Orange1

Yes, in the same way that those of us who consider Bonfire or, especially, Speakers Corner a "waste of bandwidth" on a skydiving site can ignore them. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Jo, just to check something - you have Duane's record of army service but not his record in the Navy? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

ok, if there are rules for crawfish fishing in the Columbia, I guess there are crawfish. http://apps.leg.wa.gov/wac/default.aspx?cite=220-52-060 Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Yeah and I don't get all the "oooh gross" response either. 377 asked a valid question that affects whether or not a drowned body would be found. Regardless of the specifics, let's not forget that the subject of this thread is crime and criminals generally hurt people, with generally "gross" results. Maybe the Cooper case didn't result in a death of a victim - though the descriptions of what happened to Mucklow and Schaffner afterwards certainly indicate deep trauma and thus this is not a "victimless" crime by any means - i wonder if a quick death followed by a "gross" decomposition is really worse than lifelong trauma, even if the description of that is just very sad rather than "gross". As for the search stuff... we've been over all this before. How long did it take them to find Steve Fossett, and they knew pretty much exactly where to look?? Also ref what I posted above about that guy in the lake - again they knew exactly where to look and it still took 5 years, and chance, before they found him. As Georger rightly pointed out they were not looking at the Columbia originally, and by the time the money was found any evidence of a body could be long gone (no-one answered me about crawfish or other scavengers?). I would also not be so quick to dismiss the kid - sure maybe it was his imagination, but maybe it was a body. With the resinking, currents etc, he may well have seen something that wasn't there anymore when people went back to look. Who's to say? (anyway... there are a number of other pieces of "evidence" (not) that seem little more than figments of the imagination that have been presented here that we are implored to take seriously. so why not this one just because it doesn't suit someone?) Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

hmmm...some other tutorials, on dead bodies and decay yes they float... then sink again. at some stage decomposition will be advanced enough that there is nothing left to float. this all assumes not snagged on anything, no cement boots etc. While i learnt all this on CSI , here are some references: http://www.slate.com/id/2126310/ http://mx.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=1006020700794 -- i thought the above worth quoting in light of the most likely way to represent a water landing (esp at night when you may not realise its water till you're in it) and re reports of Cooper's build: but 377, this may interest you more: (and the site it comes from seems more authoratitive than some of the others) http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/400990/drowning_investigations/ in other words, whatever is left of Cooper could be in bits. Which makes me think of something else though: are there crawfish (etc) in the Columbia? And then how could I resist this bit, in light of above discussions: in lakes: ok, enough morbidity for one day. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Read the article again - the line you quoted refers to someone else. Are you smoking something?! Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

I'd rather have neither. I'd rather have people who are heads-up on the same load as me. Do what you want after the beer light goes on, but don't add another way to take out your fellow jumpers into the mix. Aren't there enough already? Edited to add: in direct response to Kimemerson: i smoked a bit when i was younger, i've "grown out" of it now (family responsibilities yada yada), but I don't have a problem with other people doing it. As long as they are not doing it in circumstances that it could endanger the lives of others. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Ah, now we have "technology" included in the Great Conspiracy Theory to Hide The Truth? Does Google Earth know they have been co-opted, do you think? Jo, I don't know a single person who has looked at something on Google Earth that they know and said it was wrong - but thre are sometimes changes in things depending on when the images were captured. Even down here, our house, our dropzone etc are all there and all accurate. Are you sure you went to the place you think you did? Are you sure your memory is accurate? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

(sigh) but answering because the history is interesting. History of use of berets in the US army: http://www.army.mil/features/beret/beret.htm#History Maroon beret history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maroon_beret Lovely for the history buffs with brief discussions of each army's use of the maroon beret. It was originally worn by the Brits, and then This a nice brief history of paratroopers in WW2: http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/paratroopers_and_world_war_two.htm Navy parachutists http://www.militarymuseum.org/MCAAFGillespie.html On Lakehurst specifically: this site has a contact email for historical questions. http://www.nlhs.com/ of more interest (perhaps) is the fact that the site's guestbook has people who have photos of various graduating classes of navy jumpers from Lakehurst in the 40s, including 42 and 43. scroll down: http://www.nlhs.com/guests-04.htm - note this page is 2004, there are links at the top to the guest book entries in other years Of course, this does make me think that (being as it was probably even more elite back then that it is now) anyone who did graduate to earning wings then would have kept photos (as well as other records) of it. Especially if they were the type of person to "keep" "important" "things", if you get my drift. Note these entries in particular: Also from someone whose mom worked at the base "packing parachutes, etc" I haven't been able to find anything fully definitive one way or the other so some people can go on believing what they want to believe, and the rest can hopefully find some stuff of interest. Getting hold of some of those photos might be interesting though, at the very least maybe we can put the beret question to bed. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

heh heh if you go to the 2nd page of that link (which i didn't do before) there is a picture of Gossett Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

