CooperNWO305

Oh yea, I think remember hearing that maybe the FBI agents took souvenirs in the form of the para cord. I’ve theorized that Cooper was good with knots. I’ve seen some old timers and boaters tie knots like I tie my shoes, fast. That white cord could have been on there when he got the chutes. Or he could have tied it. I’m not sure what kind of knot that is.

What is the white cord on two spots of the reserve chute for? Also, in terms of Cooper cutting 100 feet of shroud line, is that 100 feet of the outer cord, which would mean five or six strands of small inner cord of 100 feet too?

I love this line from a news story on the Netflix show. Of course, how Colbert came to suspect Rackstraw in the first place sounds comical. A friend of Colbert’s heard from a friend of a friend who knew a gambler who claimed they knew D.B. Cooper. The gambler turned out to know Dick Briggs, a cocaine supplier and criminal who claimed to be Cooper back in the ’70s and died in 1980. Colbert’s research proved Briggs to be a liar; he’d never even served in Vietnam. So using police connections, Colbert found a narc who knew Briggs back in the day. The narc directed Colbert to Briggs’ old partner, Robert Rackstraw.

Anyone with access to old newspapers able to find articles from before FEB 1980 to see what the money theories were before Brian found the $5800?

Good info on the wider nose. A 3/4 profile sketch would be good. Something else I'd be curious as to if anyone saw the top of his head. I'm now in the DB Cooper age range, and for the past few years, hair loss has been a conversation point for my and my male friends. Some guys are bald, some are receeding, but some are just losing hair in the middle top of their head, so from the side and front they look pretty normal, but if you are all enough or see them sitting down, you see that bald spot. My guess is that if someone saw a bald spot that they would have mentioned it.

Right, but they were not all found mentally incompetent. Most were actually charged and sentenced as regular criminals. If Cooper saw that he had a chance to be charged as a mental patient, it could have helped with his motivation.

https://skyjackeroftheday.tumblr.com/post/52323379372/12-arthur-barkley Interesting that this hijacker was found incompetent in November of 1971 and did not go to prison. As of 2006 he was still in a mental home.

I saw some discussion on Cooper's appearance and how his nose looked. Attached are a number of references to how his nose and face looked wider than shown in the composites. These come from multiple witnesses. I've believed for a while that the composites show a better looking man than may have been the case. Not one witness ever said DB Cooper was handsome. The initial sketch looks like a movie star, and the third sketch (B) certainly looks like a movie star (James Bond, or one of Cary Grant's characters). The sad reality is that most of us just don't look that good. Noses do in a sense grow over time, something to do with cartilage shrinking/not shrinking. Old men seem to have bigger noses and bigger ears. Note: I would hazard a guess that most of the people who have a passing interest in the Cooper case have never once looked at a 302, and if they have, they have not looked at them in depth like us on this forum. DB Cooper nose 302s.pdf

Derwin Schroeder?

Sounds like maybe this crew did some research on the case. That’s good.

R99, Georger, separate from this communication. As I understand from Flyjack, there are still communications that have not been released yet? R99, I think I saw you post about that on the DB Cooper Forum at some point too. Is this accurate? The ones not released would be comms from Flight 305 with Northwest. How many sets of comms were there? 1. Flight 305 by radio to Seattle Air Traffic Control? 2. Flight 305 by radio to Northwest Airlines in Minneapolis? This has not been released yet?? 3, 4???

FBI Files in Vault Part 72 https://vault.fbi.gov/D-B-Cooper%20/d.b.-cooper-part-72/view

