DB Cooper

[MeyerLouie 5]

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But just out of morbid curiosity, how would knowing the identity of the hijacker cause ANYTHING regarding Tena Bar to fall into place?

Robert99

You took the words right out of my mouth! You have
more courage than I do.


Ditto, I second that emotion. MeyerLouie

[MeyerLouie 5]

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Even if we knew exactly how the Tena Bar money arrived at Tena Bar, this may not provide answers to the two key elements of the case:
1) Whether Cooper survived or not. 2) The identity of the hijacker.

This assumes nothing else is ever found on the ground or in the water related to the hijacking. Hard to understand this concept?
Yes, I admit it is.

Let me explain further:

Let's say someone proves the money arrived at Tena Bar via dredging. Does it prove Cooper died in the river? Not without a body, not without something from the hijacking ALSO found in the area. A chute for example. Or some bones. Etc.

Let's say the money floated down the river and washed up somehow. Again. Proves nothing. Could have been tossed into the river, or lost on the way down and fell into water and eventually ended up on Tena Bar. Without additional evidence...

If you could somehow prove the money WAS a deliberate plant, then this would be something. Frankly, that scenario...proving this...is unlikely.

What might be the end result is what I call a 'backwards' type of solution. You discover the identity of the hijacker, and then everything regarding Tena Bar will probably fall into place.

Georger says in part:

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'Screw MIT and Melon, as per Blevins' suggestion, where I have plenty of friends and relatives! FBI's Quantico and the Forensic Section of the US Treasury Dept could analyse that money, and should have already. Get this one-trick poney on the road...'

I'm sure your 'friends and relatives' at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Carnegie-Mellon appreciate your vote of support. Why would you trust the government to do these tests? These are the same guys who've already had 40+ years to solve the case, put up Marla Cooper's 'Uncle LD' as a 'viable suspect,' and once admitted that some in the Seattle FBI thought Christiansen was a good suspect, but refused to do even a cursory investigation on him.

Okay, we won't count that last part. Still...I would want an INDEPENDENT entity to test the bills, somebody with no axe to grind. The FBI's official position RIGHT NOW is that they think Cooper died in the jump. They've said so. This means they already have a preconceived notion going regarding the money and the hijacker. (That he's dead and the money ended up on Tena Bar somehow as a result of his non-survival) You are justifiably large on double-blinds and verifiable research. Fine. So your answer is 'let the government do it.' I disagree.

MIT. Carnegie-Mellon. Perhaps another science-heavy university. That's my vote for additional testing on any of the ransom money. Government, NO.

----------------------------------------------------------
Blevins......What???????????? I didn't follow that -- you went in all directions all at the same time all in one post. I think I just witnessed an ADD classic moment. MeyerLouie

[377 22]

Jo,

Blevins book is free. No cost. How can you characterize that as a commercial exploitation?

I don't understand the venom. Blevins somehow is a venom magnet. I just don't feel the pull. You, Georger and many others do.

377

2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

[CCharger 0]

It seems pretty clear from my research what happened here.

Cooper jumped just north of Battleground. Shocked from the cold, confused by the chute, disoriented by the darkness, he splashed down either in Salmon Creek or one of her tributaries. Never opened the chute - dead at impact.

His corpse floats downstream overnight along the Salmon River. By sunrise the body is filling with water and begins to sink, dragged slowly along the bottom into Lake River.

Days, perhaps a week or more, passes. The body and the money along are dragged along the bottom. The drawstring opens and the money spills out just as Lake River flows into the Columbia.

The body, freed from the anchor of the money bag, floats to the surface one night and is discharged into the Pacific Ocean.

Some of the money travels up the Columbia very slowly if at all. Tidal actions and low flow during the winter time causes the Columbia to reverse flow and deposits the money on Tena Bar where in time it is covered first in snow and later in sand. It is found 9 years later.

Everything else is lost. Cooper is fish food, and the rest of the money is either completely deteriorated or washed out to sea itself.

I know it doesn't sound as sexy as Cooper landing, getting away, and secretly burying the money on a deserted sandbar, but it is far more logical.

Thoughts.

[BobKnoss 0]

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you have been discredited over and over Bob........ end of story.
why have you been hiding and not mentioning names????

I have said all that needed to be said. I'm not beating a drum, simply bringing up what happened for anyone who really cares. Not hiding, not 'giving up', just letting you make an ass of yourself. My credibility is fine, it is your agenda that is suspect. You see, I know things you swear are not true. That discredits YOU without question.

