JAGdb

If it wasn't for the large ears, it's not a bad likeness at all. The hair is cut short in the picture, so hard to say if it could be wavy or not if it grew out. Can't tell the eye color for sure, seems to be brown. Is that the JC Penny Town and Country tie ??? (lol, just kidding) Anyway, appreciate you guys tracking this down, I have been wondering about Dr. Edwards loadmaster for a while also. It would be interesting to see an older image of him.

https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/23768484-d-b-cooper-and-flight-305-crossing-the-columbia The latest from Dr. Edwards... He proposes that the hijacker and/or some portion of the money leave the plane at about 8:14pm where he has the plane over the southern bank of the Colombia River as it passed over PIA. So again, it still doesn't seem as though he is altering the path of the plane so much as he is playing with where the plane was on the flight path during the timeline...and oh yeah moving the pressure bump and jump time to no earlier than 8:14pm. I need to read it a couple more times to make sure I understand what he is saying...

I agree that probably 99 out of 100 people would use the word "rubber" to describe seeing rubber bands being used to bind a group of bills.

If only Tina would clear this up . Maybe she will if that movie ever gets made: https://deadline.com/2021/11/nod-if-you-understand-amber-sealey-to-direct-thriller-on-db-cooper-hijacking-1234876249/ The title "Nod if you Understand" is interesting. Did Cooper actually say that to her? Is that in the 302s or any of the known dialogue on record ?

I believe this is a new tv special on the cooper hijacking, airing next Monday on the History Channel--wonder if anyone from the Vortex has been involved. https://www.history.com/shows/historys-greatest-mysteries/season-4/episode-14 https://play.history.com/shows/historys-greatest-mysteries/season-4/episode-14

Shall we call this the "Stallone" sketch ?

I am skeptical on this being a political crime. In most politically motivated crimes, the perpetrator wants people to know specifically what their cause or motivation are, that's kind of the whole point, and they usually offer it up on their own volition. In my opinion, the hijacker made nothing clearly or unmistakingly known of any political cause. He shared only a few pieces of unprompted information: - My name is Dan Cooper (could the name imply a political motive?) - I want $200k (could the number mean something? ) - I want to go to Mexico (interesting, could be part of an underlying motive) Some of the above could have some hidden meaning I suppose...but it isn't definitive in any way. Outside of this, every other piece of information he shared was prompted by a questions from Tina or within the context of instructions to carry out the crime: - right place...right time ( it met HIS needs). - i don't have grudge against your airline(s)...just have "a grudge" The "grudge" statement is the closest he comes to acknowledging some motive but we are ultimately left to wonder what his grudge was. To me it sounds more personal in scope rather than a bigger cause. I do agree that there is a fine line between expressing motive and getting caught and there is a trade off there. But I feel like most political criminals aren't as concerned about getting caught, their goal is "the cause" more than their freedom. Just my thoughts, I could be wrong and am open to the contrary.

Whether he is right or wrong, I think his theory is neat and outside of the box. As far as I can tell, he doesn't argue with the flight path, he argues where the plane was on the flight path during the time line and specifically at the suspected jump time of 8:11pm. I'm not a radar or aviation expert, but I would think that if he agrees with the SAGE radar derived flight path, he would then have to somehow reconcile how the position of the plane at a given point in time on that flight path was that badly missed (I know that people have stated a margin of error of 1 to 3 miles on the "pings" on the boards in the past). In other words, wouldn't the radar plotted points be associated with time? I can't remember him addressing this in his book. Maybe R99 has some thoughts ? In Edwards book, (drawing from memory here), one of the ~5 or so NWO flight ops personnel listening in during the hijacking had reported the position of the 305 significantly further south of I think the Battleground DME than the other flight ops personnel. He then used that position to trace back where the plane would have been at the 8:11 jump time which I believe would have been somewhere around the Colombia River. In Edwards latest blog post, he is using some educated assumptions of the plane's speed from the time it left SEATAC to the 8:11pm jump time to calculate where the plane would have been at 8:11pm. He concludes that his estimation has the plane 8.36 miles further south of where the FBI/SAGE derived flight path had the plane. So if the the original/offical jump point was somewhere around Ariel/Lake Merwin area, 8.36 miles south roughly somewhere in that Heisson area ? Now, this is clearly an estimate, he keeps his theory as a range of 6 to 12 miles. Isn't Heisson/Battlground/Ridgefield where the FBI eventually wound up adjusting the drop zone to anyway ? I am expecting another follow up post with some more details from Edwards, let's see where he goes with it.

