DB Cooper

[SafecrackingPLF 0]

Why would I need to quantify no body being found?

I simply stated, no body was reported... ever.

If you want to qualify it, go ahead.

Regarding rot time of a money bag... that's not really something I'm dealing with right now. If you want to add it, go ahead.

rot time of canvas bag is unknown

I'm more interested in the float time of the bag because it will be quicker to determine and will provide immediate parameters.

For example, if the float time is 2 hours, then you know the bag (if it made its way to the final location) was less than 2 hours of creek/stream/river time away.

Trust me, there's an extremely valid reason I'm after that float time... and it's a lot more than just LaCamas lake.

You could also look at decomp and begin to ask if the money bag idea supports the decomp. Maybe... I don't know.

My parrot started saying a new word today.

"Tosaw! Tosaw!"

Then I realized it was reading over my shoulder.

[ryoder 1,590]

Quote

No bills in circulation ever matched to 34 page S/N list

Correction:
No bills in circulation that were checked ever matched to 34 page S/N list.

I believe Ckret confirmed way back in the other thread that the probability of a circulating bill actually being checked was virtually nil.

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

[snowmman 3]

One way to find evidence is to just look at stuff that was previously not analyzed to see if it can mean anything.

Looking at the 1972 hijackings allows you to create a mental profile of what kind of people might typically do such a thing, and how they would carry it out.

Anything different, might be interesting in the Cooper case.
So Thanksgiving Eve is interesting. It allowed people to remember where McCoy was on Thanksgiving and give him an alibi. People remember holidays.

McCoy had Thanksgiving dinner with his family in Provo, Utah.

So this is what I'm thinking. one of three hoices.

1) Cooper didn't care about Thanksgiving because no one was going to call him (parents or brothers or sisters) and find out he wasn't home yet. And he had no plans for making a family Thanksgiving dinner. If he missed a call, his family would remember and be asking "where were you"

or
2) He thought he'd get the job done in time to make a Thanksgiving dinner, and that would serve sort of as a weak alibi "Hey: Coop was with us for Thanksgiving..no way he did it, the timeline's too tight."

or
3) Culturally, Thanksgiving dinners weren't part of his life. But picking the name "Dan Cooper" makes me think that that if there was family around him, that culturally he'd be doing Thanksgiving.

Also, I don't know if back then air traffic was higher right before Thanksgiving. I'm not sure you'd want to do it with "more" people on your flight, if you were planning it well? just more unknown variables?

Either way, it's an odd date choice. It's like a Bruce Willis action movie...the big hijacking at christmas and Ckret has to climb over the broken glass barefoot and yell "Yippee Ki-Yi-Yay mo...f...er" as he takes down Cooper.


Maybe the date was random. If part of an alibi plan, it might strengthen the idea that he was local to the Portland/Vancouver area, rather than the Seattle area.[url]

[SafecrackingPLF 0]

Thanks Ryoder!

Got to make sure I phrase things correctly.

Yes, extremely low probability of finding a bill (even if all were put into circulation).

The odds are pushing 1 in a million... not likely. Money not found in circulation means almost nothing.

snowmman... I've been told the packs were in random sizes. However, I can't picture that. They took 200k from a stack of 500k... random bundles wouldn't make that an easy task. (they didn't have digital scales to weigh money back then) did they have their triple beam scale out to divide the money?

As it was, three bundles, 288 bills. Were 12 of them missing, or was that the entire amount? No one knows. We can safely assume that it's reasonable to say some bills may have decomposed totally... so even if there were 12 missing bills, it wouldn't mean much.

[SKYWHUFFO 1]

FYI, for those of you with money lying around(DB that's you if you are watching this board) You need to watch the website for Heritage Auction Galleries right side of the front page, Suposedly, Ingram is putting up 12-15 more of the recovered $20 bills for auction. If you want to really know about the money then here's your chance to be one of onely 4 people( Ingram, Cooper, FBI and you) to own the money. I guess he is taking advantage of all the publicity to make some cash i guess.


