FunnyStuff

You're most likely correct that the existence of near $6,000 at TB is the only reason we even ever started to believe that they were bundled in $6,000 increments. If they were actually bundled in $10,000 increments, I suppose it gives way to a higher probability that either: #1 was there longer than we originally thought and had to degrade more or #2 it had been altered before it got there.

It seems that everyone states with near certainty that the bundles were 3 $2,000 packets rubberbanded together but as far as I know no document tells us that's a certainty. It doesn't make sense to me that the bank would group $200,000(or $250,000) for that matter in increments of $6,000. Seems more probable to be either 4 or 5 $2,000 packets per rubberbanded grouping.

I've always thought the "in shoes" consideration is a little silly anyway. I feel that people mostly quote height as "without shoes" anyway. In other words when some says "i'm 5'10"" they were measured without shoes so Tina/Flo/everyone's internal understanding of "that guy is 6ft" is based on an no shoes measurement. Furthermore, if you see the full body photos of Ted he looks extremely tiny in all proportions like his arms and shoulder width. He's so petite I can't imagine the witnesses not calling it out.

I think there's conflicting reports because there's contension on accuracy of some military record which I think pegs him at 5'6". If memory serves everyone pegs him at 5'8" which I think came from some's personal experience with him and an eyeballing estimate so probably quoted "with shoes"

Interesting stuff here but I'm curious if the 10,000 ft height requirement would have changed these. Quick and dirty research suggests you could probably make it without going straight to the coast but the Klamath mountains would ultimately push you towards the coast line so I think there's a good chance they'd just fly out that way to start.

I can 100% get behind the electronics fit. Lots of large percentage gold + palladium and a decent count of particles containing potential solders. There remains guaranteed alluminum alloy fragments and lots of iron rust and mischmetal as well though. The Ti is the biggest swing I think from the old data. The old stuff had much less oxygen related to the Ti. The new scan has the biggest Ti beak between 20-35% oxygen so it's still less than a perfect match for titanium dioxide. I don't know enough on the scanning process and reliability but if +/-5 to 10% oxygen is considered reasonable then most of the Ti is likely just TiO2 and could be any number of things such as paint pigment. There's also one particle nearly totaly made up of uranium but I'm sure we shouldn't put too much stock into it as it's such a small sample.

I'm still early in looking at the rescan posted by TK which does show alot more oxygen in the Ti particles (could be titanium dioxide which is much more common) than the first scans. If this data set even closely mirrors the first scans then I can't see a reasonable path for FBI storage or handling contaminating it. If there was fingerprinting done on the tie I feel confident it would have been disclosed in the 302s.

There's a major dick measuring contest brewing in the FB group over claims the particulate makeup on the tie is actually finger print powder. Did they fingerprint the tie? It looks like that would probably never happen to a piece of fabric + the 302 on the fingerprinting doesn't mention the tie.

I would say the full transcript that lists the line "cabin rate of climb indicator", the fact frequency was known to be down, the fact that we know a call was made by phone patch, and the fact there's no record currently available to us of the crew directly reporting the pressure bump sensation are all data points "to the contrary". I respect FlyJack's opinion on this since he apparently has other data he says corroborates an 8:11 jump time but I can't say I agree with this stance until Iearn more about that data myself. Unless I learn more details about this I don't think I can get behind a jump at 8:11 based on the facts available to us.

What alternate data did you analyze that corroborated 8:11? I have seen the extended transcript that shows the full line "cabin rate of climb indicator" so I feel confident they said that at 8:11. Are you suggesting this was the only communication of the pilots of the pressure bump sensation?

Yes but this is one of the things the FBI probably got wrong. They were relying on an abbreviated line in the transcripts (which actually refered to the oscilations in the cabin rate of climb indicator) to tether the pressure bump to. The pressure bump most probably came there after but before 8:20 "we called you" line.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1Bo6kbE9P4/ Tom Kaye posted the last scan from McCrones here last night to the Facebook group. He said in a separate post that it will not be uploaded to his citizen sleuth website so you need to get it while you can. I've been waiting on this for a while and ready to start looking into it

I'm not intimately familiar with the Martin McNally hijacking so I don't know what speeds he was flying at. That said, he did say after the fact that the stairs were compressed until he put his body weight out on them. Isn't the sled test footage out now? What do the stairs look like there?

He gets the stairs open when the light comes on at 7:40. The 7:42 communication from him about trouble getting the stairs down is most likely him realizing in the pressure from the plane's drag is holding the stairs up until his weight is displaced on them, I can't imagine that took him 33 minutes to figure out. He communicates "everything OK" to the cockpit sometimes before 8:05 so he had the stairs figured out by that point. Also, he doesn't jump at 8:11, that's the pilots communicating that there are oscillations in the cabin rate of climb indicator. Has to have jumped some time after 8:11 and before 8:19 but as far as I know there's no way to know for sure. As I understand it comms were out with 305 during the actually reporting of the physical pressure bump

Aft stair light is on at 7:40 and jump is 8:13 at the absolute earliest. What does he do for 33 minutes if he's not waiting for a targeted LZ?

I am unaware of this claim. Where did she say this? It is my understanding when Tina goes up Cooper has the chute on and bag tied up. Soon there after the light in the cabin indicates the stairs are down. When does Tina say he's not yet ready and in what capacity is he not ready?

I didn't mean to suggest he asked for chutes from Mccord but instead point out he had awareness of them likely coming from their. Attached is one of the pilot's(I assume) testimonies from vault release 65 in which they point out the hijacker indicated awareness the chute would come from Mccord and the distance away. Seems like Cooper either #1 mapped out likely distance from a parachute from the where he anticipated getting his demand met OR #2 he had prior intimate knowledge of the area. I feel it's unlikely Cooper would've had that level of detail on a backup plan but I suppose it's possible.

