DB Cooper

[georger 247]

1 minute ago, FLYJACK said:

There are so many variables that we don't know.

The money was found at about the high water mark.. it was well below the flood stage. The money was found in a layer with "fresh" debris. 

 

Clearly, objects do sink in sand.. tidal action, ship wakes, nearby erosion,,  how would that affect the money??  How can we determine that. Was there more debris dumped there beyond the 1974 dredge..

If we assume the money went into the River in a Spring when the River was above the find spot but below flood stage and it gets deposited on TBAR then burial may have been a natural process...

One thing I'd like to know is what a bundle of money does in the River with 3 mph current does after it sinks..  does it remain suspended above the bottom and get pushed??  I found that a corpse gets moved on a sand/gravel bottom with 1.35 mph current.

 

I am now leaning toward the money arriving within a year or so of the find... for it to have been there and buried since 71/72 with all the erosion and found in a "fresh" layer... is hard to makes sense of.

Erosion at TBar has been a fact forever. It didnt stop or change radically since 1971!

[Chaucer 110]

3 hours ago, georger said:

6 minutes ago, georger said:

 

[Chaucer 110]

Another datum provided by Tom:

A silt particle is considerably smaller than a diatom. Think a quart of milk vs a shot glass. 
 

Therefore, if a diatom can penetrate, then silt definitely can. 
 

I cannot imagine a scenario in which the money is buried naturally without silt getting on the bills unless the entire bag was buried and protected the bundle somehow. 

[FLYJACK 725]

8 minutes ago, georger said:

Erosion at TBar has been a fact forever. It didnt stop or change radically since 1971!

Sure, there is erosion and deposits.. clearly over time more erosion.. but it isn't linear.

The piles of sand deposited slightly upstream in 74 would get eroded and deposited downstream...

[Chaucer 110]

Also, remember that according to the Army Corps of Engineers, nearly 90,000 cubic yards of dredge spoils was dumped on top of the money find location in September 1974. 
 

It’s possible the money was buried shortly after the crime and then buried again by spoils. 

[FLYJACK 725]

12 minutes ago, Chaucer said:

Another datum provided by Tom:

A silt particle is considerably smaller than a diatom. Think a quart of milk vs a shot glass. 
 

Therefore, if a diatom can penetrate, then silt definitely can. 
 

I cannot imagine a scenario in which the money is buried naturally without silt getting on the bills unless the entire bag was buried and protected the bundle somehow. 

Then why no silt if the money was wet near the surface and under water a week before the find.

How silty is the Columbia with no flood..

Edited November 22, 2023 by FLYJACK

[FLYJACK 725]

10 minutes ago, Chaucer said:

Also, remember that according to the Army Corps of Engineers, nearly 90,000 cubic yards of dredge spoils was dumped on top of the money find location in September 1974. 
 

It’s possible the money was buried shortly after the crime and then buried again by spoils. 

It was dumped slightly upstream...  

But you still have a problem.

From 72-74 the money had to remain buried given the erosion and then from 74 to 80 it remained buried and ended up in a "fresh" debris layer..

Then there is the argument that the 74 dump is below the money layer...  

It doesn't add up.

Edited November 22, 2023 by FLYJACK

[georger 247]

I have asked multiple times if Tom knows where each serial number was in the three bundles he is examining bills or pieces from?

Still no answer.

[Chaucer 110]

Slightly downstream and upstream actually according to this image from then Army Corps of Engineers. The dotted lines indicate dredge spoil dump locations. See image below. 
 

Tena Bar had an average erosion rate of 1.25 inches per year. 
 

So, it’s buried under a small amount of sand in 72, say 3 inches. Two years later, it’s under half an inch and then gets covered by nearly 90,000 cubic yards of dredge spoils. Those spoils are spread out by the Fazios, so now the money is buried under a foot of sand. Six year later after 9 inches of erosion, in 1980, it’s under 3 inches of sand again which Brian sweeps away with his arm. 
 

Could that work? Dunno. 
 

The sticking point is a clean, wet immersion followed by a dry burial. Based on Tom’s analysis, there doesn’t seem much room for any other scenario.

[FLYJACK 725]

2 minutes ago, Chaucer said:

Slightly downstream and upstream actually according to this image from then Army Corps of Engineers. The dotted lines indicate dredge spoil dump locations. See image below. 
 

Tena Bar had an average erosion rate of 1.25 inches per year. 
 

So, it’s buried under a small amount of sand in 72, say 3 inches. Two years later, it’s under half an inch and then gets covered by nearly 90,000 cubic yards of dredge spoils. Those spoils are spread out by the Fazios, so now the money is buried under a foot of sand. Six year later after 9 inches of erosion, in 1980, it’s under 3 inches of sand again which Brian sweeps away with his arm. 
 