Press Release - March 31, 2008

"D.B. Cooper" Skyjacking Cash in Dallas Auction

Dallas, TX: A dozen $20 bills from the infamous 1971 "D. B. Cooper" skyjacking will be offered to the public for the first time in June by Heritage Auction Galleries of Dallas, Texas. The notes are owned by Brian Ingram, 36, of Mena, Arkansas who was eight years old in 1980 when he found the only ransom money ever discovered from the still-unsolved skyjacking.




"The serial numbers all match the FBI's list of $20 bills given to the skyjacker known as 'D.B. Cooper' who parachuted from a jetliner with the cash somewhere between Seattle Washington and Reno, Nevada during a rainstorm on November 24, 1971. Some of these tattered notes have the initials of investigators who examined the recovered money after Ingram found it along the banks of the Columbia River near Vancouver, Washington in February 1980," said Steve Ivy, Co-Chairman of Heritage and a long-time paper money collector.

The D.B. Cooper cash will be offered as part of a big auction of Americana memorabilia in Dallas and online, June 13 and 14.

Ingram said the money almost didn't survive its discovery.

"We were going to make a fire along the river bank," Ingram recalled. "I was on my hands and knees smoothing out the sand with my arm, and I uncovered three bundles of money just below the surface. My uncle thought we should throw it in the fire."

Ingram found approximately $5,800 of the $200,000 ransom given to the skyjacker, and the FBI later returned a small portion to his family.

Ingram owns 84 D.B. Cooper bills and fragments.

"Fifteen of the $20 denomination bills will be offered to the public for the first time in the upcoming auction. His decision to sell the notes was made several weeks before the recent discovery of what may be the skyjacker's parachute. The coincidental timing couldn't be better," said Ivy.

The recovered ransom notes were authenticated in February and placed into protective, archival storage holders by PCGS Currency, a Santa Ana, California paper money authentication service. Each holder has a label with the FBI's 1971 artist's sketch of the sunglasses-wearing skyjacking suspect who has still not been found.

Anyone with information about the skyjacking is encouraged to contact the FBI's Seattle office by e-mail at fbise@leo.gov. Additional information about the auction will be available from Heritage Auction Galleries, online at www.HA.com, and by phone at (800) 872-6467.

[snowmman 3]

***
rot time of canvas bag is unknown
***


thanks. Also note that Ckret implied (I think?) that the tight binding of the money bag was part of his story. So it's also worth noting that no nylon rope was found?

Maybe Ckret has changed thinking or I'm misinterpreting.

We know rope was attached with some degree of quality in the plane (visual from stewardess). From that point, to where the money was found, the rope somehow disappeared too.

It's important to note what's not found, not just what's found. Not finding something (within the specified search area) is important. That's why it's not just a math equation with obvious variables.

[SafecrackingPLF 0]

Thanks... I saw that last night.

He put one on eBay and didn't get a high enough price (3 or 4k)... the minute the parachute makes big news and plasters the case everywhere, the iron is hot... time to strike it rich from Cooper... again (he already got a bike when he was a kid).

I think his ex-wife might have some bills too (settlement).

[SafecrackingPLF 0]

For what it's worth, I agree with you... but I don't just rule stuff out because I don't agree with it. I can only rule stuff out when there's cause to.

Everything I've done on here has been process of elimination. That doesn't get me to "one" answer, it just eliminates almost all of them.

Okay, add two more:
no suspension line found at site, none reported
no money bag found at site, not reported

[snowmman 3]

Thanks Safe!
So if the original kid/parents unearthed the 3 bundles, then they probably disturbed the placement location, and the FBI wouldn't have discovered any additional placement information.

We just have to assume the bundles were physically close, within a distance reported by the kids/parents.

And that later FBI digging only produced fragments.

I'm still thinking "okay the bladed dredger will shred bills...and shredded bills are found..so that makes sense..but then we find 3 bundles and use that to justify saying that the dredging machine NO WAY could move 3 bundles successfully. Why am I supposed to agree with that?"

I know when I use a chipper/shredder to destroy evidence once in a while big chunks of stuff gets thru and I have to run it thru again. Who's guaranteeing the dredger can't pass a small percentage of the bundles, but shred most of them? No testing of that theory was done...just opinion from operator"

Quote

snowmman... I've been told the packs were in random sizes. However, I can't picture that. They took 200k from a stack of 500k... random bundles wouldn't make that an easy task. (they didn't have digital scales to weigh money back then) did they have their triple beam scale out to divide the money?

As it was, three bundles, 288 bills. Were 12 of them missing, or was that the entire amount? No one knows. We can safely assume that it's reasonable to say some bills may have decomposed totally... so even if there were 12 missing bills, it wouldn't mean much.

[snowmman 3]

safe:

remember they microfiched all the bills, so they had to tear apart the bundles from their original configuration at the bank/FBI.

when they repackaged after the fiche, maybe that was random bundle sizing... I'm assuming they know that they used rubber bands for that repack (wouldn't the bank/fbi have used paper wrappers in stacks of 50)

I'm also assuming that the number of bills in the found stacks was within the range of what the repackers thought they probably did. If the found stacks were 100 bill stacks, and the packers said "no way we put that many in a stack with our rubber bands"
then I would be thinking the money was repacked by someone else and buried there later on...

On your money list, can we say we know for sure that the bundles are within the expected configuration of bundles that were delivered to Cooper. So no one repacked?

(Maybe the FBI fiched the money before they made bundles and stored. I don't know)

[377 22]

At the time of Cooper's jump, where could you find information regarding in flight operation of a 727 rear stair? I have a Continental Airlines 727 flight manual from that era and it does not have this information. Cooper MUST have known that the door could be opened during flight, otherwise he would be trapped until the plane landed. How did he research this? Where did the information reside? NWA operations knew it and informed the pilot, so it must have been in some publication. I assume Boeing did the original flight tests with the open door, so the info would reside there for sure, but where else? Ckret's guess that Cooper perhaps worked for Boeing at some time isn't a bad one.

from Wikipedia: The Boeing C-22 was a US military version of the Boeing 727. The C-22B, a 727-100, was the primary medium-range aircraft used by the Air National Guard and National Guard Bureau to airlift personnel. They operated 3 Boeing 727-100 aircraft (C-22B). They also operate 1 Boeing 727-200 (C-22C).

Perhaps Cooper was in the Air Guard and had access to C-22 manuals.

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

[SafecrackingPLF 0]

Good question... I've been waiting to hear from your expert (or at least some info).

snowmman,
The only thing we can safely say about the configuration is that it appears to be in the same order. There's no way to verify that.

Really, the only absolute conclusion you can reach is that those bills were not spent, and no non-Cooper bills were found among them.

I guess it goes without saying, it's a safe assumption the bills were in the same order, it's just not proven.

Proximity of the bills... you can see from Brian's statement for yourself
close enough together that an 8 year old boy could smooth out the sand with his arm and find all three stacks.

[Orange1 0]

Hey snowmman... I KNOW WHO YOU ARE!

You're that guy from Fargo

Quote

I know when I use a chipper/shredder to destroy evidence once in a while big chunks of stuff gets thru and I have to run it thru again.

Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

[snowmman 3]

The question of manuals is interesting.

From the transcripts, you can see that at least some number of humans also had defacto operational knowledge of inflight aft stair opening behavior.

We don't know how widespread this knowledge was, or where flt ops got it from when they communicated it to the pilots.

We don't know why they quickly were able to determine that the plane would fly well in that configuration because 2 to 3 hundred lb. boxes had been shoved out with that option before..i.e. who they talked to.

from the transcripts:

note on page 12 they say they know the plane has been flown with the stairs lowered

"MSP FLT OPS HAVE NO CNTRL PROBLEM WHEN XTNDD MAY BE SUM SLITE PITCHUP BUT ERY CNTRLLBL PLANE HAS BEEN FLOWN THIS WAY HAVE LARGE BOXES OF 2 TO 3HND LBS THRU THE DOOR IN THIS CONFIG MUST BE DOWN WITH LANDING FLAPS SPEED NOT TO CRITICAL ANY FLAT POSN BTWN 5 AND 40 AND SPEED TO 120 KTS DONT HAVE ANGLE YET BUT WORKING ON IT"

[labrys 0]

Quote

You're that guy from Fargo

Funny. I had the same visual.

Owned by Remi #?

[Sluggo_Monster 0]

Safe…PLF,

I need some clarification in regard to your thinking:

You seem to be putting a high value on determining how long the bag would float. I need to know why you consider that important. I’m well aware that money “floating” is more likely to be seen (by anyone other than a diver) but other than that, I don’t see where it would effect transport and transport probabilities significantly.

Here’s my reasoning:
Let’s assign a buoyancy factor to the bag of money after it has become “water-logged and reached equilibrium with the surrounding water (salinity, mineral content, temperature, etc.”, henceforth called “Sluggo Buoyancy Factor (SBF)”. I am going to use 1.00 as equal to the ambient water. (Note: I’m intentionally not using Specific Gravity (SG) because of technical limitations in the definition.) If it has a SBF greater than or equal to 1.00 it sinks, if it has a SBF equal to 1.00 it in neutrally buoyant and stays just below the surface but does not sink, and if it has a SBF less than or equal to 1.00 it floats. Now in an experiment (like a swimming pool) the SBF would be a constant (remember it only applies to water-logged and reached equilibrium with the surrounding water as long as the temperature and/or other factors don’t change rapidly.

Now out there in the “real world” of streams and rivers the SBF would be constantly changing, some creek is different than the Washougal, which is different from the Columbia. Once the bag was allowed to equilibrate in a particular body of water, it would have the same SBF regardless.

Now Here’s the crux of my discussion:
In the natural environment of a moving stream there are so many variables that the SBF would not matter (in an overall or general sense). Sure it would change the specifics, but not the general aspects of transport. If the bag was full of rocks (and that’s another discussion) sure it would have a huge SBF and not move, if it had an SBF of 5 it would move slower and take higher water flow rates to move it than if it had a SBF of 1.4. It’s just that to me, when you consider the variables of snags on the bottom, eddies, etc. the exact floating/sinking characteristics are just not all that important.

I think that you can safely assume that a bag of money would be transported in the direction of flow of any stream or river that was at least as deep as the maximum dimension of the bag (or the draft if it floats) at a rate that would be less that the flow-rate of the stream or river. If it moved at the same rate as the stream, it would have arrived on Tena Bar a lot sooner than it did. So, I envision a lot of starts and stops, hang-ups, etc.

The reason I’m saying this is, I just hate to see you spend (Note: I didn’t say “waste”) time on an experiment that gains nothing substantial.

For other posters:
I found a USGS web site that has daily historical data on river and stream flow going back over a hundred years, the problem is that its interface sucks. I will try to get proficient with it so I can supply our resident “Watershed Expert” (Safe…PLF) with some useful data. If anyone out there has experience with that database, please contact me.

Also, if anyone need specific maps of the area, I will be glad to supply them.

Sluggo_Monster

Web Page
Blog
NORJAK Forum

[Albert18 0]

Thanks for the info on the river level. That was what I was wondering.

As for the question, why Thanksgiving Eve? When was Pearl Harbor attacked? It is never wise to rile people up during business hours. Who wants to conduct a search in cold wet weather on Thanksgiving day.

I think this also explains why he wasn't fussy about the demoninations. He knew he was doing this at closing time before a major holiday and time was more important than being nitpicky about the denominations.

I know a lot of people think Cooper didn't know what he was doing but only one question is needed in response. And Cooper's real name is what again?

[snowmman 3]

interesting albert18.

in the transcripts you could see how he was stressing about the time to get the chutes too....but heck like you say it was the day before thanksgiving, and it was getting close to the end of business hours.

I mean did he even think he might have created the delay problems himself? weird. it's interesting to think that a plan would be to have everyone else off balance...like I say a Bruce Willis movie.

