olemisscub

Contamination to some degree would be inevitable, but look at the prevalence of elements like chromium, tungsten, molybdenum, and vanadium, which are all almost exclusively used in the creation of metal alloys and aren't encountered in the wild very often by civilians. To have all of them one after the other popping up on a tie that also has that much pure titanium really seems to indicate that the those particles didn't arrive there by contamination. It's quite possible that Cooper picked the tie up randomly or he snatched it from somewhere, but I think it's hard to argue that the tie, at some point in its life, was worn by someone in the metals industry. It would be nice if a control had been done with some sticky stubs being applied to other items shoved in that box.

It's Michael Douglas from Falling Down

Someone who is very, very vain.

I cleaned up Dr. Edwards' new high res copy of KK5-1 that was mixed with the lower half of the Newsweek scammer (the one Bill and Flo said was closest to Cooper they had ever seen).

Lennon or McCartney?

I'm with you on the Reca business. It's openly and notoriously fraudulent IMO. I'm not a fan of the smugness and condescension that Jones has toward actual Cooper researchers either.

Yes I know you're right, but I guess I have to ask how many people on the planet can ramble about the Cooper case for 3 hours and stick mostly to the known facts? A dozen? Less? I think keeping the case alive in the public eye is critical. Getting into the case via misinformation is often times better than not getting into it at all. Smart people will adapt and recognize that the misinformation that originally got them into the case was incorrect and they'll start learning and getting into the correct minutiae of the case. Hell, it was misinformation-laden media that got most of us into the case with the Unsolved Mysteries or In Search Of episodes, etc. There are some really sharp people who have joined the case due to both of the dumb Rackstraw productions, the one in 2016 and the most recent Netflix show. Also, people can dislike Ulis all they want but the Facebook Group has been a great thing and has brought a lot of neat evidence to light. I'm also grateful to Ulis for doing the CooperCon thing. It's great to have event so we can "gather the tribe", as Bruce called it. I think Darren's podcast has the same effect. He gets between 10k to up to 20k listeners an episode. That's pretty awesome. Point is, keeping the case in the public eye is key to bringing new minds into the case and keeping the topic fresh in the public consciousness. It's too bad you aren't able to do Darren's show. You should start your own show as you've suggested. I can be your first guest, haha.

Coming from you I'll take that as a win! :-)

fwiw I've been trying to verify some of the details in Tosaw's narrative of the actual skyjacking since a good bit of it hasn't yet appeared in 302 releases. The two packing cards found in the single chute at Reno certainly seem to validate the packing cards bit in Tosaw. So I'm trying to figure out ways to validate some of the other stuff he says. Without leading the witness, I asked Mitchell at breakfast one morning about when he was moved up toward the front and he said it was shortly before they descended. He said Tina asked him to move up but because he had his books spread out he didn't want to be bothered, so he refused. He continued, saying that much later a dark haired stewardess came back and basically begged him to move up, so he did. This stew was likely Flo and her testimony corroborates this: "she remained in the cockpit until shortly before the plane landed. She said that the pilot instructed her to go to the tourist section and make sure that no one walked back in the area where the hijacker was sitting." So she probably walks back there to do as she was told and sees Bill still in the very back. So she asks him very nicely to move up, and he begrudgingly complies. Precisely what Bill told me is what is in the Tosaw narrative. So I think that is credible. How long was Mitchell closer to Cooper than Gregory? I don't think we can know that. And yes, I'm in agreement about Braden. It's a small detail, but something that really makes me second guess Braden is how concerned Cooper was about the Air Marshals. We get him being express an almost timid concern about the Air Marshals from both Tina and Alice. I just don't see Braden vocally expressing those concerns, if he even would have had them to begin with.

I'm very, very confused why some people in the Braden camp push Elsinore so much. Why in the absolute holy hell would Ted B. Braden need to ask skydiving advice from ANYONE on the planet in 1971?

Seconded. It would give some of us the opportunity to make a lengthy post calling out everything you said wrong or that we disagree with when you are recorded speaking about Cooper for 3 hours straight.

The only two copycats who were skydivers brought their own rigs. I talked to Meltzer about this the other day and he agreed that there is no way in hell he or any other skydiver would do such a thing without having their own chute.

This is a hell of a front page. Hoover, Apollo Mission, Vietnam, and Cooper.

That checks out.

Indeed. Perhaps Cossey was thinking of olive drab when he said "sage green"? Obviously he was clearly off on the harness color because you can't confuse sage green for tan. My take on Cossey's behavior in those early days is that he didn't exactly remember the chutes vividly and may have also been lazy about his record keeping, thus his evasiveness about the serial numbers. He seems to me like an ADHD type of individual who just wasn't very well organized and in lieu of admitting that he just didn't remember he would instead just make things up and embellish.

Here is Cossey interviewed the next day for the paper:

A couple 302's describing the chutes, the first one being from the very next day with a description from Hayden

Interesting. Just looked at it myself. Marty missed a paragraph there.

Lot’s of agent confusion about the size of the canopies in the respective main chutes. They alternate between 26 and 28 foot. Thank Allah for the 302’s on the chutes. With them I was finally able to expunge from the Wikipedia page all the civilian sport luxury chute nonsense that the FBI put out into the zeitgeist.

You can sense the frustration the FBI had with Cossey in the 302's. It doesn't seem like he ever provided them with the serial numbers he claimed he was going to give them.

I sent that 302 over to Meltzer as he had never seen it before. He was quite amazed at it. It's another check mark in the "Tosaw didn't make this up" side of the ledger. The language of that 302 is intriguing. It calls the "Cooper packing card" an "integral part" of the remaining chute. This makes me think that Cooper just tucked the card under the canvas folds of the chute pack. I'm not sure they'd have used that language if it had been put in the packing card pocket i.e. the agents didn't pull both cards out of the same pocket.

Concerning the two cards found in the remaining main chute…the packing card for the remaining chute is probably still in it (Bruce has a pic of it on his website), so I wonder where the other card (60-9707, SN 7/60) ended up. Presumably stuffed in a file folder somewhere.

Concerning the two cards found in the remaining main chute…the packing card for the remaining chute is probably still in it (Bruce has a pic of it on his website), so I wonder where the other card (60-9707, SN 7/60) ended up. Presumably stuffed in a file folder somewhere.

Agreed. McCoy had an interesting life story with a tragic ending. Had he just kept his head down and done his prison time, I think he would have been released early just like the other hijackers who were suffering from PTSD at the time, LaPoint and Heady.

I’ll PM you