We have a rather wild story going on with Gene Bland...it's come to my attention that the Gene" posting on The Mountain News" as Gene Bland is not the same person..I've been speaking with Gene on Facebook for several days now. he's claiming he's never been to Bruce's site, nor claims to know who Bruce Smith is...hopefully Bruce will learn to control what is going on over there..obviously, someone is lying somewhere in all of this..
a lot of his story is very conflicting with the story we all have come to know, and hear about. I'm getting reports from higher ups that they have never heard of him. he is very pleasant to speak with, but it's hard to get any real evidence out of him. he has a very impressive background and it would be a shame if he was making all of this up..I spoke with multiple people and they have no clue about any tracks leading from anywhere from Seattle to Reno...you would think someone this involved could be recalled by someone. some of his friends say the opposite to where they believe Cooper landed, they kind of agree with the FBI..we have a lot of red flags with this story...I don't think I'll be discussing anything further with Gene at the moment...
Hope Im not wrong about this, but so far Bland has not claimed to have spoken to any agent at Portland or Seattle, while he did say he had spoken to 'Mouse Causey' ? Nobody Ive talked to at Portland/Seattle ever heard of Gene Bland but more importantly they cant recall any 302's concerning a muddy field with footprints or naming Bland and ... identifying as a possible Cooper LZ in Oregon. If Bland's account is true it would have been identified from the air first before any feet on the ground at such a site ... the searches south of Portland into Oregon and Nevada were all conducted by air - that is a fact everyone agrees on, moreover that is documented in numerous newspaper articles from the first days immediately following 11/24.
I do think (and all documents support this view): until about 12/2 the whole flight path was being examined by air. The search in the Woodland area was initially based on pilot communications, ie. last contact with the hijacker. The crew knew where they were during that time period. Then the pressure spike evidence surfaced which lead to the first NWA search map published around 12/2/71-12/6/71 sent out by fax to various FBI offices from Minneapolis to Seattle, Portland, Reno, Eugene, Sacramento, etal ...
Although there is no firm documentation so far, it does seem Reasonable that Campbell (Reno) would have contacted the parachute experts in his area, and Bland was an official in that community on 11/24/71.
So far no agents or 302's or newspaper accounts or any other data documents a 'muddy field with footprints' being found or searched in Oregon. But it may very well have happened. Just no confirmation beyond Bland's word for it, so far.