But you're right, if he planned on a jump at night to escape detection, and knowing they'd search the next day...having the search start on a holiday would be a good way to mess everyone up! no one's around or contactable (no cell phones/email then)

Quote

Thanks for the info on the river level. That was what I was wondering.

As for the question, why Thanksgiving Eve? When was Pearl Harbor attacked? It is never wise to rile people up during business hours. Who wants to conduct a search in cold wet weather on Thanksgiving day.

I think this also explains why he wasn't fussy about the demoninations. He knew he was doing this at closing time before a major holiday and time was more important than being nitpicky about the denominations.

I know a lot of people think Cooper didn't know what he was doing but only one question is needed in response. And Cooper's real name is what again?

[SafecrackingPLF 0]

I think you're assigning way too much impact on the TDS of water. (total dissolved solids). Yes, it would be higher and yes it would affect buoyancy.

The TDS of the water would be almost neglible though. The only significant differences in properties are from fresh to salt water (where TDS is enormously high).

I can tell you that once the air in a stack of money is gone, cash sinks like a ROCK. It doesn't dangle, doesn't sort of float beneath the surface, it SINKS.

Would additional TDS really rescue it that much? Undissolved solids (dirt, debris) wouldn't affect the water properties at all.

I guess you can speculate if you want to. If you want me to conduct said test in the Columbia river, maybe I will, but I don't live down the street from it anymore.

As to why it's so important? Well, water transport would essentially require the money to be at the surface. It would also require being at the surface in a way that allows three stacks to be found all together.

I only know the money has to be at the surface to enjoy a surface deposit.

The other factor is float time in the lake (if it went that way).

My personal opinion is that the money could not float for enough time to support either lake or washougal routes, but I'd still like to find out.

Float time may be able to help us figure out if the money was in its original bag or a different container if it washed up. I just can't believe three seperate packs got there all individually. Aside from the less than 11 minute float time, you also have unbelievable odds of three stacks there, with no other stacks found scattered about.

How they were found would seem to suggest either placement or containment.

I just don't see how a float test would be frivolous and I don't see how the water properties would change enough to significantly impact the buoyancy of money.

Like skydivers are to air, safecrack is to water. I spent my entire life in the stuff... I understand what you're saying, I just don't see it as significant enough to really change things that much (maybe a few seconds at the very most).

In the end, the more we know, the better our guesses will be.

[377 22]

Quote

The question of manuals is interesting.

From the transcripts, you can see that at least some number of humans also had defacto operational knowledge of inflight aft stair opening behavior.

We don't know how widespread this knowledge was, or where flt ops got it from when they communicated it to the pilots.

We don't know why they quickly were able to determine that the plane would fly well in that configuration because 2 to 3 hundred lb. boxes had been shoved out with that option before..i.e. who they talked to.

from the transcripts:

note on page 12 they say they know the plane has been flown with the stairs lowered

"MSP FLT OPS HAVE NO CNTRL PROBLEM WHEN XTNDD MAY BE SUM SLITE PITCHUP BUT ERY CNTRLLBL PLANE HAS BEEN FLOWN THIS WAY HAVE LARGE BOXES OF 2 TO 3HND LBS THRU THE DOOR IN THIS CONFIG MUST BE DOWN WITH LANDING FLAPS SPEED NOT TO CRITICAL ANY FLAT POSN BTWN 5 AND 40 AND SPEED TO 120 KTS DONT HAVE ANGLE YET BUT WORKING ON IT"

Doubt if manuals would talk about the prior drop tests with large boxes (2 To 3 HND LBS). Sounds to me like MSP FLT OPS was on the phone with someone at Boeing who was familar with the original flight test specifics. If the info about in flight door/stair deployment was not in published manuals, then it really narrows down availability and therefore access.

Does anyone on this forum think that Cooper took a gamble on the door and didnt know whether or not it could be opened in flight? I think the possibility is near zero.

Cooper knew that the door could be opened in flight. Correct me if I am wrong but it sounds like even the 727 pilots were uncertain about this and had to check with NWA flight ops. Cooper knew about the door from access to flight test information which originated at Boeing. Whether it was subsequently disseminated to 727 customers/operators and therefore widely available should be looked into. If it stayed only at Boeing then we can look at who had access and fits the cooper Profile.

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

[BigSky 2]

First off let me say that I have read every single post of both of these threads but rarely post because someone usually covers what I am thinking. But one thing that I’m surprised has not been talked about a bit more is the probability of the money showing up there naturally.

Of course it is possible if the flight path and the jump took place at just the right spot to land in the water shed.......but what would the probability be of it actually happening that way?

I live in Portland and have spent many, many hours up the Washougal River in the summers as it is my favorite place to go on a summer day to cool off and jump off some rocks. The river in many places is small enough that you could jump across it. Also it is a wooded area with tons of snag points along the river. It is very rocky with many back water areas and pools so it would have to pass all that without hanging up.

Then you need to look at the human element. Since everyone seems to be leaning toward the fact that the money did not show up at Tina bar until after the dredging then you would also have to assume that the bag took a few seasons to get down the river. Well let me just say from experience that the river is crawling with people during the summers. Sure probably not as many people were going up there thirty years ago but I would willing to bet it was still a pretty popular place so some one certainly may have seen the bag.

Now of course all of this is just an opinion but all I’m saying is I think the probability of it getting there naturally is extremely low.

I think a lot of theory in this case is ridding on the fact that the money made it there naturally and it wouldn’t be that hard to take a few bags up the river and see how far they get. I personally would bet on none of them making it there. I know this would take some time and we don’t know exactly where to start but since the case hasn’t been solved in thirty years I'd say we have nothing but time on our hands.

P.S. I know my grammar sucks but what can I say…..I’m just a skydiver

“Sometimes when I reflect back on all the beer I drink I feel ashamed. Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery and their hopes and dreams. If I didn’t drink this beer, th

[ltdiver 3]

Quote

I doubt he was doing changing in the bathroom, he did not bring any bags on that could have conceled clothing.

Just doing some light reading on your FBI Cooper file today....HERE that the bag was larger than I had originally suspected (lunch bag size). It was 4" x 12" x 14"!

Not that it was large enough for clothes (unless folded neatly), but I found this interesting none the less.
PS: How'd your dig go today?
ltdiver

Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon

[377 22]

Archimides would have loved this specific gravity debate. Let's not forget salinity, might have been some chloride ions seeping into the river from mineral deposits or storm runoff.

I think there is a potential PhD thesis lurking in modeling the bag transport. We might have to call him Dr. Sluggo soon.

I still wonder about the amazing astounding almost unbelieveable coincidence of the money find, but can find nothing suspicious about those who made it. It is like someone playing on Wakiki beach finding Amelia Earhart's pilot's license buried in the sand.

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

[SafecrackingPLF 0]

Great post BigSky.

You touched on a few of the reasons I just can't fathom a 100% natural transport.

First, you have to get past the timeline. Then you have to get past the location. Then you actually have to think it's possible. Then no one can ever see it. Then you have the time that has elapsed... and it keeps going and going.

When you really start adding it up, it just doesn't seem likely, and very few theories fit through all the hoops and make sense.

I know of one theory so far that would make sense. Most others don't pass the smell test with me, but I'm still willing to investigate them (which is why I'm even considering testing the float time).

Sluggo,
Tell you what I'll do Sluggo...

After I test the float time of money, I will weigh water from the test tank (pool, or whatever water it happens to be) against water from the Columbia.

It's still months and months away, and I need to know more about the bag before I do it.

Sluggo, I like how you keep me honest. Keep it up buddy.

[SafecrackingPLF 0]

Salinity is the #1 determinant of buoyant properties of water. That's why there's such a difference between salt and fresh.

Fresh has a lot of particles in the water, but they aren't TDS... it's the TDS that changes the actual physical properties of water. Suspended particles tend to weigh the same as the water... and I've never heard of suspended particles keeping a boat or anything else afloat.