Who is barnstorming downtown Portland?

August 25, 2008 7:49 PM

I am in my apartment in downtown Portland, OR, and it sounds like we're being swarmed by many smallish airplanes. What is this? Is it part of some event?
posted by Secretariat to Grab Bag (9 answers total)

just found this
posted by Gregamell at 8:02 PM on August 25, 2008

and if its on the internet it must be true. Are you okay?
posted by Gregamell at 8:05 PM on August 25, 2008

Response by poster: Heh. No giant floating Cheney faces floating in the sky yet, so so far so good.
posted by Secretariat at 8:11 PM on August 25, 2008

Well, we haven't been nuked yet. Me and Secretariat are pretty damned confused, though, and wherever this (these?) prop planes are flying, they're avoiding the quarter of the sky that we can see from our apartment windows. It's been going on for quite a while, though it's been quieter the last few minutes—plane(s) still audible in the distance, but no crazy loud buzz passes.

There was a big evangelical event at the water front ("Luis Palau Cityfest", I think), but that was this weekend and is presumably over by now, so I'm guessing it's not that. Nothing on the news sites so far.

Overzealous banner-flyer?

(This is pretty fantastic, so thanks for that regardless.)

Oop, there goes another one just now.
posted by cortex at 8:12 PM on August 25, 2008

Response by poster: Gregamell, it turns out that you are actually right. The sound is giant helicopters dropping off and picking up troops on top of the Fox Tower, as some sort of training (I hope) event. A guy in our building called the news and they told him it was a practice event, not World War Three.
posted by Secretariat at 8:40 PM on August 25, 2008

KGW's story about the black helicopters.
posted by SpecialK at 8:43 PM on August 25, 2008

You know, I was just wondering that with the folks around here.

Thanks for sorting that out!
posted by oreonax at 8:47 PM on August 25, 2008

I was wondering about it too. Good god, it's almost 10pm and they're still flying around out there.
posted by 2oh1 at 9:46 PM on August 25, 2008

You know, the single most useful thing I've discovered about the damnportlanders group on livejournal is their amazingly sudden posts and subsequent explanations about anything going on in the portland area...I come to Metafilter for the discussion, intelligence, and wide social swath...I go to damnportlanders for whatever "that odd smell in SE Portland" is.

Earthquakes, flyovers, random street crime. Damn Portlanders'll be on it.
posted by redsparkler at 11:32 PM on August 25, 2008