olemisscub

It wasn't a debate!!! You said you thought it was a certain color but that this was due to lamination. I was curious about it myself. I sought clarification. I supplied what Tom said. It wasn't meant at ALL to challenge you or be like "durrr Flyjack is wrong na-na-na!" This is my whole point about the way you view this case. You take everything that is at all contrary to what YOU think or what YOU say as some sort of personal attack or personal affront. It's bizarre. We all greatly respect your research on the case. I can't speak for others but personally I just wish you were more of a team player and weren't so sensitive.

You said I "challenged you". How did I challenge you?

yep. We've all seen this. We've been battling with Eric's ridiculous notion that it wasn't a SAGE map for months now on the FB group and have used this as evidence.

challenged you? You said you "think" it wasn't yellow underneath. I was curious myself. I asked Tom because I figured he'd know. I supplied you with his response. Don't mistake my tone here, because this isn't written aggressively, but merely out of curiosity. Why do you view this case as a contest among researchers? I view it as a collective effort. It's like you claiming some sort of proprietary status over coming up with the tornado. Why even mention it? Are there bonus points being rewarded for coming up with a theory? This isn't a contest. No one is challenging you or fighting with you. Most serious researchers have each made individual contributions to the case that all add up to help tell the full story.

nm

He may not have had an actual LZ in so far as “planning”. Just anywhere around Clark or Cowlitz would have been fine with him. He’d figure it once he landed. Mac was essentially just wanting to jump somewhere that was in northern Indiana or Michigan so long as it wasn’t Lake Erie. LaPoint apparently just wanted to jump anywhere north of Denver. Hahneman may have known he was over Honduras but he certainly wouldn’t have had a precise LZ in mind. I posit Cooper was the same way. Oh, and I asked Tom about the map. He said the map is laminated but he’s pretty sure that the actual sheet that the map is on is yellow.

Those are all fine opinions, and I'm starting to understand your point with all of this, but they are still just opinions derived from assumptions. None of us know what the guy was thinking. But I totally get your point about why he would he even care to argue about a refueling stop if he intended to jump early in the trip. That element has always made me wonder what he was thinking during all of that. Would LA and SF also have flown down V-23? To say there is no evidence for a Portland DZ is obvious...but there is no evidence for ANY particular DZ. One thing I've learned from getting close to Mac over the past year is how intricately he planned certain things yet completely brain farted on others. I get that sense from Cooper at times. Mac and Cooper aren't exact analogs but it appears that they were both winging a good bit of their hijacking. I do have a hard time with your theory that Cooper didn't have any idea of where he wanted to jump. All of the copycats at least had a rough estimation of where they wanted to jump. They all were planning to jump near where they felt they'd be safe. Mac was planning to jump within an hour (driving time) of Detroit, Hahneman jumped into Honduras, LaPoint was living in Denver at the time and jumped 90 miles north of Denver, and of course Heady and McCoy were jumping very close to their homes. As for the Mexico thing, my belief is that Cooper did a little research and saw that the max range of a 727-100 was about 2400 miles and, incidentally, Mexico City is almost exactly 2400 miles from Seattle. Seems to me he wanted the plane to be in flight (without him still in it) for the maximum amount of time, so he picked Mexico City. Of course he seems to later say "anywhere in Mexico", but the point stands.

There is nothing in any of that which negates a Portland area DZ. It IS evidence against a Seattle DZ, however.

I know your theory and I've genuinely tried to understand it numerous times. Either I'm an idiot or you haven't explained it well (or maybe both), but I've never been able to understand what you are trying to convey when you've gone through it. I've tried. Regardless, I don't think he wanted to jump outside Seattle. He wasn't even ready to jump when they took off. I checked my messages and the first time anyone messaged me about the Vancouver tornado was Nicky back in June when he sent me an article about the tornado. So unless you told him about it, then he had a similar idea as you.

Drew Beeson and I did an anniversary show for anyone interested.

This is why it's critically important that Tom be allowed to put sticky stubs on the museum chute. We need a control FROM the plane to be run against the tie.

I’m so, so glad he gave that up and didn’t double down on it

“No soil” Silt is a type of soil I believe

Video I took of McNally reuniting with a 727 for the first time. The audio improves after about 20 seconds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ7T7ioES_8

Another great pic. Bill Grinnell reunited with some of the loot he carried in his lap.

Correct. Bill didn’t understand Mac’s background at the time. During my copycats talk the previous day, which Bill saw, I mostly skipped over Mac, for obvious reasons. So Bill probably assumed due to Mac’s age that he was one of the Vietnam copycats like LaPoint, Heady, Goodell, or McCoy. So I made sure to ask him at the start of our interview (already knew the answer of course) whether he was a felon at the time, which he was. He had a prior felony for burglary. At the time he decided to do the skyjacking he was scouting out the routes on several Brinks trunks. As I’ve said numerous times, he’s the only one of my canonical six copycats who was a legitimate criminal. He was essentially just a bank robber who thought this could be a good score. Mac also made sure to point out that his own hijacking was not victimless. Two of the stewardesses claim to still have nightmares from it. Humans are so very different from one another with how they handle things because his “Tina”, Sharon, is good friends with him now. They were texting each other this weekend and he was sending her pictures.

Really amazing photo. McNally and Bill Mitchell. The two interacted frequently over the weekend and Bill seemed captivated during Marty's talk. During his own talk, Bill was talking about how it wasn't a victimless crime and got choked up a bit when he pointed to Marty and said something like "look how Cooper derailed Mac's entire life."

But we are talking about natural arrival here. How does it get there (and get soaked) absent human intervention without a flood or dredge?

Money bundles sink. Thus, for a flood to be the culprit for how the bundle arrived at TB, the bundle would have to be pushed there along with debris churned up by flood water. There would be silt on the bills if it came in contact with flood water. That is “dirty water.” If, for example, someone just dunked the money in the Columbia and then threw it in a hole, there would not be any significant amount of silt in that water. That would be “clean water.” As obnoxious as the “someone planted it there” theory is, Kaye’s latest analysis actually tends to support that. Presumably if the bundle was part of dredge spoils it would also have “dirty water”

So Tom didn’t actually do a presentation on that. He just told us about it.

So here is one of the weird ones to figure out. Tom was unable to find any evidence that the bills had been exposed to “dirty water” i.e. flood water. There was no indication of any silt on the bills, which flood water will always have.

About 25 more than last year. No reason it shouldn’t be much more.

Rubber bands on both sides of the bills confirmed. A rubber band down the middle would have squished the middle of the bills together and you’d see fewer diatoms in the middle. Fewer diatoms on the edges means it was rubber banded on the sides.

Amen, Tom