No, what you have in your picture is more a hat, not a real beret. eit: see this link for pictures of paratrooper berets, if i am not mistaken they are similar colours in every army. http://images.google.co.uk/images?sourceid=navclient&hl=en&rlz=1T4ADBF_en-GBZA312ZA312&q=paratrooper%20beret&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Unless someone is feeding the fat lady while she is waiting in the wings, I fear she will be positively skeletal when (and if) she ever gets onstage. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

I also thought the ears looked particularly prominent. Apparently ears stay the same width but grow longer as we age. Nothing about ears "tucking in". http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05/26/the_odd_body_ears/ In 1990, Drs L Pelz and B Stein from Medical Branch of the University of Rostock in Germany measured the ears of 1,271 children and adolescents. They report in Padiatrie und Grenzgebiete that ear length increases "steadily and annually", but ear width remains the same. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Not compared to the photo I posted, though ;) Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Interesting. There were generally 2 Jewish "migrations" to SA as well - the first was around the diamond and then gold rush in the late 1800s and very early 1900s, the second was in the lead up to and around WW2 for horribly obvious reasons. While Ernest Oppenheimer technically forms part of the first, as Georger has noted his lineage is different from the average - most of the rest came directly from the shtetls (and most of them from Lithuania by the way), irrespective of whether they joined the first or second migration. There is a lot of fascinating history, and all well depicted in the SA Jewish Museum in Cape Town if any of you do ever make it out here, but if anyone is interested in exploring further probably better to take it to PM than use up forum space on it. btw we watched Fiddler on the Roof last weekend...!! and now this discussion. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

Snow, you're so good at research...was Robert Oppenheimer any relation to the Oppenheimer dynasty in SA? I have always wondered that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Oppenheimer Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

(edited to add: other than an SA parabat beret I am also not familiar with military headwear. but i do know what a sailor suit looks like. see attached) Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

377, I think this is what you refer to? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vela_Incident Georger - lol Thanks Georger. My memory was inaccurate, it was optical not seismic artifacts that started the mystery. Here is another mystery "blast?" for you. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9D0DEFDC133BF932A15756C0A963948260 Feynman is gone but the legend lives on. I read one of his book, the one with "surely you jest" in the title. Huge brain, but huge ego too. Been thinking about Cooper and the fact that no really likely suspects went permanently missing after the caper. Makes me think he lived and went back to his normal life as if nothing had happened. Just a guess though, he might have died on the jump and never been found. Some mysteries just never get solved. 377 your reading is inaccurate too twas i posted the link ... the one-word message to Georger after it seems to have confused you Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

377, I think this is what you refer to? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vela_Incident Georger - lol Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

I'm sure Snow has done enough research to know that uranium is indeed a by-product from gold mining in SA

It's interesting, isn't it, that the descriptions of Cooper we have in detail come from Shaffner and Mucklow. Why not Hancock? I presume she was also questioned? Given that the there were some discrepancies between Flo and Tina (like the colour of the suit) I would have thought the more the better? Again apologies if this has been covered before, but how much (if at all) was Hancock involved in drawing up the sketch/describing Cooper? Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

possible, but unlikely. i mean, you could have contacted my PA on the pretence of inviting me out for a business lunch and wanting to know dietary requirements but... on the balance of probabilities, you didn't. anyway, i was being semi-disingenuous. it's actually tree nuts not peanuts i am allergic to but it was close enough to count! what did interest me though is what I pointed out: people can arrive at a valid conclusion via an invalid deduction process. of course, that just throws this entire thread open all over again Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

lol...because i do have a nut allergy! (was terrible when i was a kid because there was very little awareness - not like now!) actually (muses) would be a great example of how a defective deduction process can actually lead to a correct conclusion... Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

oh, Alice was crew not a passenger.. yes it does ring a bell now. The man with suitcase (non) incident was what i was recalling. so the timeline does make sense, cooper hiding in the lav while the passengers leave and the Alice incident later. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

If you look at the transcripts it appears that Cooper was in the toilet when people were leaving. I have never heard of this Alice before, Georger? Source? Also -- i need to go back and check, but were the passengers told of the hijacking before they left the plane - for some reason I seem to think not. I know at first they were keeping the real situation from the passengers but not sure exactly when they were told what was going on. I also half recall someone wanting to go back to fetch something but not being allowed to - but I may be mixing this up with another incident. Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.