Parallels with 2002 Pearl River search

A cynic may experience some deja vu in browsing this web page about the failed 2002 Pearl River (Louisiana) Ivory-bill search (many familiar names are on this page). There seems to be a recurring pattern--search very hard, find only flimsy evidence, then recommend more searching.

There's a photo of the forest with the caption "If the Ivorybill is in here, our searchers will find it".

The searchers did not find the Ivory-bill. However, "intriguing evidence" such as bark scaling and apparent double-knocks was collected, and searchers seemed actually encouraged by this outcome. Check out the links at "Personal opinions of the searchers" for more.

The February 20, 2002 search report contains this:
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In view of the good habitat quality and secondary but promising indications found, we recommend more searches in this area.
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That same report also talked about the encouraging double-raps:
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The raps were unmistakably sounds of something vigorously striking wood...
Three reviewers wrote that the raps sounded like gunshots. We were in an area with much hunting activity and a shooting range and were familiar with the sound of gunshots. The four members that heard the sound in the field were immediately convinced that these were powerful raps on wood and were confident they were not gunshots. By triangulation and distance estimates we assessed the raps to have been at 150 to 340 m from the recordist, and it seems highly unlikely that gunshot at that range could have been misidentified. Independently of our team, the Cornell team heard a double rap the same day close to our site, and they also were certain their raps were not gunshots. We again heard double and single raps at this locality on January 29, and again there was no doubt about the 'wood' quality of the raps.

A few months later, this press release was issued.
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At one point during the exploration, two different research teams independently heard loud double raps that sounded suspiciously like the distinctive display drum of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker.

Sadly, analysis of the ARU data proved that the sounds were distant gun shots, with reverberations that sounded to human ears like drumming on a hollow snag.
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When I see the words "unmistakably", "certain" and "no doubt" above, I'm reminded of this famous exchange from the movie "The Princess Bride":
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Fezzini: Inconceivable!
Inigo: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
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On page 177 of his book, "In Search of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker", Jerome Jackson writes of those double-raps:
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I was contacted and asked for my opinion of the sounds. To me they were clearly not the rapping of an ivory-bill; there was no loud "BAM" followed immediately by a lesser "bam". To me they sounded like gunshots--clear, evenly spaced, and identically sounding: "bam bam bam bam". I responded with my opinion that they were gunshots and was told "You'll be sorry you said that."
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I wonder why Jackson wasn't invited to be a member of the Arkansas search team?