our best chance for dramatically strengthening the evidence for Bigfoot, since there are many tree twists that could be checked (such as the one MonkeyMan described recently near the PG Filmsite).

Hey, Tug...I live in rock slide country. It just seemed suspiciously flat where this happened, looking at what photos I could find for the area. I am not usually one to jump to ANY conclusion...But I would sincerely like to know more about this incident.

*psst*

You are closer to it to me!

Smitty

Seems to me I heard of an incident like this a few years back where the person died. Someone had dropped the rock from an overpass. The rock must develop some real momentum as it was dropping before smashing into it's target. (Maybe the person writing the article left out some pretty important parts of the article?) If I'm not mistaken, the incident happened here in Minnesota in the Twin Cities area somewhere because I remember looking up at overpasses for a while after that. I don't think they ever found the person who did it. Heck, it could have been kids looking for some fun that did it.

This happened here in Omaha a few years back, they successfully pulled off one murder but missed the other few times they tried. It took them quite awhile to finally find the idiots. They ended up putting high fencing around all the overpasses in town. What a nice idea for a prank.

Oddly enough, I was the victim of the very same type of "prank" in NY when I was about 23. I was driving on the hwy and passed under a fenced overpass built for kids to cross to the local high school. The fence on the overpass walkway was purposly built tall and actually ALMOST closed at the top. I saw the kid toss the rock up and over the top of the fence and it hit my windshield right where my rearview mirror was. The kid then ran on over the bridge. The windshield shattered and I was covered in tiny shards of glass. The mirror actually shielded my face from the glass, but my neck and hair were covered in tiny splinters. I drove the rest of the way home with my THUMBS on the steering wheel because it too was covered in splinters. When I arrived home, my dad hosed me off in the front yard.

I called the State Police, as the walkway was right in front of their building. The reponse I got was, "What do you want US to do?"

A pineapple-frag grenade weighs a bit over a pound, and I never thought I could throw the damned things far enough away from me for my own comfort.

Nine times that weight, with the bulk to make the feat more difficult? I sure couldn't throw such an object far. Certainly not 40', like someone here claims they can.

Interesting story. It's a stretch to claim that a sasquatch did it, but it is an interesting mystery.

Although I can't recall the terrain of that exact spot, there are spots all throughout that area that go straight up right next to the road...... I used to visit Lincoln City, Newport, and Depot Bay quite regularly. It is quite feasable that it came careening down a steep hillside, which would account for the speed.

Now as for what disldoged it and made it fall..............

When I was a kid, two other kids I didn't know made a snow ball about the size of a regular snow man's head and tossed it at a car from an over pass on a freeway. It hit a car and went through the drivers window and killed him. The kids went to juevy prison till they were 18. Must be out now of course or at least for that crime.

Hwy 101 is not a superhighway, nor is it a lonesome country road somewhere in the middle of nowhere. My first thought was dropped from an overpass like many, yet at the same time I've driven this route in the past and know there isn't any overpasses. I am surprised that at 11:40am nobody saw where the rock came from, as this is still a fairly well traveled route.

From the viewpoint of pure speculation of where a rock of this size could have come from, I can think of a couple of ideas, that don't involve anyone purposely throwing it, UFOs, ultralights or other hard to believe means of delivery. Both ideas I'm thinking of involve other vehicles, and possibly happened so fast it simply wasn't noticed.

1. Truck, either dump truck or logging truck. In the case of a dump truck it could have simply fallen out of the load. It could have been traveling from either direction, but most likely if it passed by the victims truck going in the opposite direction. If a rock would fall off the dump truck it would hit the ground and still be traveling at the same speed it had been while in the truck. Jagged edges could cause it to pop up into the air and hop. So how far can a 10 pound rock travel that's been propelled at 50 or 60 mph? In the case of a logging truck it could have been stuck into a tree that it was carrying, but more likely stuck between a set of tires. The tires under the logs are like on normal semis, one tire next to another. It's not uncommon at all to find large rocks stuck between these tires, especially if the logs are being brought out from a heavily wooded area with unimproved roads. Usually the rocks are lost long before the truck ever hits the pavement, and I'm sure MOST drivers stop and check before entering the highway to make sure such a hazard doesn't exist.

2. The other possibility is that the rock was already on the roadway, and someone may have just clipped enough of if with the tire of their vehicle to cause it to flip and fly, much like a Tiddley Wink.

Using Terraserver I was able to get some aerial pics of the area. There are no steep cliffs in this area so you'll see that's not a possibility.

Click to view attachment
Click to view attachment
Click to view attachment

The golf course for the named lodge is on the right hand side of the road, the lodge itself is on the left hand side. The article said the accident happened near the traffic control light for this lodge so this must be the place.

Is there a hill next to the road?

Rocks don't just roll quietly down a hillside, they bounce up in the air, roll a few times, bounce again. Most likely if was just a rock rolling off of a steep hill.

Next possibility is the that it fell off or got kicked up by a truck

Third possibility- an unclassified primate chucked it from behind a bush.

