Eagle Caves cult debunked

Law officers concluded there was no credible threat — no weapons or bombmaking materials were found at Eagle Caves or at various residences — and the investigation was closed July 7, he said.

Zach Ellis, who lives below the Eagle Caves, said he saw a helicopter Wednesday night, July 8, hovering around the caves, plus three or four vehicles right above the caves, he said.

He’s also seen people going to the caves at odd hours, and didn’t think much of it until news of the alleged cult surfaced. He recently saw a man on a mountain bike zoom down the hill about 1:30 a.m., with full duffel bags, after a neighbor saw the same man go up the hill empty-handed.

People have taken to Facebook to report seeing helicopters and police vehicles around the Eagle Caves and asking what was going on.

U.S. Forest Service Assistant Special Agent in Charge Michael Loudermilk said five U.S. Forest Service officers checked the caves “to see if there were any weapon caches up there that were rumored to be there, and there were not.”

He added, “I can tell you for a fact that there was nothing located up there,” he said. “The people that went up there came back and reported to me.”

Loudermilk added that his agency did not use helicopters in its search.

The Dalles Police Det. Sgt. Doug Kramer, who led the investigation for The Dalles police, said to his knowledge, no helicopters were used for the search.

The investigation involved The Dalles police, the FBI, Wasco, Sherman and Klickitat County sheriff’s offices, Oregon State Police and the U.S. Forest Service, Waterbury said.

No one was arrested, but one man from The Dalles was detained and transferred to a facility for mental health issues, Kramer said. The man was medically evaluated and found to be suffering from delusions and hallucinations, Kramer said.

The investigation began on July 3. A police log entry from that day says a citizen called police to say a man was speaking of a massacre both verbally, on his cellphone and on Facebook messages. He was talking about it with one or two other individuals, the log stated.

Another July 3 log entry about the man said he was found outside naked, staring into space.

Kramer said he interviewed the man and found he was not credible because he repeatedly changed his story. He was eventually taken to a mental facility.

Kramer interviewed the woman who initially described the man’s behavior, and she said the man was involved in an alleged cult, and she reported July 15 was the date an attack was supposed to happen.

Sumer Brazell told the Chronicle her family is involved in the matter. She said the man who was hospitalized “snapped” and “let it slip” about the date of July 15th and “the massacre and everything that they were planning.”

On Friday, July 3, Brazell said, the man became so disturbed his parents took him to the hospital for a psychological evaluation.

That’s when he told his parents he was part of the “Wolfpack,” Brazell said. “And they had guns and they were making bombs and they had bomb making supplies and that they were stashing all up on Eagle Caves and they were meeting every night and they were planning a massacre for the 15th. He said that to a psychologist and to his parents.”

In all, law officers interviewed three men, in Tacoma, Goldendale and The Dalles. All are white men in their 20s, Kramer said. The Tacoma and Goldendale man were friends, and the Goldendale and The Dalles man worked together in Moro in Sherman County, Kramer said.

Reports of additional members of the alleged cult were not confirmed, Waterbury said.

Kramer said the upshot of the investigation was that “this is a group of friends who like to go hiking and talking about doomsday events.”

Beth Anne Steele of the Portland FBI office said, “There’s no known threat to public safety.”

What was initially reported to be a planned attack for July 15 turned out to be the men discussing a supposed earthquake that they expect to happen on July 15 that was supposed to rupture The Dalles Dam, Waterbury said.

The Goldendale and The Dalles men had no criminal history but the Tacoma man had convictions for drug offenses, burglary and weapons charges, Waterbury said.

The woman who reported the bizarre behavior of the man from The Dalles later sought to leave her home out of fear for her personal safety and was relocated by a local agency, Kramer said.

He said the woman was not relocated by local police or the FBI or any other police entity.

Brazell said she was told the only people who were allowed to know the women’s whereabouts were a local helping agency and the FBI.

Brazell said she has called police before to report people with campfires up in the Eagle Caves.

She also said she was told by two women that they saw three “heavily armed” men come down off Eagle Caves and then get arrested. The two women declined to speak to the Chronicle. Police have stated no one was arrested.

The FBI interviewed the men from Goldendale and Tacoma, Kramer said.

The two men interviewed by the FBI “were able to advise us that there was no plot planned and that the information relayed was a misunderstanding so it was just a group of people meeting who were talking about a major earthquake that was supposed to occur on the 15th of July that would cause the dam to rupture locally,” Kramer said.

Asked if the men might have been able to hide their true intentions from the agents, Kramer said, “I think the people that interviewed them are beyond qualified to determine whether someone’s being deceptive or not.”

Along with the interviews, police searched the Eagle Caves, residences, personal belongings, cell phones, and Facebook accounts, Kramer said. No search warrants were needed because the men consented to the searches, he said.

“Nothing credible was articulated or observed in any of these entities,” he said.

The FBI was brought into the investigation because it involved people in multiple states and because it was a threat of a terrorist act, Waterbury said.