Could that work? Dunno. 
 

The sticking point is a clean, wet immersion followed by a dry burial. Based on Tom’s analysis, there doesn’t seem much room for any other scenario.

Maybe, but how does it get into a "fresh" layer" in 1980..

Another problem,, the money got the diatoms from being in the River in Spring say.. and not while buried in the sand but got no silt from being in the River. 

How can that be.. unless there is no silt in the River, maybe seasonal.

[Chaucer 110]

Agreed. It makes no sense. 
 

The bag has to play a part in protecting the bundle somehow?

Of course, we are all making an assumption here and that is that flood water is invariably silty and would deposit silt particles on the bills. Not a bad assumption, but one nonetheless.

Edited November 22, 2023 by Chaucer

[FLYJACK 725]

29 minutes ago, Chaucer said:

Agreed. It makes no sense. 
 

The bag has to play a part in protecting the bundle somehow?

Of course, we are all making an assumption here and that is that flood water is invariably silty and would deposit silt particles on the bills. Not a bad assumption, but one nonetheless.

I checked seasonal data and Spring for the Columbia tends to have a higher sediment load...

Still how could a money bag let in diatoms but not silt...

True, lots of assumptions here..

How could the money be exposed to the Columbia River and have no silt..

[Chaucer 110]

Perhaps we are looking at it backwards. Maybe it was buried in silty water, but later the silt was washed off by diatom-rich water?

Grasping at straws here…

[temporary17 5]

As someone mentioned the other day, didn't the Ingrams wash the bills? Would that wash the silt off? How would it not wash the diatoms off? Did Tom find traces of the dish soap?

[Chaucer 110]

11 minutes ago, temporary17 said:

As someone mentioned the other day, didn't the Ingrams wash the bills? Would that wash the silt off? How would it not wash the diatoms off? Did Tom find traces of the dish soap?

They washed off the money in February which would mean winter diatoms. 

[georger 247]

20 minutes ago, temporary17 said:

As someone mentioned the other day, didn't the Ingrams wash the bills? Would that wash the silt off? How would it not wash the diatoms off? Did Tom find traces of the dish soap?

Good question. I asked Pat how many of the bills they separated during the washing, socalled; she said the FBI photo of the money at Portland shows how far they got, so not very far. They turned in 12 groups in a sandwich bag but kept four or more single bills for themselves (turned in later after Crystal Ingram ratted them out).  No pieces of bands evidently made it. Once the FBI sent the money to the Lab at Washington that is where further separating occurred and God only knows how they did that or how far they got. There is no known Lab report which details exactly what was done and to what extent ???

Tom did eds work looking at elements. I shared that with a USGS chemist who saw what he said was a telltale element associated with bottom spoils from a specific area - a known signature. I wanted isotopic work done on the money 20 years ago and that still has not been done!   

Edited November 22, 2023 by georger

[georger 247]

5 minutes ago, Chaucer said:

They washed off the money in February which would mean winter diatoms. 

Really! How was your conversation with the Ingrams ?  Are they still alive to talk to ?  Where is your lab report ?    

[Chaucer 110]

1 hour ago, georger said:

Really! How was your conversation with the Ingrams ?  Are they still alive to talk to ?  Where is your lab report ?    

What exactly did I say that is not true?

1. The Ingrams washed the bills after bringing them home.

2. They washed the bills in the month of February.

3. February is a winter month.

4. Winter diatoms occur during the winter.

If you can present a scenario in which the Ingrams washed the bills after finding them in February, but got summer diatoms on them, I'm all ears.

I don't need a lab report to simply repeat facts.

Edited November 22, 2023 by Chaucer

[Chaucer 110]

Here's a stupid question:

The beach on Tena Bar is sand, not silt. That's an important distinction. It's an entirely different type of soil.

The money was found buried in sand, not silt. Would silt reach the money find spot or would it remain in the main channel? 

Obviously, the river causes erosion which removes soil, not adds to it. Therefore, silt isn't exactly increasing or building up on Tena Bar.

How much silt is actually present at Tena Bar in an high water and/or flood event?

 

[CooperNWO305 155]

What is the chemical makeup of silt? Silt is a term we’ve probably all used, but diatoms not so much until a year or two ago. 

[georger 247]

1 hour ago, CooperNWO305 said:

What is the chemical makeup of silt? Silt is a term we’ve probably all used, but diatoms not so much until a year or two ago. 