I've been watching this myself with interest. It's a few hours away from me so not an easy trip with all I have going on right now.

There have been more then one rock incident in the same general location. A second mentioned here.
http://159.54.226.83/apps/pbcs.dll/article.../610130326/1001

Here's the official police report release.
http://www.oregon.gov/OSP/NEWSRL/news/10_0...shan_rock.shtml

I seem to recall tho that a month or so before the death, there was another incident along there. I searched a bit but couldn't relocate it. If I find it, I will post later.

I've spoken to Lt Hastings in the past on another non-related matter but maybe I'll ask about this one of these days. I also want to find out more about the two missing boys down south of me, but that is a though one to broach. From one pic in the highway incident release, it does look fairly dense thru there but not enough images to tell for sure. If it was our buddy, I doubt the big guy knew the ramifications of his actions. Just as he throws rocks near people all the time, only here he might not be able to account for speed of vehicles.

Unfortunately, without considering these possibilities, many things go unresolved, although they might remain unresolved if everything was considered.

I lean heavily towards scenerio number one mentioned by Moregon. Most companies try to make sure the drivers check their tires before hitting the road. Some don't. In this specific case, the OSP believe the rock came from a truck. It happens more frequently than it should. Several years ago, a little girl who went to school and Tae Kwan Do lessons with my nephew was a passenger in the front seat of her moms car. A five pound rock was kicked up from the road and came through the windshield. The girl suffered severe head trauma. The OSP eventually found that the rock came from between the double tires of a truck. I tried to find the link to this story, but couldn't. It happened about 8-9 years ago in the Newberg area.

My own experience with road debris was scary.
In 1993 I was living in the Seattle area and driving down to the Salem area a few times a month to visit my boyfriend (now husband). I was driving Southbound over the Interstate bridge when the cars ahead of me started to swerve. Within seconds, a large square piece of road grating (the kind they use to temporarily cover holes that crews make in the road when working) hit the top of the drivers front quarter panel on the car in front of me and flipped back onto the road directly in front me. It was airborne momentarily, but I was driving far enough behind the car so the panel actually hit the road before I went over it. Had I been traveling any closer to the car in front of me, I feel certain the piece of grating would have hit my hood/windshield. The damage went right down the center of the undercarriage of my car. Honest to goodness that dang thing was airborne and it had to have weighed a whole lot more than ten pounds.


Obviously, it is more likely that the rock was kicked up or dropped from a load than alluding to a sasquatch throwing rocks at passing vehicles....in broad daylight....near a very busy highway.

Just my 2 cents worth

Redwolf

I just realized something from looking at the pics although I can't tell for certain. But the direction from which the rock came is important. In one pic, there is clean sheer of the glass at the right, and the broken glass on the left side is hinged. I believe the hinged side would indicate the side in which the rock came, as the sheered side would be where the glass was cut clean.

However, if that were the case, then the rock would have had to bounce off the hump of the dash, and unfortunately, that can't be made out in the pic. If it didn't bounce, and it came from the right of the highway, then the driver would have been hit.

On the other hand, the wiper appears to have been hit from more of the center side of the highway. So, what do I know for sure? Nuttin. But it was a good excercise tho.

hey everyone wow this is a very interesting new article wheather it sasquatch related or not. please keep me posted definetly. bill

What a sad story... rest her soul...

Just goes to show ya'... when it's your time... wham... goodbye...

I gotta agree with moregon and Red here... that rock looks like the perfect size and shape to get stuck between a set of rear duals...

Why didn't the driver mention a passing truck? Can you recall every truck that has passed you while on the road? Well, I can... just kidding...

Besides... the poor woman that was killed was 75... how old does that make him? Way old... that's how old...

I think it was the hubby that was 75. She was 67.

Geez... maybe I should've asked ... how old does that make you! :laugh:

Just kidding... I'm from Texas ya' know...

LaurieB you are correct in your recollection. This makes you want
to start checking out overpasses again.Rock thrown off overpass story

& your answer was " what about do your Job ??? " .

Please tell me that's what you said ????

ahh i stand corrected. I had it backwards...




I was 23 yrs old. He went on about how the kid was long gone, yada yada, and I was 23. What did I know? Had I been a wee bit more "mature" I would have stood up to him.

Just outside Mena, AR....

About 5 years ago there was a lady who was killed here in Erie on Interstate 90. The highway had deteriated and cracked enough that a 50 lb piece was kicked up by an 18 wheeler. Which in turn kicked the rock up high and it entered directly into the lady drivers windshield. (right into her face) Which if I remember correctly, it was determinced to be about 1/16 of mile further down the road.

Big bad Policeman or not, that's still a horrific way to treat someone that pays your wages !!

Shame to that Policeman/Sheriff or whatver you guys call them !! :wink:

OK since at least one person on this thread mentioned a UFO as a source for the rock (my vote is a logging truck in some way is the culprit), here is a relevant news piece on the web today. Does any of this sound familiar to what happens to BF reports?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/arti...in_page_id=1770