DB Cooper

[Orange1 0]

and on Jerry Daniels:
http://www.smokejumpers.com/smokejumper_magazine/item.php?articles_id=299&magazine_editions_id=19

Quote

....A rodeo bull rider who talked about “ranch bums” a lot, Jerry was altogether not your ordinary teenager or even jumper and clearly destined for an eventful life.
....
I heard stories about Jerry and other jumpers, notably from Intermountain Aviation, a CIA operation, in Marana, Arizona. Some of the places mentioned were Bay of Pigs, Tibet, Arctic ice islands, Laos, and Thailand. Never sure what to believe about second-hand jumper stories, I thought some stories were just typical jumper equine feces, a common commodity in Missoula.
.......
One day I picked up the embassy message file and was dumbstruck to read that Jerry had just died of carbon monoxide poisoning in his apartment in Bangkok, Thailand.

A number of books over the last two decades talk about Jerry’s spectacular CIA career in Laos after 1965. The circumstances of his death add an odd finale that could not have been invented for a novel.
..........

Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

[377 22]

Quote

In the book, Tragic Mountains, the author told a story about a rodeo held in Laos at a military outpost called Long Chieng between Johnson and Jerry “Hog” Daniels. Johnson talked in detail about this event. Daniels’ bull bucked him off quickly. Johnson rode his bull, so he was declared the winner. Johnson said later he was disqualified because he rode the bull with two hands. There was no rematch, because the North Vietnamese bombed the area soon after the event

Too bad Coppola didnt have this info. A rodeo deep in Laos would have fit right into Apocolypse Now. Can you picture it?

The links between smoke jumpers and covert ops in SE Asia are intriguing and stir up all sorts of imagined links to Cooper.

377

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

[skyjack71 0]

Sure didn't expect that from you Orange. It was very interesting and took me places I have visited without making the connection I was looking for. Some of the same names came up that have resounded from articles Snowmman posted and things I have made inquiries about before.

I only remember bits and pieces of some comments from many years ago, I noted that Wayne Webb was mentioned, but I checked him out yrs ago - and he died not too long ago. Was well known and loved in his community.

I only mention Webb in passing as someone I have checked out several times in the last 13 yrs . Got some interesting pictures of Webb...but he was definitely NOT Cooper. It was an interesting diversion regarding an good man.

Hogg was too young and Paperlegs too old. This thing keeps going back to Marana - and CIA doesn't it?

"It was just balloons" and "skyhook" - part of a conversation.

Still can't find the "rodeo man" I am looking for. This man had some American Indian blood in him - mention of a reservation.
An area around Pyramid Lake comes into this - but I explored that and got NO WHERE.

Then there is the BAD Roach or Roche - Az, Tx, Casa Grande and Ca and could kill you with one hand are memories of a conversation from a different time.

I do know that if Duane was not Cooper he knew who was and he knew the man well enough to be able to steal his "Stuff". The only way he could have pulled that off is if the man didn't know his real name and was known only to him as John Collins..from 1962 to 1968 or from another alias used from 1945 to 1949. It is also possible that the items Duane had were the "booty" from a miscellaneous break into a home - but, supposedly Duane wasn't very good at not getting caught - which was evident from his spending all those yrs in prison.

I am trying to be VERY objective - That old Ghost Town - full of Antiques in AL or GA near Ft. Benning - a man Duane's age whose conversation was kept out of my reach - I don't have a name for him - but I thought it was something like Cap or Sarg...a military nickname. He did briefly introduce me when I had to finally go into the building and ask for a ladies room. Around 1982 or 1983.

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

[Erroll 80]

Quote

He may have been a veteran, but also may have been a Conscientious Objector..

That narrows it down nicely.

[Orange1 0]

Quote

Sure didn't expect that from you Orange.

I don't have an agenda, Jo. I will follow stuff I find interesting or useful. Equally, I will discard arguments that don't make sense.

Quote

This thing keeps going back to Marana - and CIA doesn't it?

Selection bias. If you are looking for stuff connecting smokejumpers and SE Asia, or smokejumpers and Air America, or whatever, that is always gonna be the connecting link. And there seems to be a huge amount of info that seems to be out there on the web about this.

The Triple Nickles - I posted a link about them previously - were based in a town in OR that was home to the Pendleton Rodeo. I didn't attach those links here because Cooper clearly wasn't a Triple Nickle. But there doesn't seem to be any Marana connection there!

