Math of Insects

All of that may be true, we don’t know. But on the other hand, if Tom tests your polyester Dacron tie, and the particle profile is exactly the same as the one he got from Cooper’s, that let us know that the particles are not as meaningful as we thought. The rest becomes moot. Anyway, we’ve beat that horse enough. We see this one differently. That’s what makes the world go round…

We disagree on this. Blank slides, blank stubs, different ties of the same material, anything that's been in an airplane, anything associated with a smoker, anything associated with those chutes, anything associated with seats under the exhaust system...these all help rule out certain items that may look significant but are not. Not running control tests alongside the particle analysis is IMO inexcusable. Lest we forget, the DNA testing was scuttled by material on the slide from the lab. I am not saying we start with fishy particles and go looking to see what else has them. I am saying test ANYTHING else in the realm and get a sense of whether or not those particles are truly fishy after all. This has to be done for the rest to mean anything.

Controls do let you know which particles are truly outliers or noteworthy, and which would be on anything from that environment, or circumstances, or even blank lab slides/stubs.

Or matches/lighters. Cigarettes even for many of the particles. The underside of the parachute strap for others. This is why controls are needed.

Petersen owned a dog when he was a child. Want to guess what the dog’s name was? Well, we don’t know, but that means there is a chance it was “Cooper.” FOLLOW THE EVIDENCE, SHEEPLE. If that’s not proof I don’t know what is.

Of course you do, dear.

Funny enough, before Georger edited his response, I was going to say: it doesn't really matter what you think (or any of us). You can think anything you want. But you can't then decide that because you think it, everything else has to be a lie, a sham, a conspiracy, or just wrong. It's just a thing you think. FWIW (I'm basically talking past you now), there have been studies done on how well professional interrogators spot lying. It turns out...not so well. Same as everyone else and same as random. There are certain things that people notice--microexpressions and the like--but the assumption that they mean someone is lying turns out to be pretty reliably wrong. So in the end it just doesn't matter if you, Joe Internet Connection, think someone is one way or another. You're welcome to think it. But thinking it doesn't mean anything about anything.

I suppose, but now there's a new person potentially to "talk." Everybody talks. If Cooper died, he was likely already alone enough to the extent that his disappearance didn't register for a while (or ever). If he didn't, IMO he was either caught or killed shortly after for something else. No one desperate enough to commit a terrorist act that was known to him almost certainly to result in his death or capture, then goes on to live a PTA life with no further episodes after that. It's fun to consider but not an actual thing.

That's incorrect. Read the pages I quoted.

Well, let me put it this way: if a hiker walked into the winter woods and was never seen again, then 9 years later some of his belongings washed ashore along a river that ran through those woods, we would pretty much have our answer as to what happened to that hiker. A zero-visibility jump would seem to be at least as risky as walking on foot. Along with the weather, I think people also downplay the pretty common things that can go wrong during a descent. And even if he landed fine, now he's the hiker in the above example, so it's wash-rinse-repeat. Until evidence otherwise arises, the most logical assumption has to be that it's exactly what it looks like. Having said that...a key difference is that someone would have to have reported the hiker missing. This is the complicated part of the Cooper case. It leaves the door open just wide enough for blond-haired, blue-eyed, light-skinned, Dumbo-eared grandpas from Pittsburgh to be carted through. Whenever I run that particular thought experiment, I land out thinking that if he lived, he had to have ended up getting nabbed for another crime or dying in the commission of it, soon enough after that he never started talking about this one. Because "they all talk."

NORJAK. Pp45-48. You're right about the total number, but mischaracterizing the timeline and circumstances. Only the two F106's were trailing when Cooper jumped, and the book explains why they couldn't see or know when or if he jumped. Another plane tried to chase but never saw the plane, and their own plane started to ice so they had to land (NB anyone who tries to downplay the weather conditions that night). The helicopter couldn't catch it and never saw the plane. They did, however, seriously expect to be ripped out of the sky by falling plane parts after Cooper blew the airplane up. (NB those who think Cooper shouldn't be considered a terrorist.) Later, an H130 and two F106's tried to follow, but it was long after Cooper jumped, so there would have been nothing to see. So the number is technically correct, but you are using it inaccurately.

Here's Jerry Garcia's from the same era. I'm not sure what would have needed to be blocked out on Ole Blue Eyes' form, but one thing I do notice is the "processed" stamp on this one.

It says "described by some as piercing" in that passage.

It was complete coincidence but I happened to catch that Mitchell moment on FB Live. He was saying the photo of Vordahl does sort of resemble the sketch--not that Vordahl resembles Cooper.

Yes. The lack of control groups is disqualifying of any data taken from that testing, IMO. I continue to be baffled at the absence of even the most basic controls. I hope that tie gets tested.

I think you're right--anyone who spends more than a day on a dating app will attest to the fact that pictures don't always look like the people :coughcough 10 years older and 20 pounds heavier every damn time :coughcough. BUT... It's tricky making the "you can never tell" argument. It's a VERY short trip from there to the kinds of all-bets-are-off approach favored by some who propose, for example, tall, skinny, blond-haired, blue-eyed, light-skinned, big-eared, pointy-jawed Sting's-ugly-brother guys from Pittsburgh, with a straight face, because "witness statements can be wrong." I think we have to sort of agree on baselines--which to me would mean generally agreeing that the suspect would have to be plausibly described in real time in ways that would result in Sketch B. The question always has to be, if someone saw X person in real time, how would they describe the person? What would stand out? What might seem more extreme just by virtue of being noticed, and what things that ARE extreme would definitely be mentioned? Piercing blue eyes would be mentioned. Dimples. A huge schnocker of a potato-nose. Thin blond hair. A missing finger! Etc. These all make various suspects non-starters IMO. I think Hahnemann could plausibly be described in real time as Sketch B, with some asterisks maybe, though of course you have much more than I or any of us on that count. I also think Vordahl could. Maybe Smith too, though it's hard to say what he might have looked like in the right time period. He's got kind of a Robert DeNiro thing that I would think would be disqualifying when he was younger. Plus I think the book is comically obvious to be fiction. But picture to picture, I think he could get there. The real trick is then putting the guy on that airplane. Only Hahnemann would come close to checking that box, for now.

So I think what you're saying, and correct me if I'm way off-base here, but I think you might be hinting that you think Walter Reca was DB Cooper. Am I right or is that crazy talk?

"Can't we all get along?" I think Fly's point that it's hard to tell complexion from old photos or movies is valid. Though that passport picture would also seem to be darker complected, so it may be moot. The part I'm hung up on is: While I am very familiar with the descriptions that lead to the "olive"/"Latin"/"Native" description, if I saw the person in the Cooper sketches, I would not think "Latin" or "Native American." If his skin tone were notably darker than what feels in the realm for European-American, I might guess one of those things were in the mix. But it wouldn't be the first thing I'd say based on features. So it seems completely in the realm to propose someone whose looks match the sketch and whose skin-tone could be described as "olive," etc. Yes? A credible suspect would be "A darker complected 'caucasian' whose features match the drawings," correct? Otherwise, if we're dismissing the sketch as a match for features, we might as well be discussing Petersen, a nice-looking old man whose name is now permanently attached to a terrorist act he did not come within 3,000 miles of committing thanks to the crackerjack investigation of someone who coincidentally needed to sell tickets to a conference he personally profits from.

I understand, but wouldn’t that already be in the mix when it came time to create the sketches? Meaning, wouldn’t any implications it had for features be reflected there? I thought it was generally a complexion comment, with people sort of guessing at what might account for the swarthiness, and that his features were as they are in Sketch B. Am I misunderstanding?

I think this is a YMMV thing. To my eye he does, though it's hard to know anything from older photos. However, given the fact that you and I can interpret this differently, that would actually support the idea that some people described Cooper as swarthy and some did not. (I believe he was, or at least appeared so that day.)

