olemisscub

Perhaps he was just trying to appear overly formal and intelligent so as to be taken more seriously, distancing himself from the typical desperate criminal.

There is absolutely zero chance they'd have shown up with Canadian dollars during NORJAK if he had just said "I want $200,000 dollars by 5 p.m." I can't imagine Cooper was thinking like that. You're in America essentially committing a bank robbery. 100 times out of 100 the money is going to show up in American dollars. The fact that he asked for "negotiable currency" is even weirder than specifying U.S. or American. And that really does seem to be what he said. Flo wrote it in her notes. What kind of weirdo talks like that?

I’m with you on the drag. Not sure how significant it would be but surely it would act as a speed brake of some sort.

Anything is possible if there isn’t demonstrable evidence showing otherwise. So you can put me in the “exceedingly skeptical but open to the possibility” category when it comes to all things Gunther haha. I was indeed fully convinced that the entire thing was performance art from Max until the 302 dropped. That certainly changed things.

Whenever a publisher decides to publish. The full manuscript is with several literary agents who expressed interest. Waiting to hear back from them to decide which one to go with (or even if they want to proceed!). But apparently it’s a good sign in the first place that agents expressed interest after reading the samples. I could always just publish through an internet publisher or whatever, but the book is pretty academic and I’d like for it to be “reliably published” with a real publisher. Last resort I could always go with Schaffner Publishing. That is Flo’s cousin and apparently he wants a Cooper book, but I’ve seen mixed reviews about them, so I haven’t contacted them.

Sticking with my nasty habit of buying every book released about Cooper, today I received the new Reca book from Lisa Story. Scorched Earth should be the rule of the day with the Reca people. Normally, I’d say that suspect grifting on Cooper for profit is the most disdainful thing someone can do, but the Reca grift is even more worthy of disdain because of how insulting it is. That book has 100 pages essentially saying that “Cooper Nation”, as she calls it, are all a bunch of fools who can’t interpret evidence correctly. And not only are we fools but the pilots had no idea what they were doing and the stewardesses may as well have had the Men in Black flash the pen in their faces because their memory is so flawed that it should be outright ignored.

I have seen empirical evidence that he was contacted by someone in the 80’s. I don’t have that for 72. It’s not inconsistent to believe in something for which there is evidence but remain skeptical on something without it. If we unearth a 302 from Gunther in 72 claiming that DB Cooper himself wants to meet with him, then that will change my view on it. And I didn’t say I’m not “open to the possibility.” I said I find it improbable.

Am I not allowed to be indifferent to things that pop up in the Vortex? I don’t have to challenge or endorse every topic. And I’m very open to Gunther being contacted by someone claiming to be Cooper’s wife, be it Barb or Cindy Lou Who. We have a 302 to back that up now. But I still find it improbable that he was contacted in 72 and then a decade later. That’s quite the long con for someone to play. What is your opinion on Barb possibly being Clara, Stylometry aside?

I never endorsed that. Sample size far too small for the Stylometry to be used. But I do remain open to that possibility due to the fact that Barb was a known Cooper bullshitter from that era and according to the Foreman’s (who don’t seem like outright liars…but maybe they are) she liked Gunther and True magazine.

Of course it was. Cooper calls to the cockpit, they report this to Soderlind and he tells them to level off and slow down to their marked bug for approach. You know this. Why are you asking?

I think it is almost a certainty that he WAS indeed contacted by someone claiming to be Cooper's widow. We have the 302 for that now (yet he interestingly leaves out a contact with "Cooper" in 1972). But I think the rest of it is made up. I think he found inspiration from this contact. As for the others contacted, he names two individuals: Ed Kuhn, an editor at Playboy, and Mark Penzer, his own editor at True Magazine. He admits that Kuhn died in 1980. So we're left with his buddy from True Magazine. Again, very convenient. Look at the items that people who believe in the veracity of his interaction with Cooper/Clara are STILL using today to give it credibility: the two others contacted, the Himmelsbach letter, and the Happy Birthday ad. The cynic in me sees this as all very clever. If you were creating some sort of performance art fictional story, this is precisely what you would do to establish credibility and give it a basis for believability. All of these items to establish credibility are things that Max could have easily controlled himself: The others contacted are friends/dead people, he conveniently has a copy of the Himmelsbach letter of good enough quality to put in the book, and the birthday ad could have easily been something entirely unrelated that he was aware of. Maybe he himself had a girlfriend at the time named Clara or something. Who knows. I just don't trust it. You're more open minded about it than I am. That's fine. These are just opinions.

Well they definitely slowed down when they leveled off because they lowered the flaps to 30 and went down to 160KIAS. When Cooper actually jumped they had increased a smidge to 170KIAS.