I took the list of elements by abundance in the Earth's crust and then compared it to Cooper's tie. A note of "gas" means I know it is a gas and therefore was not found on the tie in solid form. A no means it was not found on his tie. Here is the list in order of abundance. I noticed that Carbon was not found on the tie, that seems odd. Platinum was not either, but maybe that's because it is very rare. EDIT: I thought for a second here. Carbon should have shown up, a lot. I think I found out why. From Citizen Sleuths "Sticky carbon tape on stubs were used to lift samples from the tie (Fig. 2) and Fig. 2 Circles represent sample sites where sticky tape was used.were examined under the scanning electron microscope (SEM)." They must have taken this out of the calculation. Element On Cooper's tie? oxygen Gas silicon Yes aluminum Yes iron Yes calcium Yes sodium Yes magnesium Yes potassium Yes titanium Yes hydrogen Gas phosphorus Yes manganese Yes fluorine Yes barium Yes strontium Yes sulphur Yes carbon No zirconium Yes chlorine Yes vanadium Yes chromium Yes rubidium No nickel Yes zinc Yes cerium Yes copper Yes neodymium No lanthanum Yes yttrium Yes nitrogen Gas cobalt Yes scandium No lithium No niobium No gallium No lead Yes boron No thorium No praseodymium No samarium No gadolinium No dysprosium No erbium No argon Gas ytterbium No hafnium No caesium No beryllium No uranium No bromine Yes tin Yes tantalum No europium No arsenic No germanium No tungsten Yes holmium No molybdenum Yes terbium No thallium No lutetium No thulium No iodine No indium No antimony Yes cadmium Yes mercury Yes silver Yes selenium No palladium Yes bismuth Yes helium Gas neon Gas platinum No gold Yes osmium No tellurium No ruthenium No iridium No rhodium No rhenium No krypton Gas xenon Gas protactinium No radium No polonium No plutonium No neptunium No technetium No actinium No radon No promethium No francium No

Parrot: There are many scenarios as you know, so I have a few in my head that could work, but I realize that what happened may not even have occurred to us. So for me it comes down to probability versus certainty. Some options are simply more likely than others. Here goes. He hijacked the plane and got the $200k, risked his life (maybe he only had a few years left to live). So he is highly focused on getting away with the money. I subscribe to the 8:12 jump time, and that the plane was north of the river, and that the winds were blowing north/northeast. Therefore I find it less probable that he landed in water, and even if he did, the chances of him landing in deep water are slim. The diatom research helps give some credibility to him not landing in the water too. The Tina Bar money was 300 bills of 10,000. 6%. You'd think we would have found some other bills in the area. It's possible they are still out there, or that the bills traveled 100 miles to the ocean. Possible, but is it probable? I believe he lived. It's possible the parachute near the Hession store was his. If it wasn't, then I'm thinking he buried it or took it with him and disposed of it far away. So no money, no parachute, no nothing. The money may have gone into circulation. We just don't know. There was no way to systematically find those bills, contrary to what some people say. He could have spent the $20s. There were billions of those series in circulation. Even if he spent 10% of the money, that is still a lot of money to a blue collar worker in 1971. His goal could have been a surgery, or college for his kids, etc. He may not have needed all $200k. The Tina Bar money could possibly have dropped from the plane later than when he jumped. We do know the plane flew over the river at some point. It is odd that the amount found and in the configuration it was found is likely the same amount that he took out and offered to Tina. He could have done the same to someone on the road when he landed. There are many ways that $6000 could have been separated. If he landed in the water, I'd have a better feeling that the money washed into the ocean, assuming it did not get caught up anywhere. I'm not sure if there were any dams or locks, etc. on that river then. Maybe someone can answer that. If I had to speculate, this is what I would say. He got on the steps with $200k or with $193k. He landed with most of it. He stashed most of it, and escaped, my guess is by rail. I can explain that if people want to hear. The benefit of stashing the money is that if he is caught and stopped, he has no ties to the hijacking, none. He could have found some garbage bags and buried the money and come back years later. He goes home, gets the rest of the money later, spends some over a period of time, does not get greedy, keeps working, and eventually retires. I often wonder sometimes if he had cancer and wanted to provide for his family, but then maybe beat the cancer or prolonged his life. If he had mental issues then he might have known he'd end up in a VA hospital or mental hospital. Not fun, but not prison. I've read of a few hijackers that were only incarcerated for a few years.

There were some files on this sketch in a recent Vault release. I’ll have to check it out.

I took the McCrone spreadsheets and found 37 elements listed. Some of these are in small amounts. I'll get to some percentages later. If you remove the gas elements (Oxygen, the Nobel gasses (argon, neon, etc.) and the radioactive ones and obscure ones, then the remaining elements are represented well on this list. My observation is that Cooper's tie contained quite a few, if not all of the most common elements possible in solid form. I'll have to go back and see which common ones were not found on the tie. If anyone wants to look at the list and figure that out, go for it. Name Silver Aluminum Gold Barium Bismuth Bromine Calcium Cadmium Cerium Chlorine Cobalt Chromium Copper Fluorine Iron Mercury Potassium Lanthanum Magnesium Manganese Molybdenum Sodium Nickel Phosphorus Lead Palladium Sulfur Antimony Silicon Tin Strontium Titanium Vanadium Tungsten Yttrium Zinc Zirconium

There was a demo at CooperCon of the bag filled with money as I remember, and some videos. My observation is that it was a lot of money to fit into a knapsack. I can only go off the ones I saw around the house when I was a kid or at other houses. The book bag ones would be way too small. The general purpose ones would have been real tight. However, a military surplus or a hiking knapsack might have worked. 20 pounds is a lot to lug around if you are hiking, especially if it is not positioned well. Granted I've hiked with a lot more, but still, 20 pounds can wear you out. My assessment is that he did not plan this part very well. I would have demanded a knapsack/backpack again, or seen if a passenger had one, or made the FBI get me one at a local store. A knapsack could have been attached a lot easier than a money bag. However, it sounds like he figured a way to do it. We are pretty confident that he did not indicate what bills to get. A $20 would be a good choice to spend to avoid being noticed. $50 or $100 start to raise questions. I guess if he says knapsack then the assumption is the money would come in a knapsack and therefore be whatever denomination fits into the knapsack. Good thing they didn't bring $10 bills. Regardless, if he landed with the money, then he would have been very motivated to get it out of the area, and would have figured a way to carry it out, or stash it. Of all the theories, the Gunther one does not get much publicity. That is that a few packets fell out while he was on the stairs, and that he landed with the rest, and hid it, but forgot he left some food with it, so when he came back, animals had gotten into the bag.

Is Hal Williams the gate agent still alive?

It would be in the censuses. I’ll have to look later.

Discussion on the Facebook group about maps. Why would pilots need maps? Wouldn’t they have some for their area? And if they didn’t, then what area did Cooper request?

Pic of Mitchell’s ticket from CooperCon

Good point. Tom mentioned that the tie tack/pin/bar whatever we call it was coated with gold, so the element Au would show up. The stubs had nickel in them too. I've counted 34 elements in the first summary from McCrone. It will take some time to count from the other tabs. There are something like 118 elements in the periodic chart, but many of those are very rare like plutonium, livermorium, etc. Long story short, it looks to me like almost every common element in the world was found on that tie. I had some leads on places to test clothing, but I did not follow up with paying the $1000 or $1500 to do so. It sounds like Flyjack is the only one to have had something tested.

How are these not Titanium alloys? It looks to me if the elements are found together that it could mean they are an alloy. In Tom Kaye's presentation he discussed the pure titanium as likely being found with Chlorine or salt (depending on if it is the Hunter Process or Kroll Process). Titanium alloy would contain silicon, aluminum, iron, etc. It varies. I do believe the tie was at a metals shop or a chemicals plant. Narrowing that down though is a needle in a haystack, unless we had Cooper and then found out he worked at a plant. That assumes the tie was his.

Above is a snip of a series of the McCrone spreadsheets. You can see in the upper left (Detail) how complex it is. The summary (right) is easier to read. The part in yellow is just a few columns of the detail sheet. I was interested to see that four elements were listed on each particle. There are 100s of thousands of these lines. I watched Tom's presentation at CooperCon 2018 and got more info. I need to dust off some of my detailed Excel training and figure out how to quickly get all the info into one tab so I can count elements. That may take me a bit. What will that get me? Not much. I think it will just say that Cooper was around a lot of equipment, machines, dust, etc. The guy had a clip on tie, which means he was probably not a CEO.