In the following 2013 article penned by Bruce Smith: https://themountainnewswa.net/2013/02/06/the-hunt-for-db-cooper-who-was-cooper-what-is-known/ He states the following: "Although he had no visible tattoos, scars or distinguishing anatomical features that are known publicly, it is rumored that the FBI knows of a small scar on Cooper’s hand that it has not revealed to the public." He doesn't cite or enumerate a source for the rumor in the article, not sure if he does in his book. But he doesn't mention the Gunther book as the source either. I've been meaning to purchase Bruce's book, perhaps now is the time.

Great question, in the same spirit, can the partial profile that they have provide any other data such as ethnicity, eye color etc ?

Over the years, it's been discussed quite a bit. I believe, but am not 100% certain that the Citizen Sleuths uncovered it originally about 10 or so years back. ( Carol Abraczinskas). Basically, there are two camps...coincidence or not a coincidence. I am more in the latter camp. In addition, recently, I believe it was Olemiss, who found even an older publication that uses the character Dan Cooper in an aviation short story or something. (This one was not Canadian based.) Now, it's possible that the comic wasn't the main influence, it could have been the older publication....or of course neither.

Trying to follow this, bear with me. Assertion 1: Nothing about nicotine stained fingers appear in any of the released 302s (Is this correct?) Assertion 2: The only comment about nicotine stained fingers comes from RH's source material for his book Norjak. A woman reached out to RH and relayed the story about a suspect named Dan Cooper, not necessarily "the Dan Cooper", just a person she suspected who happened to have that name. (Why wouldn't RH have put this in a 302 ? Or did he and that 302 was not released yet?)

why not at this point, but didn't RH state he thought that the whole Clara thing wasn't legit ?

Hey Fly, it makes a lot of sense that the codes were intended for authenticating future communication. That element itself adds some intrigue that the letter could be from the hijacker because...why would someone go through the trouble? And I guess the answer/counter to that is that there are crazies and scammers out there who do these types of things for reasons I can't understand. What leads you to believe that the codes may also have some type of hidden information identifying the hijacker ? I find several letters interesting, letter 5 and 6 as well as a letter that came out in the 302s in the last few years where it is written by a supposed friend of the hijacker who details that the hijacker was terminally ill, and passed away after traveling the world. Unfortunately, none of the letters ever contained undeniable proof that it was indeed from the hijacker. The same seems to go for the Gunther communications. All he had to do was provide some detail that only the hijacker would know...."tell Tina thanks for lighting my cigarettes"...something like that. Letter 6 came close with the line: "(And please tell the lackey cops D.B. Cooper is not my real name).” But even this stops a little short, i.e. he could have signed the letter "Dan" or something like that. And that's my biggest doubt about the letters, once you make the decision (which is ill advised) to communicate post crime to either law enforcement or the media, why go half way so to speak by not offering 100% proof that it is really from the hijacker. If the codes your looking at provide some type of proof, that would be a huge game changer in the case.

Doesn't the FBI have the chair somewhere ? Or they took it out of the plane at the time ?

If he lived in the area or even greater vicinity, it would have given him flexibility to sit back and kind of wait for an opening. If he did land in the wooded or remote areas, could maybe even have got a hunting license to give him a little cover or reason for being out there. If he wasn't from the area, and didn't have a reason for being there, I think it would have been risky for him to hang around in the immediate aftermath. His comment about right place, right time still sticks with me that he had some kind of ties to the pacific north west, the area was targeted for a reason.

Olemiss, I'm waiting for your next iteration with the sun glasses super imposed

I haven't been able to find any reference to Raleigh's being part of the Vietnam ration packages. It's possible they were for sale in commissary stores. Any Vietnam vets on the board ? I did see that Raleigh's were a lesser used brand in WW2 K rations.

I spent some time a while ago looking at the 1960s era Raleigh/Belair coupon catalogs. The men in the catalog are from central casting for the Cooper witness descriptions. I always wondered if maybe the tie clip or his pocket knife came from the catalog, but alas it was pure speculation and there was no way to connect anything. In the 40s, there was a show called The Raleigh Cigarette Program. I believe Red Skelton was the host. In more fantasy and speculation, I imagined that maybe Cooper watched the program as a young man or boy with his family and that's how he became a Raleigh cigarettes smoker ? Anyway....some links below related to the post. https://creativepro.com/scanning-around-gene-back-when-smoking-was-rewarded/ https://www.grayflannelsuit.net/blog/1968-raleigh-belair-cigarette-coupon-catalog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Raleigh_Cigarette_Program

his hair is not marcelled and he is too ruddy....