If I was arguing your side of it, I guess the most realistic argument would be that the Himmelsbach letter says "cc: Max Gunther" at the bottom, and since this was the era of actual carbon copies, so presumably that is how he received it.

good info. Then I wonder why they decided to level off at 7000 once he called to the cockpit. Maybe to give him more stable footing or something?

Max or someone associated with his book efforts. It would be a crime to pull a hoax on the FBI, but to send something that isn’t true to a retired FBI agent is another story. Sending a letter to Himmelsbach that you ALSO conveniently happen to publish in your book is likely another example of doing things to establish faux-credibility, same as finding something from 10 years ago and using it to your advantage. C’mon, there’s a lot of kabuki theater going on with Gunther. A metric ton of it.

I’m not convinced on that origin of the happy birthday thing. That could’ve been an unrelated thing that he later spun into his narrative to try and lend the story credibility. A clever ex post facto trick on his part would be my guess. My current bet would be that he was indeed contacted by somebody (as the 302 suggests) and the whole thing amounted to nothing and fizzled out, but then he gained inspiration from it and pivoted into creating a fictional account. The entire plot of the book just seems highly unrealistic and highly literary and dramatic. The concept of Cooper finding his true love while he is injured from the hijacking is a bit too much for me to swallow. It’s too corny to be real.

It's possible that it wasn't so much the speed that was causing Cooper an issue at first, but the angle. They were still in their climb during his first attempt, which would have certainly pushed the airstream harder up against the stairs. In response to Cooper they not only slowed down but stopped climbing and leveled the plane off at 7,000 feet.

Fair enough. Anderson says the same thing. So if there were two light incidents, then they happened in pretty short succession. There may actually be some additional evidence of this in the NWA notes. Why would they write that the light was on during back to back timestamps unless the light had gone off in between the communications? So it appears that Cooper unlocked them (first light), realized they weren't dropping far enough, then raised them back up (light goes off), called to complain, plane slows down, then he unlocks them again (second light).

The problem is that your theory that the light came on a second time is derived from a reliance on the accuracy of Tina's memory from a week later during her Philly interview. I don't think any conclusions or even inferences should be derived from her statement given that her timing is clearly off from the very start. So this is fruit of the poisonous tree. It seems obvious to me that she's just relating the standard sequence of events as we all understand them but her memory of when these things occurred is off.

We know what sketch they are talking about in the files because of the dates of those particular interviews. We know the dates the sketches were created and thus know which sketch they are being interviewed about on whatever particular date.

Of course people get things right and wrong at the same time. Duh. I wasn't actually making that argument. I was being facetious to highlight your obvious cherry picking. You clearly prioritize witness descriptions that suit you and dismiss those that don't. How do you know Alice was wrong about Cooper's nose? You don't. For all we know she could be some savant like Rain Man and have a photographic memory. But you discount her automatically because it doesn't work for you for Cooper to have a small nose. But when it comes to her being the only one who said Cooper's sunglasses looked prescription...hold the phones! You'll believe her on that one because your suspect wore prescription sunglasses. It really is remarkable how the only witnesses descriptions in this case that you put stock in are the ones that confirm your bias for your suspect. It's uncanny how that always happens. You are a biased researcher. Again, if Hahneman had been six feet tall would you still be hammering out thousands and thousands of words on a keyboard arguing that Cooper MIGHT could have been 5'8? Of course you wouldn't. You don't argue with me over my belief that Cooper was unattractive, but if Hahneman looked like Brad Pitt you would be. You don't argue with me about my belief that Cooper needs to look ethnic, but if Hahneman was as white as most of the other suspects you would be. Seriously, look at the things that you spend so much effort gnashing your teeth at me over: my opinion that Cooper was close to 6 feet tall, that his nose wasn't large, and that Comp A is the better sketch. Hell of a coincidence that Hahneman was 5'8, had a larger nose, and cannot conceivably be a match for Comp A. Cry all you want and say I'm attacking you. That's fine. But it's quite obvious why you argue with me so strenuously about certain aspects of Cooper's description. You have a clear agenda and you interpret the evidence to fit that agenda.

Alice is the one who said his sunglasses looked like prescription sunglasses. You say Alice is the sole reason for Bing's nose. You clearly think Alice is a bad witness since you put no stock in her nose selection. So why would you trust her on the sunglasses but not on the nose? It wouldn't be because Hahneman wore prescription sunglasses would it?

I guess that means prescription sunglasses are dead too... If Hahneman had a narrow little nose you wouldn't be saying shit to me about my opinion on his nose. Remarkable how the only opinions of mine about Cooper's appearance that you take issue with are those that don't work for your suspect. If Hahneman was 6'0 and had a narrow nose there is no way in hell you'd be arguing so vociferously with me about those opinions of mine. No way. It's painfully transparent.

Yes, of course, by all means let's elevate something she said 17 years later over something she said within A WEEK of the hijacking. Nov 30th, 1971: