olemisscub

It’s actually two. Flo said Cooper “appeared to be of Latin descent” just after getting off the plane to the FBI. She’s the only individual who locked eyes with Cooper. Not sure it makes a difference but Flo is mixed race herself. Gregory is the one who said 1/4 Mexican or 1/4 Native American. Their statements, combined with the fact that 9 of the 10 witnesses used the terms “dark” “swarthy” or “olive”, leads me to think a good Cooper suspect more likely than not needs to have some sort of obviously dark complexion that could make our best eyewitness (imo) say that he looked Latin while the plane was still out on the runway at SeaTac (very fresh memory)

I actually have the answer to this question about the light straight from the source but it’s in my book, so I’ll have to be guilty of doing the old “Flyjack Special” on this one haha

Just a random suspect who was eliminated. There are literally 1000 of these guys in the files haha. but even eliminated suspects can sometimes give us insights into Cooper’s possible appearance due to what the witnesses have to say about photographs of the suspects and what parts of the suspect’s face remind them of Cooper.

I can’t recall him saying anything like that. he did say in the 2016 documentary that he had something in his pocket that he could use to snuff out the real Cooper. It was a while back when I asked him about that privately and if I’m not mistaken it was essentially going to be “tell me about the drink you had on the plane.” Basically nobody (at least before the FBI files and Skyjack) other than Cooper and Bill would know that Cooper spilled his drink. .

I was being hyperbolic. We've had some horrifyingly bad ones. And yes I see what you see with Murphy and Bill. I won't deny that.

You realize his eyebrows are raised in both photos? You may even be correct that his are extreme, but it’s amusing to me that you’ll apply such critical analysis of another suspect but not to your own suspect, who from my perspective is almost as bad of a match to the Cooper descriptions as Reca. Literally the only thing H has that matches the Cooper description is his skin tone and perhaps some aspects of his hair.

You better not be going down the Reca grift path of claiming that this mentally deranged loser was actually some super stud CIA asset.

FWIW, I find Hahneman’s hijacking to be the most entertaining in retrospect. They apparently served drinks throughout the event to keep passengers calm and you’d swear that some of them were dead drunk by what they were doing onboard and what they said to the media afterward. One of my favorites is a passenger asking the President of Eastern Airlines, former astronaut Frank Borman, to autograph his boarding pass once he got off the plane and recognized him in the terminal.

That will sadly never happen. It’s too bad though. He has no reason to be so shy. I mean, to not even go on Darren’s show is pretty wild. Although Georger never has either. I think he and Georger are the only two longtime Cooperites who haven’t.

Honestly though, the only explanation you could have (and perhaps this is what you have) to explain such a discrepancy in personality would be that he was a complete lunatic and suffered from legitimate multiple personality disorder like something from a movie. I think we all understand that Hahneman was mentally disturbed but he behaves like an entirely different human than Cooper.

Then he was a fool. That’s not at all how explosives work. But to be fair, he only needed to fool his hostages.

Even if you believe it was safer for him, this still leaves my pertinent point unanswered. Why do anything differently that isn’t an obvious improvement? When using a briefcase bomb and remaining as low key as possible worked so well the first time, why devolve into a more thuggish heist where you are pointing your gun at passengers and directly threatening to blow them away? Bill’s method ultimately worked, but using a pistol and allowing every single passenger to get a look at you cannot possibly be better than Cooper’s subtlety.

Only photo I could find of the guy

Fair enough, but from my critical perspective that’s still another obvious inconsistency between the two hijackers. As a critic, I think the most jarring one is that he had his ransom items from the aft stairs and then had the passengers exit out the aft stairs while he stood back there as they all filed past him. These were two things that Cooper was very clear needed to occur out the front exit. That’s my issue with him or McCoy or any copycat being considered Cooper. They all had the basic premise of the heist from news reports but didn’t have the exact details and minutiae. Aside from jumping out with money, every copycat hijacking was totally unique and were only similar to Cooper in the broad strokes. If Cooper had actually struck a second time, I have no doubt he would have made some improvements, but it beggars belief that he would have deviated from his original heist in a WORSE way (McCoy wearing a ridiculous outfit that only drew attention to himself, Bill demanding the action take place from the aft stairs and violently threatening passengers, etc)

I’ve said many times that I believe Cooper was 100% winging it, yet I still give him enough credit for him to have understood he was over Clark/Cowlitz County when he jumped. He almost certainly saw the glow of Portland coming up in the distance through the clouds once he got to the bottom of the stairs and it would be silly for him to have not known that was Portland. There are only two cities of such a size in that entire region of the country.

This isn’t meant as a dig at your suspect, so don’t take that way. I’m genuinely curious how you square away the fact that Hahneman was noted as wearing regular bifocal glasses before switching to sunglasses during his hijacking. Obviously Cooper was managing just fine without glasses in the terminal and on the plane before he began the hijacking.

Look down and go at the earliest moment when he feels comfortable doing so… He had no reason to not wait until he was comfortable. His life depended on it.

He was probably out a minute or two before BG. If there was a break in the clouds there would have been enough visible lights if he was over Woodland or LaCenter for him to know he was past the Forest.

I’ve had a few mods come and go. Doubt it was John. Not his style. I don’t boot actual Cooperites.

Wasn’t anything I did.

You’re not blocked on my FB group fwiw. Maybe Eric’s. Only person blocked is a bot account.

I think you’re projecting how you feel about me and others. I don’t wish anyone to be removed who has the capacity to bring value to the case. What you’re suggesting is actually the opposite of how I feel. I wish he was MORE visible. It would be great if he actually posted on FB or Reddit. I’ve privately invited him on my show, example. Things may get contentious between you and I or me and Flyjack, but that doesn’t mean I have some personal disdain or dislike for you or him. I just view it as a debate. I’m not always great at reigning in my personal snark and I’m guilty of personal attacks when my blood is up in the moment, which I regret in hindsight, but someone having a contrary opinion to me doesn’t mean I have genuine personal disdain for that person and wish they weren’t part of our community. That’s why CC has value. You can share beers with people you argue with. I liken it to criminal cases of mine where myself and the prosecutor will go have lunch together in the middle of a contentious trial. It’s just debate. To suggest that I’m afraid of Flyjack is silly. I actually enjoy being challenged because I enjoy debating and defending my theories. I also enjoy and value his insights. While I disagree vehemently with many of his stances and I’m not afraid to push back, he still brings much to the table and I respect his research skills. I’m having to rewrite an entire chapter of my book thanks to some of his challenges. I have a pretty major mea culpa to give my audience soon thanks to him. And I genuinely mean THANKS to him because I understand my responsibility as a “face” these days and the responsibility of writing a book that I hope stands the test of time. I’d much rather get the FACTS right than hold onto and promote an erroneous opinion simply because it was once mine and am afraid to admit to being wrong. I just want to get it right to the best of my understanding of the evidence. I’m able to be persuaded by others and by new evidence. That isn’t a sin. My only agenda is to try and get the case history and the case evidence correct for the sake of posterity. This is what I’ve never understood about the attacks you’ve made on me for changing my opinions on things. Isn’t it better if a researcher is able to be honest with themselves and is able to persuaded by other opinions and new research as opposed to being stuck for a decade with an immovable opinion?

Tina entered the cockpit at 7:40 according to the radio comms. Plane took off at 7:36

I generally put him in Balorama's in my animations. McCoy was wearing mirrored aviators. Mac wore aviators as well.