I've spent way more hours than I care to admit reading through his stuff. It is true that not every case can be attributed to this theory, but eagles are quick. They can easily move forty miles an hour, and swoop in at even faster speeds.

They're also ambush predators. They wait for exactly the right moment and strike when they know its safest.

and there are several cases where there is a "whooshing" sound that's heard before people are even aware their friends are missing. The case of Thomas Messick being the most notorious.

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15-20ft is not a fair gauge of distance. When you consider that almost all of these cases involve the victim being well out of sight, mostly kids and elderly folk, who the people they were hiking with swear they only "Turned their backs for a minute." realistically that was probably more like 3-5 minutes, more than enough time for a large bird of prey to swoop in and snatch a small prey. You're not going to find a lot of blood as the result of talons plugging the wound they've created. Unless they kill their prey before they take off, but that's unlikely as it wouldn't be opportunistic of them to do so.