DB Cooper

[Orange1 0]

Quote

Sluggo lied "I found out that of the 1057 official suspects in the NORJAK case, investigated by a number of agencies, none were named Ted B. Braden (and permutations) or Joseph Edward Homer (and permutations)"."


I was on a web forum where an FBI agent assigned to the case was posting about it. He said that all obvious suspects had been investigated. Since Ted B. Braden is obvious, Ted was obviously investigated.

Snow, was Braden obvious at the time? Was Sheridan Peterson investigated? I'm not disputing your source - just wondering who was and was not considered "obvious". Would someone have to be physically present in N America to be considered "obvious"?

Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

[snowmman 3]

Orange1 asked, without confessing to the coffee issue:

Quote

"Snow, was Braden obvious at the time? Was Sheridan Peterson investigated? I'm not disputing your source - just wondering who was and was not considered "obvious". Would someone have to be physically present in N America to be considered "obvious"?

Yes Braden was obvious.
I don't have the Ramparts article yet. I just got a notice that it's being shipped. I'll know more when I get it.

The CIA were the guys that picked him up in Africa, and put him in solitary for 123 days at Fort Dix. They interrogated him, on who he talked to, the possibility of foreign agents etc.

The CIA clearly had files on Braden.

The FBI, if they contacted other agencies, with respect to 727, jumping, Vietnam, would have gotten the Braden data from the CIA.

The CIA and FBI jointly buried the information.

The public didn't know about MACV-SOG then. (because the government hid it).

The CIA and FBI did, and they knew about Braden.

[Orange1 0]

Quote

Seattle coffee IS available in Cape Town. So the locals must think it's okay. I won't accept Orange1's judgement on Vida, unless she says she's at least sampled a cup at Seattle Coffee.

The invasion has been put on hold till this is resolved. There is no more room in the C-123K, so we can't bring our own.

Need an answer.

Easy: you said Starbucks, I said no Starbucks, you didn't ask about other chains! Seattle has been in SA for years, and has many more branches all over the country than Vida. But - honestly - it isn't as nearly good as Vida.

Can we get those dollars now please?

Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

[snowmman 3]

Quote

Quote

Seattle coffee IS available in Cape Town. So the locals must think it's okay. I won't accept Orange1's judgement on Vida, unless she says she's at least sampled a cup at Seattle Coffee.

The invasion has been put on hold till this is resolved. There is no more room in the C-123K, so we can't bring our own.

Need an answer.

Easy: you said Starbucks, I said no Starbucks, you didn't ask about other chains! Seattle has been in SA for years, and has many more branches all over the country than Vida. But - honestly - it isn't as nearly good as Vida.

Can we get those dollars now please?

Your honor, the witness is clearly being non-cooperative. I request permission to treat as non-cooperative.

The damn dollars have purple stains and holes and ragged edges. Have to clean them up first.

[Orange1 0]

Quote

Orange1 asked, without confessing to the coffee issue:

Quote

"Snow, was Braden obvious at the time? Was Sheridan Peterson investigated? I'm not disputing your source - just wondering who was and was not considered "obvious". Would someone have to be physically present in N America to be considered "obvious"?

Yes Braden was obvious.
I don't have the Ramparts article yet. I just got a notice that it's being shipped. I'll know more when I get it.

The CIA were the guys that picked him up in Africa, and put him in solitary for 123 days at Fort Dix. They interrogated him, on who he talked to, the possibility of foreign agents etc.

The CIA clearly had files on Braden.

The FBI, if they contacted other agencies, with respect to 727, jumping, Vietnam, would have gotten the Braden data from the CIA.

The CIA and FBI jointly buried the information.

The public didn't know about MACV-SOG then. (because the government hid it).

The CIA and FBI did, and then knew about Braden.

But then - if they buried it then - isn't there a possibility Braden was guilty and they let him go because they didn't want the MACV-SOG stuff made public?

Also... you did say IF the FBI contacted other agencies. Do you know for a fact they did, or is that an assumption?

p.s. I hadn't reached the coffee post when i answered that

Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

[snowmman 3]

I have never talked to anyone connected with FBI or CIA, other than reading posts Ckret made here.

So I'm just connecting the dots.

Now you can argue that the CIA put Braden in Fort Dix, but no one in the CIA knew about it.

I guess that's some kind of weird argument.

It's like the Cooper=whuffo argument: anyone could have done it.

Same thing with CIA and FBI: they're all just whuffos, so you can't blame anybody.

(edit) re FBI and CIA

Yes I guess that's a good theory. The FBI is investigating hijackings in 1971, with known history of political motivations in hijackers...and the vietnam war is raging, and McCoy was ex-vietnam..and there's no reason to expect they would ask the CIA "What do you think?"

I don't think there's any reason the FBI would contact anyone actually. The investigation was mostly Himmelsbach burying info.

Except snowmman. You can blame him. He's nuts.

[377 22]

Quote

ThunderCity is AWESOME. Pity they price in Euros. (or used to... maybe i should check again since the recession started )

edited to add: Zaire?? hasn't existed by that name for a few years

Thunder City's website still says Zaire. It must be tough competing with the Russian Mig 21 and 29 flights offered a lot closer to Europe and cheaper too. The Collings Foundation in the US now offers F4 Phantom rides. I jumped from their B 24 bomber in 1999, cost $350 but worth it.

Braden sure as hell should have been looked at given all the federal attention he had at the time. I still am puzzled at his free pass on desertion and other crimes. Let's say he was prosecuted. What damage could he have really done? All sorts of credible Nam vets were making war crime charges and nothing happened. What was so special about Braden? Why were his cards better? As a deserter, his credibility was already compromised compared to honorably discharged vets who completed their tours.

377

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

[snowmman 3]

377: "As a deserter, his credibility was already compromised compared to honorably discharged vets who completed their tours. "

Why would Braden's credibility be questioned based on desertion? Actually it was a sign of rationality. The only rational thing to do, if you were in SOG as it evolved in the early '60s, was to leave.

Wouldn't it make more sense to question the credibility of those inside MACV-SOG?

[377 22]

Quote

Why would Braden's credibility be questioned based on desertion? Actually it was a sign of rationality. The only rational thing to do, if you were in SOG as it evolved in the early '60s, was to leave.

Do you mean rational from a political ethical perspective or just for saving your life?

Did Braden ever indicate that his desertion from or dissatisfaction with SOG was a matter of conscience?

Looks to me like he was pissed off about being exploited for low pay while others doing similar work with perhaps even lower risk were better compensated.

Most deserters of conscience didn't pick up mercenary work in Africa as their next job.

His credibility in a court of law would not be good as a felon (fake passport. ID theft etc) and deserter who violated his sworn oath of service. The judge can issue jury instructions about that.

I just don't see why he got a free pass. Did he know about something far more sinsister and harmful to the US Govt than what we know about today? One wonders...

377

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

[snowmman 3]

true story:
in college, I had to take some liberal electives.
I could have taken anything, including art (I did take some drawing classes, actually. Fun!)

Senior year, I took a boatload of courses I was interested in. Kind of too busy, too many other things going on.
Took a sophomore level Philosophy course for my liberal elective.

Always missed class. Turned in a couple papers way late. Figured I'd pull it out on the final, since that had worked before.

Finals week, I go to the prof's office to try to find out when the final is going to be (after catching up on all the assigned reading).

I discover, unlike all my previous courses, that the final was take-home, and had been handed out in class. I realized then I was doomed. There was no way to even take the final.

I ended up having to stay the summer to take a liberal elective to graduate.

I took a sociology/group behavior course. As part of it, we did this experiment, that was related to how groups work together.
In the end, it was cut short, because our class went against the prior results. All prior groups had dissolved in discord, unable to be productive. We went thru a dip, but then our productivity soared (it was a fake factory thing, with lots of small groups with limited communication).

