olemisscub

But you are discussing it publicly. This is an open forum.

Whether one believes he jumped at the Lewis River or further south, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he jumped once the plane was no longer over deep ass forest.

I would never have added that scam to the Wiki. This gag video I made sums up what I think about Reca. His “confession” is one of the lamest things ever foisted upon the Vortex. That grift is an insult to anyone who honestly researches or cares about this case. https://youtu.be/zlQMyhRA58w?si=kydoM85WybRWSem0

Indeed. Mac is an example of winging it and successfully surviving and getting away from his DZ. Of course we can’t know for certain, but It’s logical that Cooper must have been looking for some sort of lights to at least know he wasn’t over water or heavy forest. Part of winging it would be to wait for some sort of indication of what is below you. None of us nor none of these dudes would jump over pitch darkness. If you’re winging it then you have no reason to not just wait until you’re comfortable with what is beneath you, which is what Mac did. Of course, Hahneman is probably the best counter example. I can’t imagine he saw much (or any) civilization below him when he jumped. I wouldn’t consider him a particularly rational hijacker though. I know you do, but I don’t find him to be a particularly good analog to Cooper. Of all the copycats, Mac is the closest analog to Cooper in personality. He stayed pretty calm throughout, behaved rationally, was good natured with the crew like Cooper, and was obviously winging it. The main distinction between them is parachute knowledge. Mac knew nothing about them - Cooper knew something about them.

Submit a FOIA for them. I just don’t think you’ll get very far. It appears that they treat unidentified individuals the same as living ones. I submitted a FOIA for the photo of the unidentified police mugshot from Canada whom Tina said was a great match for Coop. She said something like that she got a “funny feeling” when seeing his photo. My request was rejected.

Prints of known deceased people.

My ultimate point remains: the FBI aren’t going to release the Cooper prints to anyone outside the Bureau nor are they going to undertake any effort of their own at this point.

Anyone who served in the Army or Air Force from 1914 until 1968 had their records, including fingerprints, destroyed in the St. Louis Fire. If what you’re saying is correct, which would mean MILLIONS of old military fingerprints were scanned and added to a database (I find this unlikely), they would only be from the Navy or Marines for those who served before 68.

Well, it’s not like the public will ever have access to them. It would take the FBI to try and do something with them using modern technology or releasing them to an outside source, which you and I both know they won’t do because they don’t care to spend any more resources on this. And even still, there would still need to be available source prints within the NCIC database. Your suspect’s prints are in that database, so I understand where you’re coming from with this, but it would still take the FBI releasing those partial prints, which they won’t ever do.

Palm prints weren’t taken by law enforcement as standard practice until LAPD and NYPD began doing it in 2003. As per Mike Davis (former paratrooper of the year and current military recruiter who I’ve interviewed on my channel), the military still don’t take palm prints and never have. Even if we had clean fingerprints, which we don’t, it would be unlikely to help unless his prints were in the FBI’s database. If he was in the Army or Air Force, his prints would have been destroyed in the 1973 St. Louis fire. If he was Navy or Marines, his prints would exist but they wouldn’t be in the NCIC database. So military prints are a dead end. Ultimately, the prints are sadly useless IMO. Concerning the case being solved, it’s hair slide or bust. If that was found then forensic genealogy could be applied and find an appropriate suspect. Even still, there would be those who would claim the hair didn’t come from Cooper (a logical possibility) and/or that it’s the wrong person who was found through genealogy. Absent some fantastical scenario where someone finds a large amount of the money in grandfather’s attic, and grandfather is a good match to the descriptions, I doubt there would ever be a suspect whom 95% of the community would agree is Cooper.

Suffering tremendously. He credits his time in prison with helping him heal. We’re working to get him to CC this year. Mac may be back as well.

Yes. Cooper was certainly the most rational actor of any of the hijackers I’ve ever come across. But to do this in the first place you have to be a bit off your rocker.

Maybe Cooper didn’t care. He repeatedly told Tina he wasn’t going to be taken alive. Heady surely didn’t want to be caught, but he did it in just a few days. “There wasn’t much planning, but I knew it could be done.” Not that the FBI knew one way or the other, but they definitely thought he was inspired by Cini.

fwiw, Mac had 1800 flight hours in a P-2 Neptune as a crewman. One of his fellow crewmen testified at Mac’s trial that his crew had parachute training, but said he couldn’t recall Mac being there. Not that it matters if Mac was there - he clearly didn’t have a clue or what he was doing with the parachute and had to have the flight engineer show him how to put it on at gunpoint. .

It’s not something we can know. But nothing about Cooper’s heist required more than a week to plan. The idea that two men were simultaneously coming up with a similar heist at the same time that had never before been attempted seems improbable. Not totally inconceivable or anything, but just seems unlikely.

Important for anyone who is reading this to remember that all of this was BEFORE Tena Bar

He said he spent $15,000 on it. I assume his contract was commission only.

Yes, John Banks was his name. He ran a company called Electronic Exploration. Claimed he spent over 5,000 hours on the Cooper case, which is a laughable number, of course.

To be clear, the 302 is what was new to me and also that Globe was keeping the FBI in the know about it. The salvage operation was written about pretty extensively in Himmy’s book.

This was new to me. Royal Globe apparently told the FBI in 1976 that they hired a salvage team to search Lake Merwin.

For the hell of it I decided to upload a bunch of the Cooper money photos to ChatGPT. I explained that it washed up on a beach originally in a bundle and asked what would be the cause of the edges looking that way. Soil Acidity & Microbial Activity: Paper currency buried underground is vulnerable to fungi, bacteria, and acidic soil. These eat away at the cellulose fibers, starting from exposed edges. That’s why the edges are more deteriorated—microbes attack from the outside in. Water Damage (Floodplain or Tidal Influence): Repeated wetting and drying cycles from a tidal area or seasonal flooding cause the paper to delaminate and rot unevenly. Saltwater or brackish water could accelerate this if found near a coast or estuary. Oxygen Deprivation (Partial Anaerobic Conditions): In deeper soil or under dense sediment, oxygen is limited, slowing decomposition in the core of the bundle. This can explain why some interior pieces might be more intact than the outer ones. Compression from the Rubber Band: The rubber band would have held the bundle together tightly for a time, protecting the inner bills slightly. However, over time, rubber decays, and the band either breaks or fuses with the outer bills, sometimes leaving distinct discoloration or causing distortion. Bills on the outside of the bundle would have taken the brunt of environmental damage. Sediment Abrasion: If the bundle was moved by floodwaters or a shifting riverbank, sand and silt could act like sandpaper, rounding and fraying the edges. I then asked it if rolling along the bottom of the river could cause that damage.... Yes—rolling submerged along the bottom of a river could absolutely cause the rounded, scalloped edges you see in the image. In fact, that kind of mechanical erosion is one of the most plausible explanations for the distinctive damage pattern. Here’s how that would work: Constant Abrasion: As the bundle tumbles or slides along the riverbed, it gets scraped by sand, gravel, and small rocks. This slowly wears away the outer edges of the bills—just like how rocks in a river become smooth and rounded over time. Edge-First Damage: Since bills are thin and flexible, the edges are most exposed during tumbling. Repeated folding, flapping, and scraping action causes the edges to fray, break, and wear away, creating those irregular, rounded contours. Bundle Dynamics: If the bills were still in a rubber band (even partially decayed), the bundle would roll and drag as a single unit, meaning the outer bills would absorb most of the damage. Interior bills might remain more intact—especially if compressed. Water Saturation and Fiber Breakdown: Prolonged submersion softens the paper (cotton/linen blend), weakening its fibers. This makes it more susceptible to tearing and abrasion, especially at the edges. Combined with mechanical motion, this would produce rounded and lace-like damage—exactly what we see. How Long Would It Take? It would likely take weeks to months of tumbling in a moderately strong river current to cause this degree of damage. A single storm event or spring flood could also loosen a buried bundle and send it rolling.

Bill Grinnell:

When Cunningham put his bundle in the tub to see if it would float or sink and how fast, the paper straps were already disintegrating within a few hours after removing the bundle from the tub.

This is what I've got in my book after working pretty extensively with Brian on the writing of my Tena Bar chapter.

This is completely incorrect. We know with 100% certainty that the numbers were pre-recorded by the bank. They had $250,000 in a "ransom pack" that were all pre-recorded in the event of a bank robbery. All of those bills were pre-recorded on microfilm. The bank handed this microfilm over to the FBI on Nov 25th.