It seems that a lot more smokejumpers were involved in rodeo than those that went to SE Asia, but I can only assume their lives were less interesting because there doesn't seem to be much or anything about them on the internet.

Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

[happythoughts 0]

from post 6469:

Quote

The Man in the AVATAR had an office in that Centre in 1979 - find out who he was and you will solve the Cooper Saga.

I'm still working on this one.

I am inches from blowing this case apart.
The total solution.

[georger 268]

Quote

from post 6469:

Quote

The Man in the AVATAR had an office in that Centre in 1979 - find out who he was and you will solve the Cooper Saga.

I'm still working on this one.

I am inches from blowing this case apart.
The total solution.

Ah yes. Let me guess.

DB Cooper was an FBI agent!

It's the only thing that satisfies all the requirements,
AND gives Jo Weber the REVENGE SHE IS SEEKING!

Before you present this you had better run this by
the Underbelly of this forum where the real decisions
are made: you know who I mean.

Attached are a few charts to help you with your consideration.

Let's hear your solution! Jo is working with a new production company now and seeking ideas -
so your post is very timely! Give her all you've got!

Any Happy Thoughts now?

Georger

[happythoughts 0]

Quote

Quote

from post 6469:

Quote

The Man in the AVATAR had an office in that Centre in 1979 - find out who he was and you will solve the Cooper Saga.

I'm still working on this one.

I am inches from blowing this case apart.
The total solution.

Ah yes. Let me guess.

DB Cooper was an FBI agent!

It's the only thing that satisfies all the requirements,
AND gives Jo Weber the REVENGE SHE IS SEEKING!

Before you present this you had better run this by
the Underbelly of this forum where the real decisions
are made: you know who I mean.

Attached are a few charts to help you with your consideration.

Let's hear your solution! Jo is working with a new production company now and seeking ideas -
so your post is very timely! Give her all you've got!

Any Happy Thoughts now?

Georger

That post was made a couple of weeks ago when we had
the Original Truth. These new theories are the New Revised Standard Edition Truth. Perhaps we can sub-divide these
theories into work-groups.

I am waiting on someone to provide me with a complete list of
unknown CIA agents and their pictures. I will do this shortly,
unless the Conspiracy stops me.

The new theory does contains aspects of the CIA Agent theory
with some added flavor of Rodeo Man. Let's face it, who doesn't
like a good story with a cowboy in it?

Anyone ever see the movie about Buckaroo Bonzai?
The rock star/millionaire/scientist who traveled into the 10th dimension?
(Good movie... but, of course, that was fiction)

[377 22]

Quote

DB Cooper was an FBI agent!

It's the only thing that satisfies all the requirements,
AND gives Jo Weber the REVENGE SHE IS SEEKING!

Before you present this you had better run this by
the Underbelly of this forum where the real decisions
are made: you know who I mean.

The FBI has done some bad deeds but I don't see credible gossip or criticism about them protecting their own when an agent has gone totally criminal. They have a strong interest in weeding out the bad guys within. This has been demonstrated in several successful investigations and prosecutions of corrupt agents.

"Underbelly of this forum..."? Who are you referring to? Snow? Sluggo? Jo?

Jo, tell us your theory about how merely IDing the guy you photographed with the sleeve chevrons near the LDS building will solve the Cooper case? I just don't follow the logic at all.

Jo, a lot of your evidence is compatible with Duane being or knowing Cooper, but it is equally compatible with Duane merely knowing ABOUT Cooper, so it doesn't prove anything. You have some evidence (his alleged handwritten notes in that Cooper book in the library) that Duane was seeking info about Cooper. Cooper needn't have read about Cooper. He knew the story first hand.

The crossovers and links between smoke jumpers, CIA, SE Asia and Air America, SAT, etc sure makes me think that if Cooper knew about the ability to jump from a 727, he was somehow connected to all that.

In the story below a businessman facing legal trouble bailed out of his plane after a faked emergency. Duhhh, like who carries chutes in Piper Malibus??? Maybe if he had calculated fuel/distance, bailed out over land and had the autopilot on a course that would take the plane over the ocean at the point of fuel exhaustion it might have worked, but this guy gets an F in planning a credible disappearance.

http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Piper+Malibu

Wonder if he had prior jump experience? What is very interesting is that the guy apparently stashed a motorcycle in the drop area and used it to escape.

377

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

[happythoughts 0]

Quote

The crossovers and links between smoke jumpers, CIA, SE Asia and Air America, SAT, etc sure makes me think that if Cooper knew about the ability to jump from a 727, he was somehow connected to all that.

There are legions of people who are "qualified" to do such a jump.
They have been listed ad nauseum on this thread.
There were thousands of airborne-qualified ex-mil after VN.
Thousands of people with knowledge of parachutes and
727 operation.

As a number, I'd say that the candidate list would be in the
tens of thousands easily. There would have to be additional
evidence to narrow that. Currently, the only available
direction is the wannabees.

The best self-proclaimed candidate with the necessary skills
is Gossett and Gossett lacks additional credible proof.
That is the problem with most of them.

The only possible help is DNA, and that only helps if the person
volunteers themselves to be compared.

We can probably stop trying to come up with new lists of
suspects.

If Duane was proven to be a genuine double-ought spy
who did a night 727 jump into Laos, it still wouldn't put him in
a harness that night.

[377 22]

Quote

If Duane was proven to be a genuine double-ought spy
who did a night 727 jump into Laos, it still wouldn't put him in
a harness that night.

Good point.

I still think its worth looking for suspects. If you found someone who fit the criteria and had unexplained cash wealth following the hijack, that would be worthy of further investigation.

When I thought that Boeing was the only source of info about the feasibility of jumping a 727, I thought the list of possible Coopers was at most a a few hundred. The Air America tests vastly enlarged the pool of possible Coopers.

Gossett looks good, but without a hot 20 or matching DNA or a positive ID by Flo or Tina, he is just another maybe.

377

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

[snowmman 3]

I'm not going to pitch a point of view, but anyone who likes the Gossett story is going to have to reconcile the stuff that Clyde Lewis is pitching about Gossett's history and who he was.

Clyde, Cook and Gossett's ex-wife appeared together to talk up Gossett. I think at a club, like some kind of travelling carnie show? who knows.

You can listen to mp3 (the last one) on this page. Minimally it's interesting hearing Cook talk about Gossett, and Clyde talk about the paranormal stuff Gossett was interested in. (Clyde starts in with this history at about 5:53 in the last mp3)

God, it's sad listening to the ex-wife. If she ever shows up at this forum and starts acting like Jo....

http://www.ideocast.com/archive.asp?aid=12144

Clyde Lewis is very out there. Only related to Gossett cause he used to work at the same radio station.

from Clyde
"William (Wolfgang) Gossett worked at KCGL FM in the 1980’s, hosting a radio show that dealt with occult subjects and yarns of conspiracy theories, while Lewis was an engineer at KBBX, a gospel station owned by the same company. Gossett impressed the young Lewis with tales of true crime and paranormal activity, and encouraged him to join his various ghost hunts. While Gossett never confessed to Lewis that he was D.B. Cooper, many associates of Gossett told Lewis that the man might have a dark past.

After Gossett left Utah in the 1990’s, Lewis created Ground Zero in 1995, carrying on the legacy of Gossett’s show and using some of the skills his mentor had taught him."

(edit)
Ground Zero Lounge
"Recorded every Monday evening in front of a live audience at Dante's Inferno in Portland Oregon, the Ground Zero Lounge features Clyde Lewis in this audience participation discussion of current events as they relate to the paranormal. "

[Orange1 0]

Quote

The FBI has done some bad deeds but I don't see credible gossip or criticism about them protecting their own when an agent has gone totally criminal. They have a strong interest in weeding out the bad guys within. This has been demonstrated in several successful investigations and prosecutions of corrupt agents.

Awww c'mon 377, how is anyone supposed to come up with a credible conspiracy theory when you say stuff like that??

Happythoughts, I could give you the list of unknown CIA agents. But then I'd have to kill you. And in all conscience I could not XPD someone with such a nice name.

Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

[Orange1 0]

Nice link for anyone who really wants to expand the "possibles" pool to thousands of people:
http://www.sfahq.com/

Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

[snowmman 3]

Quote

The best self-proclaimed candidate with the necessary skills is Gossett and Gossett lacks additional credible proof.
That is the problem with most of them.

that's wrong, happythoughts.
There's nothing about Gossett that makes him a good suspect.

[Orange1 0]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_Laos
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_Vietnam
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_Cambodia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_Indonesia

Edited to add: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studies_and_Observation_Group

Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

[happythoughts 0]

Quote

Quote

The best self-proclaimed candidate with the necessary skills is Gossett and Gossett lacks additional credible proof.
That is the problem with most of them.

that's wrong, happythoughts.
There's nothing about Gossett that makes him a good suspect.

He had a good resemblance to the sketch.
He had the parachute skills.
He had the survival skills. A big plus, considering the conditions.
Many people would not survive being unprotected
outdoors on such a night.
He knew the area.

That is what I call a good suspect based on my criteria.

Opinions vary.

[377 22]

Quote

I'm not going to pitch a point of view, but anyone who likes the Gossett story is going to have to reconcile the stuff that Clyde Lewis is pitching about Gossett's history and who he was.

Clyde, Cook and Gossett's ex-wife appeared together to talk up Gossett. I think at a club, like some kind of travelling carnie show? who knows.

You can listen to mp3 (the last one) on this page. Minimally it's interesting hearing Cook talk about Gossett, and Clyde talk about the paranormal stuff Gossett was interested in. (Clyde starts in with this history at about 5:53 in the last mp3)

God, it's sad listening to the ex-wife. If she ever shows up at this forum and starts acting like Jo....

http://www.ideocast.com/archive.asp?aid=12144

Clyde Lewis is very out there. Only related to Gossett cause he used to work at the same radio station.

from Clyde
"William (Wolfgang) Gossett worked at KCGL FM in the 1980’s, hosting a radio show that dealt with occult subjects and yarns of conspiracy theories, while Lewis was an engineer at KBBX, a gospel station owned by the same company. Gossett impressed the young Lewis with tales of true crime and paranormal activity, and encouraged him to join his various ghost hunts. While Gossett never confessed to Lewis that he was D.B. Cooper, many associates of Gossett told Lewis that the man might have a dark past.

After Gossett left Utah in the 1990’s, Lewis created Ground Zero in 1995, carrying on the legacy of Gossett’s show and using some of the skills his mentor had taught him."

(edit)
Ground Zero Lounge
"Recorded every Monday evening in front of a live audience at Dante's Inferno in Portland Oregon, the Ground Zero Lounge features Clyde Lewis in this audience participation discussion of current events as they relate to the paranormal. "

That darn Snowmman, he has rained on my Gossett parade big time. If we are to believe what Gossett's co worker and his wife say about him, we may be looking for evidence in the wrong dimension. Gossett believed in time travel portals. No wonder we can't find anything. That Tena bar money slipped back to our dimension through a worm hole.

Still, in spite of Gossett's unconventional ideas about physics, he was jump trained, did know the area, looks enough like the sketch, had money problems, etc. With no hot 20, no DNA match and no positive ID by Flo or Tina Gosset remains a maybe in 377's eyes.

You may disagree with Galen Cook, but he is an intelligent person who has put a lot of effort into solving the Cooper mystery. I find him to be non dogmatic and open to new evidence. Gossett is just the best suspect he has found so far. Show him better evidence about someone else and I bet he will listen.

Maybe we can renew be nice to Jo month and have it continue in Feb. Any other votes?

BTW, where did the night clerk go? Is he back in China?

377

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

[snowmman 3]

Quote

He had the survival skills. A big plus, considering the conditions.

What do you think he had to do to survive the night?
(I guess identify your predicted DZ)

I'm guessing that if you stuck 100 random people at the predicted DZ, with no gear or skills, that none would die, no matter what they did. Unless they were sick already, or injured severely on the landing.

[happythoughts 0]

Quote

Quote

He had the survival skills. A big plus, considering the conditions.

What do you think he had to do to survive the night?
(I guess identify your predicted DZ)

I'm guessing that if you stuck 100 random people at the predicted DZ, with no gear or skills, that none would die, no matter what they did. Unless they were sick already, or injured severely on the landing.

He jumped at roughly 8pm. Dawn at 5am? So, 9 hours in the dark.
The temperature has been stated as 35-50 degrees. Light rain.
Overcast at 5K and raining, so little moon.
The slipon loafers would probably be gone instantly on a 200mph exit.

He probably wasn't going to be able to walk out on an overcast night.
If there was little moonlight, no movement until daylight.

He was shoeless, in 40 degree weather, in the rain, at night -
for at least 8 hours. That has hypothermia written all over it.

Finding shelter is possible, but not guaranteed.

[wolfriverjoe 1,523]

Quote

Quote

He had the survival skills. A big plus, considering the conditions.

What do you think he had to do to survive the night?
(I guess identify your predicted DZ)

I'm guessing that if you stuck 100 random people at the predicted DZ, with no gear or skills, that none would die, no matter what they did. Unless they were sick already, or injured severely on the landing.

It was in the forties that night. There were rain showers. The C-9 canopy would have neccesitated a PLF (tumbling landing).

The probabilty of ending up wet, either from being rained on, landing in/through wet vegetation or tumbling across wet ground is pretty high.

Wet, with temps in the forties, all night long is pretty risky.

Without fire, shelter or dry clothes (and warm ones at that) hypothermia is a very real risk.

This thread talks about a base jumper who died of hypothermia when out all night. It was a little colder, but he wasn't wet.

Edit to add: wow, it looks like Happythoughts and I are thinking similar thoughts.

"There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy

"~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

[snowmman 3]

Quote

He jumped at roughly 8pm. Dawn at 5am? So, 9 hours in the dark.
The temperature has been stated as 35-50 degrees. Light rain.
Overcast at 5K and raining, so little moon.
The slipon loafers would probably be gone instantly on a 200mph exit.

I'm not sure why you think Cooper was wearing slip on loafers. That's not a consistent description from Tina and Flo.

Moon doesn't affect survival probability, assuming you're staying outside.

Water immersion models for predicting survival in cold water exist. Even those have wide variance..usually underestimate. Important to realize if planning S&R operations.

But Cooper wouldn't stand in the rain if he was cold. No one stands in the rain if there's an option. At the predicted DZs, there were simple options. Stand where the rain isn't coming down. Under trees, for instance.

Mild hypothermia is not death. You can shiver all night and recover the next day. You can have totally numb hands and not die or even have identifiable frostbite.

No survival skills are necessary.

If Cooper had jumped into snow, or temperatures more like 20 degree F, or 50 mph surface wind with no wind breaks, it would be a different story.
Or if he was drunk, or elderly.

Or if clothing was soaking wet when he hit the ground.

None of those things were true. Survival pretty easy.

People in the mid-40's don't just roll over and say "I'm dead" when things are a little uncomfortable. Old people do, or drunk people. Not someone who wants to live.

It would be hard to murder someone by locking him outside in the rain that night. That's how you have to think about it. If I locked you outside because I wanted to murder you that night, would I have succeeded? Or would you kill me the next morning?

You can look at the news right now to see people freezing to death in Poland cause of the cold snap in Europe. Gives you a sense of what is needed to kill. And that's including old folks.

[snowmman 3]

people post links to threads, without reading the thread I think.

The thread on the base jumper who died: he appears to have done some things that lost and hypothermic people do: wander and take off their clothes when the body mistakenly makes them feel warm.

I don't want to dissect this case, but it's not useful for comparing to a Cooper survival probability. Note that just sitting would have been a better survival plan. But by being in the canyon, he was probably worried about never getting out or found, which probably was a mistake. There was no reason for Cooper to be wandering aimlessly.


"He was found without his rig, coat, shirt and one shoe, all of which he had apparently removed and discarded at different points. It is likely that he wandered in the canyon for several hours before succumbing to the elements."

(edit) I just scanned the thread again and found this on conditions:
"Keep in mind we had 4 inches of fresh snow that night, on top of the snow we already had."

So there was snow, and it snowed that night.

I agree that that makes things difficult. I said that in my post above.

(edit) high winds noted also. Unclear if windbreaks. "although that night we got several inches of snow and had high winds. "

[snowmman 3]

This paper was published in 2007 and is available in full online.

7 year data on search and rescues in OR.

Not exactly good for the Cooper survivial probability, but gives some info on search times, death rates, temperatures, months, etc.

Can be used for some insight on the relative likelihood of someone being lost for a while, ending up being dead.

Note that search time is the strongest link to probable death.

I've attached a snap of one table. My take is that overnight for Cooper, statistically in those conditions is "probably would have been found alive".

Now multiple days out, without skills or gear, may be a different story.
Survival probability for searches, drops dramatically after two days.

Also, water searches increase likelihood of nonsurvival (river/lake/ocean etc)

http://www.wemjournal.org/wmsonline/?request=get-document&issn=1080-6032&volume=018&issue=02&page=0095

[skyjack71 0]

Quote

from post 6469:

Quote

The Man in the AVATAR had an office in that Centre in 1979 - find out who he was and you will solve the Cooper Saga.

I'm still working on this one.

I am inches from blowing this case apart.
The total solution.

That picture is linked in some way to Duane's past - Duane didn't make those items appear ( the ticket, the stub and the bag) like magic and he didn't make them - so if Duane is not Cooper ---who did he know who may have been - or who did he take them off of?

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