I think the key to our success, and confounding of the professor, was our focus on communication.

I used the mainframe computer (IBM 360), and early formatting software, to publish a "newsletter" for our factory. By a weird twist of fate, I was dealt a card in the game, that gave me free travel in the hallway, to all the groups..everyone else was constrained.

So what's my point?

Just that I don't know how people perceive what's rational and what's not.

[377 22]

Quote

Took a sophomore level Philosophy course for my liberal elective. Always missed class.

So you deserted your philosphy class? Sheesh Snow, were it not for the liberal arts classes engineering students would never see any women. What were you thinking?

Quote

I could have taken anything, including art (I did take some drawing classes, actually. Fun!)

Lots of engineers signed up for a drawing class at my university. I found out why after the class was oversubscribed and closed to enrollment: nude models.

377

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

[georger 247]

Quote

Quote

in the documentary he clearly showed that the money was deposited soon after the jump, based on his analysis of the money, and other data.

Can you explain. I have not seen the Nat Geo
program. What analysis of Tom's proved this
conclusion, according to who? Please explain -

Didn't Tom say it in the documentary? If they didn't show all the data, I'm assuming it was just edited for brevity.

I'd go look in that youtube clip I made, but my memory is pretty certain that Tom just said it, I think based on his measurements or something.

(edit) Georger: this is a low res mashup of Tom's Theory as presented on TV
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwlCiCXxeUk

I'm a little confused now that you remind me, because thru third parties, Tom recanted 2 days after the broadcast.

So maybe you're right. I don't know what Tom thinks. It would have been better if he had gotten published, so we'd have something to read.

[snowmman 3]

Sluggo posted Tom's resume.
He's published a lot of papers on dinosaur bones.
So if Tom says something about things in the ground, I thought that means it's true?

What's wrong with my thinking?

Tom was also vetted by Seattle FBI: Special Agent Larry Carr.

Because of his qualifications, he was given privileged access to FBI documents.

[377 22]

Quote

I kept telling Tom "this is science Tom. You can't
make large assumptions like this".

You need to have this conversation with him again Georger.

Engineers don't really do science, but we know enough about it to recognize when it isn't being practiced. I didn't see science on the TV show.

I'd guess you are a scientist by training, not an engineer. Correct?

377

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

[snowmman 3]

re: science vs engineering.

To land on the moon, they first assumed they could.

Everything else was just a detail to be worked out.

Now building the first atomic bomb: was that different? I think not. Assume you could do it and it would blow up. Then you gather the resources and materials to show you were right.

(edit) what confounds the issue is sort of a survivor's bias: we remember the cases where that process worked. So it's hard to prove that it's a good process or a bad process. All you can say is that processes like that produced certain results. Would other processes work? Maybe? But sometimes the experiment only gets done once.

[377 22]

Quote

Lastly, let's follow Tom's example here and just
skip any discussion about rubber bands in a
'snag 'n drag' violent dispersal theory.

An excellent point!!! We also still have some unresolved issues about rubber band longevity.

377

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

[Orange1 0]

Quote

Quote

Took a sophomore level Philosophy course for my liberal elective. Always missed class.

I'm surprised, Snow. I don't know exactly what you studied but presume sciences. Mathematics and Philosophy have always seemed to me like wonderful subjects to study in tandem.

Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

[Orange1 0]

Quote

Most deserters of conscience didn't pick up mercenary work in Africa as their next job.

His credibility in a court of law would not be good as a felon (fake passport. ID theft etc) and deserter who violated his sworn oath of service. The judge can issue jury instructions about that.

I just don't see why he got a free pass. Did he know about something far more sinsister and harmful to the US Govt than what we know about today? One wonders...

377

No-one with a conscience becomes a mercenary.

As for what he knew - if they wanted to keep SOG secret at the time, wouldn't that be enough?

Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

[377 22]

Quote

Now building the first atomic bomb: was that different? I think not. Assume you could do it and it would blow up. Then you gather the resources and materials to show you were right.

Although the Manhattan Project had a world class team of physicists working on it, I have always viewed it as an engineering project not scientific research.

About those rubber bands, didn't a manufacturer give an opinion that flew in the face of a bunch of FBI conclusions?

377

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

[377 22]

Quote

As for what he knew - if they wanted to keep SOG secret at the time, wouldn't that be enough?

I don't think so. Disgruntled vets had already blown the whistle on fatal interrogations, US miltary ops in Laos and Cambodia, intentional killing of non combatant civilians and host of other war crimes. In light of all that, I don't think a disclosure of SOG ops would be such a huge threat... just my opinion.

Besides, it is more exciting to think of Braden holding some REALLY BIG secrets, perhaps ones not yet revealed to the public even today.

377

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

[skyjack71 0]

Quote

(Edited for being brief)
Eventually the tie was used to try and pull dna.

Georger: There was some mention of a pollen or spores found on the tie by Kaye. Is this correct?

If so - I believe we can limited the pollen obtaining these spores or whatever you want to call them from the Agriculture Dept. of GA, KS, MO, AL, Fl and S.C.

Surely that would limit the comparisons. There must be a data bank on these with the Agriculture Dept. of these states.

If Kaye has the analysis on the spore or pollen - couldn't it be compared with existing data?

I am thinking that we might get someone in the Depts of these States to volunteer their time to check this spore or pollen against what they have in their data bases. If we get a hit on any of these states - then we know where that tie has been.

I suppose we need to include WA and OR in that group encase it was recent exposure from Coopers stay. I wondered to myself (always to myself - remember I am crazy) if this was not possible.

These states seem to have a connection with other suspects besides Weber...and would be a good starting point. I know such a data base is available for Ky so why not other states.

Copyright 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 2013, 2014, 2015 by Jo Weber

[Orange1 0]

if the DNA on the tie is too contaminated then why should the supposed pollen spores not be?

hey, anyone know a Kennedy prepared to volunteer DNA to compare to the tie...?

Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

[377 22]

Quote

Tom was also vetted by Seattle FBI: Special Agent Larry Carr.

Because of his qualifications, he was given privileged access to FBI documents.

Snowmman too was vetted by Seattle FBI: Special Agent Larry Carr.

Because of his refusal to show respect for the FBI, he was denied access to FBI documents and put on a "stop and harrass for any reason" license plate list distributed to local police departments countrywide.

Snow might as well be African American or a young Hispanic kid with an "attitude" car. He can drive just about as far as they can until being lit up and pulled over.

My boss, Larry Carr, has secretly offered to kill the harrassment if Snow will praise the agency. I haven't even communicated the offer to Snow because I know what the response will be.

377

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

[377 22]

Quote

hey, anyone know a Kennedy prepared to volunteer DNA to compare to the tie...?

I am not suggesting you as a participant Oange, but it is widely known that any attractive female on Cape Cod will have no trouble collecting Kennedy DNA samples.

377

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

[skyjack71 0]

Quote

But then - if they buried it then - isn't there a possibility Braden was guilty and they let him go because they didn't want the MACV-SOG stuff made public?

Also... you did say IF the FBI contacted other agencies. Do you know for a fact they did, or is that an assumption?

Orange! Shame on you and others - for buying into any cover-up idea after chastizing me for doing so.

Sorry - the devil made me do that........with all of this recent information flooding the libraries and the bookselves - our government had no choice, but to make files available. There were many files destroyed and those we will never see...other than what the veterans themselves are publishing.

The government (all depts) never expected technology for the general public to advance so quickly. They haven't been able to stop the presses, freedom of speech, computer access...and the legal process. Thank God we still have a voice although sometimes never heard.

Copyright 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 2013, 2014, 2015 by Jo Weber