JAGdb

In the original letter to Gunther, wasn't there an acknowledgement that the writer wouldn't be able to collect any of the proceeds? I thought he asked Gunther to donate a portion of the earnings to a NYT charity or something ? The hoax scenario doesn't make a lot of sense to me given the way it played out. As you ask, why come back 10 years later ? Was the hoaxer(s) in prison for 10 years, waiting to complete the hoax they started ? I doubt it...it just doesn't add up. But once you come to the conclusion that it was not a hoax, it then follows that it would have to have been the real cooper of someone related to the real cooper. Then you run into some parts of the story that don't seem to sound realistic and that begins to cast doubts. BTW, do we know how much money the book made and if Gunther kept all of the proceeds or donated a portion of it to the charity specified ?

I agree with this in terms of using it as an educated guess. In the same sort of tea leaf reading, IF Cooper truly didn't know that flying with flaps and gear down would prevent the plane from reaching Mexico, then he almost certainly was NOT a pilot i.e. take pilot off the list. It's not 100% definitive, but it is a reasonable conclusion.

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.

This would have been nice to have been able to do: "In addition, Tom Kaye claimed that he has asked the WSHM if he can apply sticky stubs to the fabric of the parachute’s container to ascertain if any of the mysterious particles on the tie came from the engine exhaust of Flight 305 – which might have blown back into the cabin area when the stairs were lowered. However, the museum has refused his request." It's a shame that the WSHM won't cooperate on this or any other inquires regarding the chute.

Good to hear from Bruce again: https://themountainnewswa.net/2023/11/20/coopercon-23-delivers-new-information-and-good-times-to-db-cooper-world/

If true, It's odd that they didn't come forward after the money find. The part above about finding corners in a small hole 3 feet away from the estimated money find location is new to me. I remember the part about the find 100 yards downstream. But without sources or corroboration, it has to be taken with a grain of salt. If memory serves me correctly, Galen has the source information. But as he was supposedly writing a book about Gossett being the hijacker, he was keeping it all under wraps. Follow ups for me would be: - Were the corners cut cleanly as if intentionally done by a human ? Or were they just broken shards from natural forces ? - How did they make the first find on Tena Bar, in the small hole 3 feet away from the original find ?

Without any new information, Tena Bar is just a tough nut to crack. Hopefully, Tom Kay or others may have some new information to share at Coopercon regarding new testing ? I have always been curious under what conditions does a packet of money, in this case a packet of 100 bills, harden/stick/congeal ? Is it something that can happen quickly under the right conditions ? Or does it require time ? Does it require one wet/dry cycle or multiple ? I would think the money not being disturbed from the tightly held together packet form is a requirement. We know that if the packet is loose in the water on it's own, it will fan out. If it remains loose in the water for an extended period of time, then it might not settle back into the proper packet form to stick together ? Could the money bag have provided enough protection to aid the process ? Was the money hardened/congealed prior to arrival at Tena Bar or afterwards as it sat beneath the sand enduring rain, sun....wet/dry cycles ? To me, some of this could play a role in what options that the money could have arrived at Tena Bar, i.e. dredge, flooding, tumbling along bottom etc

Another angle on this to consider. As I understand it, Bourbon was actually falling in popularity during the 60s. It was considered a more traditional, old guard choice. It was your father or grand father's drink, as opposed to Vodka, which was considered the trendier spirit of choice and giving the Bourbon and Whiskey industry a run for their money. So, if Cooper did in fact order a "Bourbon", it may very well be in line with the age profile of 45 to 55 and with someone who was more "old school" as opposed to a counter culture type, so to speak. In addition, Bourbon is an American drink, so perhaps it could also be inferred that so was Cooper as opposed to being Canadian. This kind of stuff is always a little tricky, of course there are no absolutes and there are always exceptions to the rule, but it's fair game for a profile building exercise. I thought that someone posted the drink menu from NWA a few years back...not sure if it was here or on Shutter's site.

I did watch EU's new video on the flight path last night. No disrespect to him, but it's mostly guestimating based on where that fiber glass apron was found (Cinebar?) and Cliff A.'s statements to him about the variation of the radar hits, "a mile further west"....so I didn't feel like it moved the needle for me. He is saying that he feels that cooper landed within a mile or two of Tena Bar, but he didn't really address the jump point and time as it relates to his new flight path. At this point, I'm still mostly in the camp of the standard FBI/SAGE derived flight path. But I do find some of Dr. Edwards work into the timing of the plane along flight path interesting.

Right, but who knows, even if he landed within a mile or so of the sighting, it's dark and there's still a lot of woods and terrain. Maybe he got stuck in a tree and it took him some time to get to the road where he was sighted.

So, most likely, if the top and bottom bills were darkened prior to FBI testing for finger prints, it was mold right ? Or could there have been trace silver in the bank bag from possibly holding silver coins in the past that rubbed off on the bills ? Regardless, is there anything here that could be used to further the case ? If it was mold, what type of mold ? Under what conditions does the mold form ? Does that tell us anything new about the story of the money ?

Something about this isn't quite adding up to me. Eric has been a proponent of the Western Flight Path, (I believe a slightly different version from R99). One of Eric's main assertions is that the FBI/Air Force flight path is really the flight path of the F106 chase planes and that the actual flight path was ~10 miles to the west. So how does moving the flight path two miles to the east fit that ? Is it a departure from his original theory ? The blue line above doesn't seem to reflect the "two miles due east" as it approached the air port. Guess we'll find out on Wednesday.