When the money was found, the FBI stated that it was in the original order as delivered to the hijacker. (If I remember correctly, that original order was never released to the public.) If you know the original order, you should be able to identify the top and bottom bill of each of the three 100 bill packets. I wonder if this was ever done by the FBI and if anyone knows where any of these 6 bills are today. The attempt at looking for a finger print with silver nitrate only makes sense if they did it on a top/bottom bill, why do it on a random bill in the middle. If there's any chance of finding evidence of the rubber bands or even paper bank bands, it would come from forensically studying one of these 6 bills. When Tom did his testing, I believe he was given 3 bills by the FBI and then later on 377s bill which he concluded was from the middle or inside of one of the packets. I don't think Tom was given the original order, so he based that conclusion on other factors of the bills being studied. Having said this, it's not clear to me that it's even a possibility for Tom to get access to the remaining bills that the FBI have and if they would identify the top and bottom bills. For new or unexplored areas of evidence, the pickings are slim, but what about: - Pivoting to the packing cards that the hijacker would have had to have touched? Could they lift a finger print and then rule it out as being from Cossey, Hayden or other FBI agents who may have touched the card ? Could there be touch DNA present ? - The shroud lines that he cut, the hijacker would had to have held the lines firmly when he was cutting the lines, you could figure out the most likely place he held the lines and then examine for skin cells where touch DNA could maybe be found? These are long shots, just shooting from the hip here.

Went back to re-read Tom's rubber band tests on the CS web site. He performed a water submersion test and a sand burial test. For the water test, all the rubber bands broke by 234 days, (some broke earlier). For the sand test, all of the bands broke by the 355th day, (some broke earlier). Tom's tests were relatively static and ideal in the sense that they weren't subjected to movement on the bottom of the river, rubbing against sand and other debris, dredge forces, etc. So the integrity or life span of the rubber bands might be even less in the actual Columbia River. So if we accept Tom's results, there's less than a year in the best case, where once the rubber bands were out in the elements (oxygen, water or buried in sand) for them to be able to hold the three packets together long enough for the money to come to rest at Tena Bar as it was found. When did that ~one year clock start ticking ? 11/24/71 ? Or did someone deposit it at some later point in time ? Based on this, I'm kind of skeptical that the rubber bands could have held the three packets together very long in some of the dynamic conditions it would have been exposed to in the river. For example, could it really have been resting on the bottom of the river for several years and still be able to be sucked up and spit out ? or carried by a flooding ? The one wild card for me is the congealing or solidifying of the money into a single brick like mass. Under what conditions and how long does it take a packet of 100 bills to stick together like they were found? Once in this state, could they survive the forces of a suction dredge ? Could they survive the forces of a clam shell bucket digging it out of the bottom and then dumping it on Tena Bar ? But even if the solidified packets could, wouldn't rubber bands have snapped or washed away ? Another question, were the three packets stuck together into one 300 bill packet when found ?

While I'm not holding my breath, the movie based on Tina's experience on flight 305, is supposed to enter production this year, I'm really curious if anything new will come out of it. I believe it is set to be called "Nod If you Understand". There is an article linked off of Tina's Twitter page, which admittedly is over a year old, in which she is quoted as saying something to the effect of still having "vivid" memories of the details of the hijacking. After 50+ years, will she share anything new ? Is she still under any type of FBI request not to share certain details (I doubt it)? Is the FBI, in any, way, shape or form involved with reviewing the script (Again, I would be surprised) ? We will see...

A while back, I was looking into the pilot angle for the hijacker. I was interested in finding out whether or not pilots used clip on ties. Apparently, it wasn't uncommon for pilots to use clip on ties as some found it easy to take off in long flights once the cockpit door was closed. Then, they could easily put it back on when they were visible to passengers. One of the things that I came across was that many pilots wore their ALPA pins on their tie. From some pictures that I have seen, they would wear the pin in the middle of the bottom third of the tie. Anyway, I am not saying the hijacker was a pilot, but it's worthy of consideration. Here are some pics of period ALPA pins.

This a great point, it doesn't make sense that Cossey made arrangements for back chutes with no D rings. He would have/should have known better. Unless it was just a spur of the moment, lost in the urgency type over sight.