[377 22]

Meyer Louie wrote

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I know a guy who is the Executive Director of a Fisheries Commission but, to my knowledge, he has never set foot in a science lab. He's is very famous, very influential, he is just a figurehead, his name adds credibility to the Commission, that's it. He has very little scientific aptitude or abilities

Funny. I am a licensed commercial fisherman. I grew up in the trade, which was my Dad's. I worked my way through school skippering commercial fishing boats. We always joked that the fisheries commissions who made the rules had no idea what really happens at sea. Looks like we might have been right.

I remember some seasons being closed or dramatically limited after govt researchers did test fishing and found stocks severely depleted. In many cases they were dead wrong. They just didn't know how to find the fish.

Cooper as fish food... I realize that it's a real possibility but I hate that outcome. I want a storybook ending not a fatal splash in the night.

The chute, container and harness are big durable items. Some of the hardware would last for centuries. Why have only small things been found?

377

2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

[CCharger 0]

No doubt that most of us want a cool, action adventure ending, but most likely that's not what happened.

Once Cooper is spat out into the Pacific Ocean by the Columbia River, the chances of finding ANYTHING attched to him are basically nil.

Also, it is unlikely he would have had much of anything. The parachutes and money bag were attached to him and most likely ended up at the bottom of the water. The paper bag? Could have ended up anywhere in the woods or farmlands of Clark Co.

The only conspicuous thing missing is the briefcase, and again, that could be anywhere, perhaps just waiting to found in a copse of trees somewhere in southern Washington.

[sailshaw 0]

377 writes:

"Sailshaw counts the Amboy chute as a Cooper artifact, but I've seen no evdience that supports that conclusion.
I sure would like to see what's at the lower end of the risers. The finders of the canopy apparently cut a lot of things to extract it from the ground. I wonder what remains buried? The hardware that connects the risers to the harness would tell me a lot about the rig that was used with the canopy and whether or not it could have been one used by DBC."

My answer is that the Amboy Chute may be the dummy chute with the big X on the container that DB could have thrown out of the plane when he saw what they had given him. If Sheridan was DB he would have seen the dummy chute at the Skydiving Center in Issaquah. He could have just laughed at the dummy chute as he threw it from the plane. Then when he jumped he was farther down from Amboy and very close to Vancouver (possibly where he parked his car). Remember, his planning was perfect except for any DNA he could have left on the four envelope stamps/flaps. When the FBI examine the four letters for DNA, the last remaining evidence will become very important and blow the case wide open, finally.

The Amboy chute was looked at by Earl Cossey but his disreguard for the chute as not being one he provided is suspect as are the chute DB chose being one of Cosseys. DB actually used one of "back chutes" provided by the stunt pilot (Hayden). Read Bruce Smith's story about six chutes being provided (two front and four back chutes).

Bob Sailshaw
sailshaw@aol.com

[Farflung 0]

377 opines with exquisite obliviousness:

“I don't understand the venom. Blevins somehow is a venom magnet.”

I guess there are mysteries greater than the Pyramids of Giza, Hanging Gardens of Babylon and DB Cooper.

[Amazon 7]

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It seems pretty clear from my research what happened here.

Cooper jumped just north of Battleground. Shocked from the cold, confused by the chute, disoriented by the darkness, he splashed down either in Salmon Creek or one of her tributaries. Never opened the chute - dead at impact.

His corpse floats downstream overnight along the Salmon River. By sunrise the body is filling with water and begins to sink, dragged slowly along the bottom into Lake River.
Salmon Creek is far to the south of Battleground. you stand a better chance with the Lewis River that is actually up there by Battleground and flows into the Columbia around the same place as Lake River dump in... NORTH of Ridgefield. You ever seen Salmon Creek??? Not exactly big.. even in a flood and there are so many obstructions I don't think anything larger than a base ball would make it down thru all the brush strainers.

Days, perhaps a week or more, passes. The body and the money along are dragged along the bottom. The drawstring opens and the money spills out just as Lake River flows into the Columbia.
The body, freed from the anchor of the money bag, floats to the surface one night and is discharged into the Pacific Ocean.