Did he not specify Mexico city. I honestly don't know where I'm remembering that from of that's not correct. Secondly if he can make it to Mexico city he could make it to the Mexican border

A passengerless 727 could definitely make a non-stop flight from Seattle to Mexico city if not for flying dirty and likely could make even dirty. The ferry range is in excess of 3,500 miles and it's 2,040 nautical miles from Seattle to MC

Last thing I want to do is get into a back and forth with you because clearly your case knowledge dwarfs mine and this is mostly subjective but some quick thoughts on your rebuttales: #1 I'm not sure I can buy this one. I feel confident Cooper picked a "puddle jump" for the fact it allowed him to get his demands as rapidly as possible. By delaying the flight in the air he would be unecessarily allowing more time for the authorities to get a game plan in place and more time for the passengers to potentially discover something is amiss and earn himself an axe in the head a-la the copy cat. I'm not extremely well versed in the Hahneman case but for all intents and purposes he seem much more ad hoc, wild, and reckless than Cooper so I wouldn't glean much form his handling of the hijacking (or really any copy cat for that matter). #2 the problem with this statement is he DID NOT jump ASAP. He had the chute on, bag tied, Tina in the cockpit, and the stairs down and he still waits 30+ minutes. Why does he doe this unless he is targeting an area? #3 I certainly think he did a dry run but I think it's highly likely his selection filter was applied before so. For all I know UAL also published plane type ahead of time so this may not matter. Also, in all likelihood PDX had skychef matchbooks available in the lounge. Equally possible, he lived far away from Portland but identified 305 as the best flight for the job and he just gets the matchbook en route to Portland or some other flight. For the matchbook to have come from elsewhere doesn't require he wanted to hijack an alternate plane. #4 I may need to concede this one to you as you likely have greater case knowledge but in Tina's second interview didn't see bring up she thought it was odd he mentions he knew "the parachutes are coming from Mcchord, shouldn't take so long"? Are you saying the crew disclosed to him before this statement they were coming from there? In reference to the "burning excess fuel" point, I think it's quite interesting that from Seatle to Mexico City would typically be the maximum range of the plane (if it weren't flying with flaps and stairs down). I actually find this to be a greater point to suggest he DID pick 305 as the primary target ahead of time as it seems likely he wanted the plane to fly as long as possible to set the largest possible search zone. Remember he nor anyone else knew about the pressure bump phenomena so as far as he knew he'd jump within 100 miles of Portalnd and the FBI would have to search all the way to Mexico.

I'd like to hear which indicators you're using to theorize Cooper had 305 as a fallback outcome. I personally feel there's some key indicators he had alot of plans locked in place for 305 specifically but I suppose he could have had a fully fleshed out plan for his primary choice you're assuming AND 305 incase conditions like too crowded of a plane were an issue in the primary choice. Some reasons I think he most likely wanted 305 specifically: #1 picked a flight that ended with nightfall but provided possibility of a jump relatively early in the night. I think it's most likely he wanted to jump at night time to reduce ground traffic and air visibility upon jumping and I don't think he wanted to land at 1 in the morning or anything crazy like that and have to escape dog ass tired. In your scenario we'd have to assume he wanted to jump mid to late afternoon at the earliest. #2 he curiously was fully prepared to jump but waited 30+ minutes to jump which I believe indicates he had an intended landing spot along V23. I'm not sure if you've picked out a specific flight but I assume your primary flight would not require a V23 route. #3 there was limited airlines that published ahead of time that the plane was a 727 (or DC9) in its marketing materials. I think there's a good chance Cooper picked NWA and 305 (in part) was because he had a pamphlet that explicitly told him 305 was going to be a 727 and he could build a full plane around the flight with certainty he'd have ventral airstairs. Was this level of detail disclosed ahead of time in UAL marketing materials? #4 he references Mcchord and give a fair guestimate of the distance which potentially indicates planning specifically for parachute delivery to Seattle

If we're asserting that there's a 1 to 1 quantity among cigarettes in a pack and in matches in a matchbook then I don't see how we can assume the matchbook was purchased with the pack of ciagrettes. It actually reveals the opposite, the user having an uneven supply of matches to ciagrettes suggests he has a history of NOT acquiring the matches and cigarettes simultaneously. The Skychef matches would have likely been available in PDX given that there was Skychef property there. An equally likely scenario is that he was partially through the "higher learning" matchbook when he purchased the Raleigh cigarettes, didn't bother to purchase additional matches due to possible ownership of more matches and/or a lighter, and he picked up the Skychef matchbook in PDX while grabbing a bit to eat or in passing. I don't think we can forge any solid assumptions based on any of the interactions and furthermore I don't think there's any relevance in it. I think we can likely assume he was not from the area regardless of the matchbook acquisition point simply because that would make the most sense. I can't imagine anyone planning this thing would have the audacity to do so close to home where they are more likely to be noticed and/or potentially inconvenience/harm people they knew and carried about. I truly believe it's most likely he traveled to PDX from some distance that day but I don't think the matchbooks tell us that.

Sure, but he presented at least 2 matchbooks on flight 305. If anything, the abundance of matches available vs the number of cigs suggests he did not acquire both at the same time. I wasn't alive in 1971 but I understand that matchbooks were routinely passed around by company and solicitors of the time and given the fact both matchbooks produced by Cooper had advertisements printed on them I'd say the most likely scenario is he just picked them up in passing somewhere and had them available already when purchasing his Raleighs.

I would love to get my hands on an OCR converted version of the FBI PDFs. Do you have them and/or are they readily available?