Clipping From Mom: 'Beached boxes mystery'

Mom sent me this clipping about the metal beach boxes from the Newport News paper.  (speaking of mom, here's her blog: Skazski...musings of a malcontent.) [Beached boxes mystery: UFO-related remains along coast unexplained; Terry Dillman.]As she commented in her note sent along with the clipping:

This clipping is the only mention of those "mystery boxes" that have turned up (Friday's Newport Times) --- maybe its because the story took place in another county (Lane) and therefore not of interest to people in Lincoln County and so it goes--- who said we were narrow-minded, ha!

About Bill Hanshumaker of the Hatfield Marine Science Center (HMSC), Dillman wites:

Hunshumaker told the News-Times that he couldn't even venture a guess as to what the boxes might be, espeically without direct examination. Two sets of HMSC volunteeres dispated to Bray's Point found nothing.

In other articles Hunshumaker has been quoted as suggesting the boxes were debris from docks or piers where construction has taken place, or some such...

The article goes on to say that volunteer groups, like CoastWatch, as well as the Oregon Parks and Rec department, have sent out people to look for the boxes; none were found.

And yet, as my mother herself commented, as well as others I've spoken with -- to paraphrase -- "The government can come in and whisk away anything they want and silence whoever they want, when they want." Well, we all know that's true. No argument there. Whether or not that's true in this case, well, I just can't help but think there's no there there.

Masko defends his on-line postings in the Dillman article:

...reproters today "spend all their waking hours" in front of various screens, gathering the news vicariously via computer ...rather than following the tried-and-true "old school" way of "wearing out shoe leather and actually talking to people."

Masko seems to do a bit of a back pedal by basically shrugging and saying the story has taken on its own life about "some junk on our beach."

All this is interesting from a variety of angles: folklore, UFO data, artistic license and expression, Fortean stuff for its own sake. To be fair, I haven't personally spoken with anyone involved in this story, or even been able to make it out to the coast yet to see for myself. (and by this time, that window of finding anything on the beaches seems long closed.)