Some of the money travels up the Columbia very slowly if at all. Tidal actions and low flow during the winter time causes the Columbia to reverse flow and deposits the money on Tena Bar where in time it is covered first in snow and later in sand. It is found 9 years later.
Hate to break it to you but the river flows in the NW are at their highest in the winter when the rains begin in October As a sailor who has spent many many DAYS sailing the Columbia in that area it does NOT flow backwards. The tide in that area makes the river rise and fall but it is always flowing NORTH

Everything else is lost. Cooper is fish food, and the rest of the money is either completely deteriorated or washed out to sea itself.

I know it doesn't sound as sexy as Cooper landing, getting away, and secretly burying the money on a deserted sandbar, but it is far more logical.

Thoughts.

Implausible...

[CCharger 0]

Thanks for the feedback.

However, there has been no definitive proof of exactly when and where Cooper jumped. Some have suggested as far south as Orchards. And even if he jumped just north of Battleground, there are streams, creeks and tributaries along the Salmon included Mills Creek and Woodin Creek. Just check a map.

As far as the Columbia flowing backwards, it is FACT that during high tides and low discharge, the Columbia flows in reverse as far south as Bonneville Dam. Winter is the season with the most precipitation, but it is most snow which doesn't melt till the spring. So the discharge is lowest in the winter.

[377 22]

CCharger wrote

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Once Cooper is spat out into the Pacific Ocean by the Columbia River, the chances of finding ANYTHING attched to him are basically nil.

Not necessarily so. Drag boats (bottom trawlers) bring up all sorts of stuff. My buddies who fish drag boats have pulled up munitions, airplane parts, bodies, etc. The fishing vessel Pam Bay fishing out of Coos Bay Oregon pulled up a WW 2 Japanese mine.

The parachute rig is big enough to be captured in the net mesh. Some productive fishing grounds are scoured regularly, with boats eventually dragging just about every square foot. If the bottom is very rocky then it isnt likely to be trawled. The sediment fan out of big river mouths usually creates big sandy areas, but who knows where a body might end up. Decomposing bodies can become almost neutrally buoyant and in that state can travel far with ocean currents.

377

2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

[CCharger 0]

No doubt that bodies can travel great distances, but over time they rot and are eaten by animals. Perhaps one day a trawler will snag a parchute pack attached to a suited skeleton, but it hasn't happened in over 40 years.

[Amazon 7]

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Thanks for the feedback.

However, there has been no definitive proof of exactly when and where Cooper jumped. Some have suggested as far south as Orchards. And even if he jumped just north of Battleground, there are streams, creeks and tributaries along the Salmon included Mills Creek and Woodin Creek. Just check a map.

As far as the Columbia flowing backwards, it is FACT that during high tides and low discharge, the Columbia flows in reverse as far south as Bonneville Dam. Winter is the season with the most precipitation, but it is most snow which doesn't melt till the spring. So the discharge is lowest in the winter.

You will find many of the tributaries of the Columbia on the West side of the Cascades have their highest flows in winter.( Willamette, Sandy, Lewis, Cowlitz, Kalama). the RAIN... such as the stuff that has been falling on my head here for the last three weeks in a row... is not in a frozen state.. we have flood warnings up all over the place... hmmm what is the date.. NOVEMBER.

At Bonneville yes when the tide is "coming in" down at the mouth does back the water up from flowing out to sea but it is still slowing in the area YOU are talking about. Remember Tena Bar is like 95 miles from the Columbia River Bar.

All those streams you see on the map... yeah I have fished many of them.. most are quite chocked with brush and downfalls. Great for little fish.. but there is no way that something the size of a body would move more than a couple feet along almost any of the ones you are referencing. Salmon Creek in most places is only a few feet wide.. looks good on a map... but reality dictates it being unnavigable to anything larger than a nutria or a beaver.

[CCharger 0]

Not sure how the weather report in 2012 is pertinent to 1971, but I will let it slide.

Yes, it was a wet November in 1971 which is why the Salmon would not be as choked with debris and would be wider and deeper than normal. However, as the winter progressed, it got colder and rain turned into snow.

Lastly, the Columbia can reverse flow up to 52 miles from the ocean. Documented fact.

[377 22]

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No doubt that bodies can travel great distances, but over time they rot and are eaten by animals. Perhaps one day a trawler will snag a parchute pack attached to a suited skeleton, but it hasn't happened in over 40 years.

True. Bones, skulls, and junk is dragged up but bodies very rarely and only if they are very recently submerged. Dungeness crabs, which are abundant off the Columbia River, are EXCEEDINGLY effective scavengers. You can't believe how fast they can strip a carcass. They somehow convert all that decomposing junk into the very best tasting crab meat in the world, way better than King or Snow crab in my opinion.

Dungeness crabs are the garbagemen of the NW coast. They can smell something edible from far away and they will race (sideways) to munch it.

Finding just the rig still wont tell us who Cooper was.

377

2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

[CCharger 0]

377

I am new to these forums and have never skydived, so I have a question. Cooper was jumping from around 10K feet and the plane was moving at around 200 mph. When people jump from planes, they don't fall straight down. Some forward momentum propels them forward as they fall.

Given the accepted conditions for the jump (speed, height, wind, drift) how far would Cooper have been "thrown forward" from his jump point to his impact point (assuming his chute never opened)?

[Amazon 7]

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Not sure how the weather report in 2012 is pertinent to 1971, but I will let it slide.

Yes, it was a wet November in 1971 which is why the Salmon would not be as choked with debris and would be wider and deeper than normal. However, as the winter progressed, it got colder and rain turned into snow.

Lastly, the Columbia can reverse flow up to 52 miles from the ocean. Documented fact.

I know... I OWN 395 ft of river frontage on Puget Island just outside Cathlamet.
But trust me on this.. when you have several ft of keel hanging down under you... you get a VERY good feel of which way the river is flowing.


45 Miles upriver is another story.

I lived just upriver from the Fazio Property on my 36' boat at Willow Bar for 3+ years and then the Portland Yacht Club bought the old marina I moved upriver to Caterpillar Island Marina for over a year .

I attached a little graphic.

I suggest ONSITE investigation for you... be sure to bring VERY GOOD rain gear.

[377 22]

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377

I am new to these forums and have never skydived, so I have a question. Cooper was jumping from around 10K feet and the plane was moving at around 200 mph. When people jump from planes, they don't fall straight down. Some forward momentum propels them forward as they fall.

Given the accepted conditions for the jump (speed, height, wind, drift) how far would Cooper have been "thrown forward" from his jump point to his impact point (assuming his chute never opened)?

No problem, a warm welcome to the forum! I jumped from a DC 9 jet from 14,000 ft. You do get a fwd throw but your forward velocity bleeds off rapidly due to body drag. I freefell to 3000 ft. By the time I was at 10,000 feet it looked like I was falling straight down. Forward throw wont be much of a factor in the Cooper jump.

I watched later DC 9 jumps from the ground. I'd make a rough guess that jumpers forward throw after exit was less than 1000 yards. Just a very rough guess. It can be calculated if you want exact numbers. I was told that on my jump we were doing 180 knots.

377

2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

[CCharger 0]

http://www.nwcouncil.org/library/isab/isab2000-5.pdf

That's a website that has several charts that show that peak seasonal flow for the Columbia river is highest in the months of March through September with the peak being in June. Flow is lowest during the winter months.

While I respect your observer status to flow, just because your haven't seen the Columbia flow in reverse during high tide, doesn't mean it hasn't happened.

High tides + low flow = Columbia River reverses flow

Period.

[Amazon 7]

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No doubt that bodies can travel great distances, but over time they rot and are eaten by animals. Perhaps one day a trawler will snag a parchute pack attached to a suited skeleton, but it hasn't happened in over 40 years.

ll with tasty crap.

True. Bones, skulls, and junk is dragged up but bodies very rarely and only if they are very recently submerged. Dungeness crabs, which are abundant off the Columbia River, are EXCEEDINGLY effective scavengers. You can't believe how fast they can strip a carcass. They somehow convert all that decomposing junk into the very best tasting crab meat in the world, way better than King or Snow crab in my opinion.

Dungeness crabs are the garbagemen of the NW coast. They can smell something edible from far away and they will race (sideways) to munch it.

Finding just the rig still wont tell us who Cooper was.

377

You can find them all the way up almost to Altoona on the Deep river flats during the summer when the Fresh water flow is at its low point... BUT they are usually not as tasty since they are nice and bright after molting... Give me a nasty old purple Dungeness with a few barnacles on its shell and THAT will be a nice full shell with tasty meat.

[Farflung 0]

377 comments with some unknown irony:

“Finding just the rig still wont tell us who Cooper was.”

True, so very true, and since it won’t tell who Cooper was, perhaps we can do as RobertMBlevins suggested yesterday, and abandon this discussion about dredging, floating money and all that. Please see the wisdom in his words and stop this talk now.

What could one POSSIBLY learn by retrieving a 30 pound rig, whit a history of surviving decades exposed to the elements, which matches the one Cossey packed and was owned by Hayden? VIRTUALLY NOTHING! NOTHING! Now the Amboy chute is apparently a different story, but I’m too stupid to figure out why.

Here, I’ll spell it out. The only thing you could learn from finding Cooper’s unopened rig, at the bottom of the Columbia is…. that it wasn’t:

Kenny Christiansen

Duane Weber

Sheridan Petersen

Ted Braden

Richard McCoy

William Gossett

Barb Dayton

LD Cooper

Or any other suspects past and present who survived the jump, or any theory which supports the survived jump approach. Virtually worthless and so silly to pursue, that some people who unfairly attract venom, repeatedly steer the conversation to more productive comments. Thank goodness the analysis on the tie tack was killed for the same reason, by the same person.

Since we all KNOW that Cooper survived, there is no point trying to narrow a search area or technique, by assessing the viability of how money arrived at Tena Bar.

It was buried by Cooper, because the money didn’t just bury itself, hellllooooooo. Damn, it’s all so obvious if only you people would think, I just want you to think.

[Amazon 7]

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http://www.nwcouncil.org/library/isab/isab2000-5.pdf

That's a website that has several charts that show that peak seasonal flow for the Columbia river is highest in the months of March through September with the peak being in June. Flow is lowest during the winter months.

While I respect your observer status to flow, just because your haven't seen the Columbia flow in reverse during high tide, doesn't mean it hasn't happened.

High tides + low flow = Columbia River reverses flow

Period.

I could look out off my back deck daily and also FEEL the tide not to mention the assholes ( AKA River Pilots running faster than the law so they can make more money) in the ships running upriver to the Port of Portland that causes a HUGE surge with every passing.

Here is the PERTINENT information from your PDF..

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regulation of flows in the upper Columbia became significant about 1969 and has
greatly reduced the average flows in the spring freshet (-50 to 55%) and increased the
flows in the winter months (+35% October through March);
c) flow from lower Columbia drainages contribute substantially to winter flow
conditions into the estuary but in the pre-regulated flow period did not contribute
much to the spring freshet or summer flow;

The chart in there I saw is the ESTUARY... as I said I have property ON Puget Island... the far right in the nice little graphic.

The movement in the estuary do not equal the movement of the water at Tena Bar. Again.. direct observation of having LIVED on the river for YEARS.

[Robert99 50]

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Not sure how the weather report in 2012 is pertinent to 1971, but I will let it slide.

Yes, it was a wet November in 1971 which is why the Salmon would not be as choked with debris and would be wider and deeper than normal. However, as the winter progressed, it got colder and rain turned into snow.

Lastly, the Columbia can reverse flow up to 52 miles from the ocean. Documented fact.

Let me get my two cents in here. I made it a point to visit the Tena Bar, Vancouver, and Portland areas for several days in mid-November 2009.

It rained off and on all day ever day and the temperature stayed in the mid-40s range around the clock. This was almost identical to the weather on the hijacking date (November 24, 1971) as well as what Amazon is now describing.

Lake River flows into the Columbia about 15 or 20 miles downstream of Tena Bar. The vertical drop from the Tena Bar and Vancouver Lake area to that point is about one foot.

The "normal" (or typical) Columbia River level at Tena Bar is from 5 to 7 feet and the daily tidal fluctuation is less than 2 feet.

The above means that the Columbia River from the Portland/Vancouver area has a vertical drop of only about one foot for ever 15 to 20 miles downstream.

By comparison, the Mississippi River has an average of about a one foot vertical drop per mile downstream over its entire length from Minneapolis to the point where it disappears into the Gulf of Mexico.

So generally speaking, the Columbia River is not a raging torrent from the Tena Bar area to the Pacific Ocean.

Robert99

[CCharger 0]

You're wrong again.

In these charts, these are observations made from the The Dalles which last I checked is quite far from the estuary.

But it is clear that it is impossible to discuss facts with someone who claims they can "feel" the tide.

Am I saying that the Columbia River is bi-directional? No. All I am saying that given the right circumstances, the Columbia can flow backwards.