A sort of Occupy Wall Street of the Forest, The Rainbow Family of Living Light has been Vice.com described as “a loosely organised troupe of nudists, hippies and itinerants that meets every summer for a month-long love-in”.

While seven ranchers still languish in jail awaiting trial from incidents connected to the 2016 Malheur National Forest Standoff where rancher LaVoy Finicum was shot down under questionable circumstances, up to 30,000 aimless hangers on to the Rainbow Family of Living Light have outfoxed he BLM once again.

No rancher’s cattle straying away to graze the grass on land the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) considers their own will ever get away with it.

Were it not for their gatherings numbering in the tens of thousands, the odd murder (here) and the heaps of trash they leave behind, Rainbow Family remains as elusive to the authorities as the so-called Bigfoot.

“The Associated Press reported 600 members of the Rainbow group are already camped near Flagtail Meadow in the park, but Malheur National Forest officials are expecting between 10,000-30,000 to arrive by July 4.

“The group refused to sign a special use permit, required for groups of more than 75. The group has noted that it claims no leader, and consequently there is no one to sign such permits.”

Even their website homepage is “unofficial”.

The Rainbow group doesn’t gather only in American forests, they stage gatherings in Belgium, Israel, France, Mexico and Canada.

“Started in the late 1960s as an outgrowth of the anti-war and hippy movements, the Rainbow Family of Living Light describes itself as “the largest, best coordinated, nonpolitical nondenominational nonorganisation of like-minded individuals on the planet. (Vice.com, June 24, 2014)