As part of the search, authorities flew a helicopter equipped with infrared cameras over the cliffs and canyons near his home at night, hoping to spot him by his heat signature. But the unseasonably warm spring turned the landscape against them.
“The mountain was just lit up like a candle,” Lt. Kyle Woods of the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office said at a news conference Monday. “We couldn’t differentiate from heat signatures and the heat from the rocks.”
Seventeen days after his disappearance, officials still can’t say where the 68-year-old went, why he left or whether someone else was involved — a mystery deepened by public fascination with the retired general’s ties to UFO lore.
Surveillance cameras cover both ends of McCasland’s street, yet authorities said Monday they are still combing through that footage along with video provided by residents.
Asked if authorities believe something nefarious may have happened, Woods said, “We haven’t ruled anything out, but we have nothing pointing to it either.”
What McCasland did and didn’t take with him has become central to the investigation. Woods said it was uncommon for McCasland to leave without his phone or wearable devices, both of which were found at his home.
McCasland has a second home in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, about 35 miles north of the New Mexico border and roughly 200 miles from his Albuquerque home. There, investigators recovered a light green long-sleeve button-up shirt and hiking boots, according to the sheriff’s office. Still unaccounted for are McCasland’s wallet, a .38-caliber revolver, a leather holster and a red backpack. Authorities have not said whether they believe he had those items when he left.
A gray US Air Force sweatshirt was found about 1.25 miles east of McCasland’s home on March 7 — eight days after he disappeared, Bernalillo County Sheriff John Allen said. McCasland’s family hasn’t confirmed it was his, but no blood was detected on the shirt in initial testing and the discovery led investigators to target the area for additional searches.
‘The most intelligent person in the room’
During his career, McCasland was at the center of some of the Pentagon’s most advanced aerospace research and once commanded the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. But he had reported experiencing “mental fog” before his disappearance, a condition he cited as the reason for stepping down from various groups he worked with, officials said Monday.
Allen declined to go into further detail out of respect for McCasland’s family.
Still, Woods pushed back against any suggestion that McCasland was impaired.
“There’s no indication, and we are not putting forward that Mr. McCasland was disoriented or confused,” Woods said. “Arguably, he would still be the most intelligent person in the room that any of us would be in. Highly intelligent, highly capable.”
Woods said that after authorities were made aware of the mental fog and considering McCasland’s age, they issued a Silver Alert “out of an abundance of caution” to attract as much public attention as possible.
A vast and unforgiving search area
Investigators have canvassed more than 700 homes and searched a vast stretch of terrain using dogs, drones and helicopters. “It’s vast, it’s a lot of square mileage, there’s a lot of hidden areas, there’s rocky areas, there’s areas where people can get injured in,” Allen said.
.jpg)
0 commentaires:
Enregistrer un commentaire