I hear you on the reports of fragments and clumps etc...but it all seems to be unofficial. If they indeed found the fragments and possibly clumps, I would think that it would be part of the official summary regarding the Tena Bar money find. There's no reason I could think of the FBI wanting to keep that quiet or under wraps. In the reference that Chaucer sited, it indicates that the clump was sent for analysis....well, where is the report of that analysis ? Has Larry Carr ever commented on this ?

If the above account is true about the fist sized clump of money, why wouldn't it be part of the official FBI story or documented evidence regarding the Tena Bar money find?

Nice pic, so a paper band holding 50 ten dollar bills for a packet and then rubber bands binding multiple packets? it's hard to tell exactly. This was delivered from a bank in Montana I believe.

I believe this is from the teletype transcript, anyone know why someone wrote in "Portland" at the 8:05pm entry? Did whoever wrote that in think that the plane was by Portland at that time ?

Thanks... Maybe if you look forward from an angle with the stairs still protecting, you would be able to see portions of the forward direction. Olemiss, maybe next time you talk to Mcnally, he could give his experience. Although I believe his plane was traveling much faster...

Could Copper look forward from the air stairs ? I was thinking that he could only see what the plane has already passed. If he leaned over the stair railing to peak forward, would the air stream or force of the wind snap his neck or at least make it hard to keep his eyes open ? Or was the force of the wind not as bad as I am thinking ?

Yes, I was thinking he had a compass. He took a pocket knife out, so not too far of a stretch to think he had a compass. Heck, I believe there were watches that had compasses built in even back in the 60s/70s. Maybe he had it in his pocket the entire time, and put it on once he sent Tina to timeout up in the cockpit. (All speculation of course, but within reason) Maybe he even had a small flash light, hidden in the brief case or the pink/green bag ;-) If he came across rail road tracks or a road, that would be ideal. I know they always say if your lost to follow a stream to civilization. It wouldn't be easy, but if we think that he wasn't just and average guy, maybe had some type of military background, I think he could manage with the head start he had. With a major injury, all bets are off. But I think he either had prior personal knowledge of the general area, i.e. Washing/Oregon state, or he prepared himself as part of the mission. ("right place and right time" comment). So he would have had a working knowledge of the geography, roads etc. Perhaps your right about Mexico, anything is possible, I can't get there though. I just can't get over why he wouldn't choose a flight closer to Mexico if that was his plan. But I haven't studied the details enough, maybe there weren't flights closer with a 727....I know a few years back you and probably some others were looking into all of the flights with 727s in that time period.

Some other random thoughts to recent posts... - Wasn't there also a report of a hunting cabin being broken into ? Not sure where that was in relation to Ariel/Merwin or other potential drop zones a little further south etc. - I personally don't think he would try breaking into what looks like an active residence, it's just too risky and not worth it in my opinion. To come so far, to then get within one more twist of a door knob to get blown away as was described in the article. - If he survived the jump, I think he got out of dodge as quickly as possible, barring any serious injury. He had adrenaline going and possibly benzedrine in his system ? Biggest challenge was figuring out where the heck he was and how to get somewhere where he could just, at the very least, blend in. While I agree that he probably couldn't see anything from plane to really identify a specific area, I do think based on the speed and direction he believed the plane was traveling, he could have had an educated guess as to the general area of the state he was jumping into to---I really wonder whether he knew of V-23? Did he really know that by specifying 10,000 feet and southern direction, that the plane would be traveling on V-23? If he new that large area well, in terms of roads and he had a compass, he could have had a plan to walk in a specific direction to hit a road or rail road track and then just take it from there. ....just my two cents...

Bruce Smith has stated that he was told that the FBI PIO Ayn Dietrich-Williams announced that there were 3 separate male DNA samples retrieved from the tie clasp. I am not sure if this means that each sample is from a different male individual or if each sample is simply a different chromosome of a single individual. Perhaps the former is what is being implied. But we all know that Tom Kaye is DB Cooper based on his DNA testing...

Was there anything in the 302s that explain why a knapsack wasn't provided ? Was it just over looked in the race to get the money and parachutes to SEATAC ?

On the letter, option 2 makes the most sense to me. Regarding the knapsack, I think he realized that the longer he stayed on the ground, the better the chance he would never get up in the air. If you give law enforcement more time or an excuse to stall, they will come up with some type of attempt to neutralize him. So he just decided to "get the show on the road" and make do with a work around.

Does anyone know what military application would have used a 24 foot canopy ? I only see that size canopy being used for reserve applications. From what I can tell, the WW2 C-47 static line paratroopers all used a 28 foot canopy as their main, (T-5 during WW2 and T-4 prior to WW2 ?). Not sure what they used during the Korean War. I would have to imagine that anyone who has had any jump experience, whether it be military or sport/civilian, would have a basic understanding of the trade off between canopy size and rate of decent right ? As well as whether you pull/deploy before reaching terminal velocity or after and how the type of chut+canopy used factors into that. But maybe I am giving too much credit. For example, if Copper had ZERO prior military jump experience, and instead went to places like Elsinore to train for this maybe making 50 training jumps, wouldn't he be familiar with the factors above ? Similarly, If he was a military or civilian aviator, and was only familiar with jumping in a bail out scenario, would it be wrong to assume he had this understanding as well ?

hmmm, I'm not sure this is referring to the same letter (it could be). But it implies that the FBI made contact with the individual and obtained his age, which I didn't think was the case. This one seems to be referencing a letter from September which originated from San Francisco. I think the other letter was post marked from Philadelphia. Found this reference for the reasoning...