I have no idea what TK means by silt!  As a generic term noun: silt means fine sand, clay, or other material carried by running water and deposited as a sediment, especially in a channel or harbor sometimes requiring removal. I sense however TK has something special in mind. Does it matter?

The FBI Lab found fine rounded sand in between the bills 'like that found in Columbia River water'.  I have a  feeling Tom is talking about something very specific what it is.  Tena Bar sits in a sedimentary basin vs the Washougal which is in a metamorphic geological region so silts in those two contexts could mean different things. 

Or, silt is as silt does!   Mississippi silt could be elementally different from Columbia silt ? Im guessing...

Silt is granular material of a size somewhere between sand and clay whose mineral origin is quartz (made up of a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall formula SiO2) and feldspar ( KAlSi3O8 – NaAlSi3O8 – CaAl2Si2O8).

https://kremesti.com/water/silt_clay_mud.htm

What is the composition of silt? Silt is granular material of a size between sand and clay and composed mostly of broken grains of quartz. Silt may occur as a soil (often mixed with sand or clay) or as sediment mixed in suspension with water. Silt usually has a floury feel when dry, and lacks plasticity when wet. The fine silt fraction consists of quartz, kaolinite, chlorite, hydromica, smectite, and feldspars. The medium silt fraction consists of quartz, kaolinite, mica, and feldspars.

 

Edited November 22, 2023 by georger

[JAGdb 89]

I used to love pondering and theorizing about Tine Bar, but now it pretty much gives me a headache.  As mentioned many times, there are still too many unknowns to solve this riddle.  The diatom and now silt research perhaps helps slightly, but I wonder how much weight it really carries in terms of ruling in or out a possible scenario.

I liked where Galen Cook was purportedly going with this testing:

"My investigation into the D.B. Cooper mystery branches out into many areas of inquiry. Tina’s Bar is just part of my overall probe into the case, however it does hold some fascinating clues if one wants to conduct a deeper examination. Back in 2009, SA Larry Carr and I discussed the issue of the Brian Ingram find, particularily as it pertained to the decomposition of the $20 bills. Later that year, I associated with a particularily experienced scientist from Portland who agreed to come on board and work with me at the Tina Bar discovery site. We basically mapped the entire area into a scientific grid. We had the full support of the Fazio’s and unlimited access to their beachfront via their private drive.

Our experiments apparently caught the interest of the FBI. The Supervisory Agent in Seattle put me in direct contact with SA Curtis Eng. Then, the FBI released the “Palmer Report” to me. That report cited a most likely “arrival time” of the $20 packets at between 9 months and 12 months prior to discovery. Palmer’s specialization was “shoreline process,” which would allow a scientific examination of sedimentary deposits and the strata of the beach soils. A packet of bills found at a particular strata on the shoreline can be correlated to a specific period of time in which they “arrived.”

My goal was to try and simulate the money find, including the decomposition process, using various controls. We conducted our experiments both at Tina’s Bar and in the lab, and then replicated them more than twice in order to gain confidence in our experiments. The results of the experiments will be published at a later date."

But for whatever reason, he seems to have abandoned and lost interest.

[FLYJACK 725]

Something isn't right...

Silt exists in River water,, though it may be little.. and higher during a flood.. generally, the Columbia has low silt levels.. silt is defined by particle size. It may be different material.

You'd expect some silt on the money even if in sand. Silt exists in River sand.

Brian said the money was blackened..

Testing showed that sediment on the money was consistent with the Columbia..

Ingrams washed bills, unlikely they washed the ones inside the 12 piles..

If they washed a bill and they removed winter diatoms wouldn't they also remove spring/summer ones..  I wouldn't think they would remove all or only winter.

 

Did Tom say there was NO silt at all on the money or no silt consistent with a flood. There is a difference.

 

Something that has always bugged me,,  the money was eroded about 50% from the edges in.. not from the top or bottom.. 

What causes that,, did the money roll or sail sideways end over end along the bottom of the River or is there something about the structure of a bill that wet and dry cycles only affect the edges..

Also, what if the money was in a plastic bag when it went into the River, it would float.

 

 

 

 

 

[FLYJACK 725]

7:19 in video

Himmelsbach.. Money was given to Cooper strapped in 100's and bundled with rubber bands..

A strap is bank lingo for 100 bills paper bank banded..

"There were ten thousand twenty dollar bills assembled in straps of a hundred bills to a strap and individual straps held together with rubber bands."

 

 

[FLYJACK 725]

Lots of debris on the beach behind them...  they removed the stuff on the top in the find area before excavating.

 

A little further upstream,, lots of debris.. lower down and at the high water mark.