In that grab he even has the Dracula hair.

Personally I wouldn't put too much stock in that one screen cap. It looks at least as likely to be a fleeting microexpression as it does anything "real" and permanent. Overall I find Vordahl a good match for the sketches when viewed through the filter of, if someone saw Vordahl, would they describe his features in ways that result in those sketches. As others have noted, he's even a decent match for the Dracula sketch, which would otherwise have seemed to be at odds with the previous ones. I could see people trying to describe an issue with the mouth or lower lip and not knowing which words to use. I do think they could see his complexion and try to find a way to describe it that captures that he's darker complected without looking necessarily "dark." That little cut-out of the hairline is notable too. And other features are dead-on matches. Overall he's probably the best match of any current suspects, at least given what we all know about the descriptions. (Fly has indicated there is additional information that might be at odds with the public info.) I'll put it this way: He's probably as good a match as Petersen is bad. I'm bothered by how debonair he comes across. That drink gif could be a screen grab from Goodfellas. That's not the vibe I associate with Cooper from the descriptions. But for me the match is meaningless without knowing the provenance of the tie or soundness of the data-collection process and results, without knowing if the assumptions made from it are correct, and without putting that guy on that plane for a potential mass-murder/suicide/certain prison mission. I think he deserves to be discussed as a possibility--to the exact same extent that Petersen does not. But until those three very big holes are filled--data plus the presumptions from it plus him undertaking this fool's errand of a caper--he has to be considered "just a guy who sort of matches the pictures, if you ignore his age." If someone uncovers a gambling addiction or mistress he had to pay off or something career-ending he was going to be accused of at work or something, that would at least hint at motive. And even then, it will only matter if the data is sound and the presumptions made from are logical, which we don't know. For me he's a fun suspect to consider and involves fewer hoops than Petersen, AKA, the world's most comically incorrect suspect. But the whole case relies on the tie data being correct and reliable, the presumptions made from it being accurate, and him getting on that airplane for what he would have had every reason to assume was his last act as either a free or living man. Those bars haven't been met yet. So he remains tantalizing but meaningless.

Ugh. I keep wanting my mind to be changed and it all just keeps seeming like "fun with microscopes." That "experiment" with the 20s? Come on, man. No one has ever claimed the individual packets each floated independently and then magically collected in the original order in that corner of Tena Bar. At the very least band together something of the same mass and density. Send it within a burlap sack or parachute wrapping. The fact that they are 20's is the least significant part of all of it. What was the point of that? The paper doesn't know what's written on it. Am I the only one who thought it was funny that the kid claimed there was only the card left and not the money? Right, kid. Sure. And while you were there you couldn't use those waterlogged bills to check the diatom profiles on? IMO those 20's would be better used in the future to engage outside (impartial, disinterested) construction of a series of more significant and scientifically sound experiments.

Funny! Early wife though. Divorced by the 1940s.

For better or worse, the way people write is the only means most of us have for gauging their intellectual worthiness. Even the act of going back and proofreading suggests a fastidiousness that might create confidence in the rest of their endeavors. When I see writing that looks like it was dashed off without thought, right or wrong I assume other aspects of that person's work might also be dashed off. I think there are some holes in the chain of assumptions needed to get to Vordahl. They don't start with analyzing the particle data; they start with the way the data was collected. There is an additional one in getting from the analysis to the suspect you favor. These are not minor. Starting with the suspect and going backward is going to yield lots of cool connections. He's a compelling dude! The trick is to make the particle information bulletproof, then make a bulletproof connection between it and your guy, and -- maybe most important? -- put your guy on a terrorist mission on that airplane, in November, 1971. Lack of attention to the detail needed to plug these holes makes everything else dismissable. I'm not saying he's not a great visual match--I think he's pretty good! The lip, the little dip in the hairline. But there is still 0 way of knowing if the particle profile means a single thing, and without that, you don't have a suspect. Just my two bits.