SafecrackingPLF

You have no idea how close I was to proving this or any similar ideas false. It wasn't until today that we hear of a discrepency in the pressure bump timeline... ah well, back to the drawing board we go!

Bren, This was discussed yesterday. The gist of it was, these record in 30 minute increments... when the tape is full, it begins to tape over itself, so that the most you'd have is the descent and landing in Reno... all from the time the plane was in the NW would be lost.

Well, he obviously can't pull it immediately, or his chute will be torn up, yes? But if he's worried about getting to terminal velocity on freefall, how long does he wait to pull the ripcord? I know I ought to know the answer, but I truly am a complete whuffo.

I was with you until this one. If we're assuming Cooper wore the tie, remember that it's a clip on. I've never heard of a person choking out from a clip on, which is why security, police, and secret service personnel often wear them. From your comments, I almost want to say that Cooper would have been better off keeping his shirt buttoned all the way up... less air under it keeps the collar from flapping as much. I can't say for sure because we don't have the shirt, but a dress shirt tends to have a stiffer collar than a golf shirt. 377, excellent questions. Some of them are over my head, but I liked your thought regarding Cooper's willing to risk chute deployment at terminal velocity if he's unsure if it's sleeved or not. Skywuffo, aka agent 3, (I love that)... good question. I've pondered it myself, and I suppose I always thought these times were logged using the same watch... but that's impossible since we're using flight control's time & McCord's radar. We would need to know any time differences. I always wanted to use a fudge factor to compensate for this, but you're right... the difference can be more than a minute. Knowing the difference would give us a margin of error. Ckret, you cannot be serious about disregarding jump points that would suggest Cooper lived. If your goal is to simply find a body in the woods, then okay, but if your goal is to try and figure out what happened, you ought to try and narrow and lock down what we can rely upon and then let the calculations speak for themselves. This is what I was referring to yesterday when I mentioned twisting facts to fit a theory... now if our range is so huge that we can't rule anything out, we're left to pure speculation and a good place to start would be the commonly accepted theory that money showed up miraculously after floating down some streams or creeks; on that, I can agree with what you're saying, but I'm still hopeful we can narrow it down some. The +/- half mile flight path was utilized in the previous calculation... I had used the Southeastern most jump point possible and came to 9 miles of difference. If the question is a simple matter of "possibilty" then we have to use the most conservative approach possible.... closest possible tributary to closest possible jump point. If we're getting as precise as a half mile, then we really need better markers that "it flew over X town"... I'd want to see the best estimate, and then factor in some margin of error-or just take the margin of error that's built in, if it already is (like the last one had).

I don't follow... I wasn't dismissing a theory, what I was saying was that it was impossible for Cooper to have died utilizing the information we were given. Now, Ckret is expanding the LZ by several minutes... we can no longer say Cooper had to live, now we're back to uncertainty, and back to the drawing board. If Cooper jumps near Orchards, he's just west of a tributary. Off the cuff, without looking, it doesn't seem possible for him to land near a Washougal tributary, but we have to double check this... it does seem possible for him to land near a LaCamas tributary, but again, we have to plot it out and make calculations. We REALLY need maps showing us this flight path. The winds seem a little faster than what Ckret had posted previously... so given the updated information, it SEEMS at least possible that Cooper may have died upon impact, but we must check. The LZ is now half of clark county! Can we narrow or rule out some? They tried to do this back in 72, but what was their reasoning for choosing 8:10-8:12 if it really could have been 8:09-8:15? I've never heard of this Denny Nichols guy. Sorry.

Not necessarily... our landing zone has just been expanded by several minutes and thus, several miles! As it was, it was impossible for Cooper to have died... now we have to go back to the drawing board.

I gathered as much, especially since the first line has him jumping directly over Lewis River, which was approx where the plane was at 8:10. One quick question, the oscillation... it has been my understanding that the "bump" and the oscillation occured simultaneously. In other words, the air flowing beneath the fuselage pushed the stairs up, which also affected the trim of the plane... in other words, they felt the pressure, and the plane reacted as well. If you've ever been water skiing, you'll know what I mean... the boarder jumps, it tugs on the boat, you feel an oscillation. Any indication that they may have occured simultaneously? Off the cuff, without looking, if he lands in Orchards, it seems possible for him to make it to a tributary, BUT, I'm doubting if he can make it to a Washougal tributary... I've already started to put this together for you, it should be tonight or maybe even tomorrow.

I agree with you. All that crap would have weighed him down on his exit. It's probably buried under years of fallen leaves, pine needles, dirt, and bushes... but it's probably where he left it. At this point, it would probably take a metal detector and a very patient person to comb through those square miles of woods. Yes, there's no way he wears those sunglasses when he jumps... it's already dark enough and he couldn't possibly be stupid enough to think they'd stay on. The point about the sunglasses is that they already served their purpose... he most likely did not wear them when he jumped, but he didn't leave them behind either.... he took everything with him, except the tie, and this is why it's a point of contention with me. If he took it off to harness up, then Tina saw him do it. Just show me her quote where she says "and then he removed his tie, loosened his collar, and began to put on the harness" If this quote doesn't exist, then is there any information that says if he buttoned his coat or not... was it ALREADY buttoned when he was sitting there the whole time?? I agree, he doesn't want that thing slapping him in the face.... but did he remove it before or after he harnessed up? It won't slap him in the face if his coats are all bottoned, would it? I don't know, that's why I'm asking.

I respect... everyone is entitled to their own interpretation of what we know. But let's not say something is certain when it isn't. I've done my best to follow this, and hopefully everyone else does too. An example... people say that Mayfield could not get to a pay phone in time. That's just a blanket statement with no teeth. Can you prove it? All I'm asking for are reasons why Cooper removes his tie. If it's tough to put on the harness with it on, then we're assuming he removes before harnessing up. Did Tina see him remove it as he put on his harness?? Simple question. I'd like to ask another question along those lines, when Tina watched him harness up, did he first botton up his coat(s)? If he has his harness on, then realizes, "oh sh*t, I'd better take this thing off, it will fly in my face" then you're saying he's all harnessed up, with his suit jacket and raincoat on, and then digs underneath all that strapping (maybe even the chest chute that doesn't work, though I think we've concluded he's actually NOT wearing this chest chute) and pulls off his tie, with the clasp still on it, and lays it down on his seat. Grabs everything else and then forgets that he left his tie. Forgetting the tie is reasonable. I'm asking about all that other stuff... what makes him want to take it off? It's not going to choke him, it's a clip on. That's all... I'm actually asking for opinions here. Cooper task force, agent 5, signing off... ha ha ha

What I'm asking is why was the tie left behind? No matter what you answer, you're assuming something. We don't know. Can we come to some type of reasoning? Obviously everyone wants to just say he took it off just to take it off... why does he take it off? And further, why does he take it off and then put that clasp back on it??? And then, after being so careful to take back the note, why does he grab everything else, his briefcase, his paper sack, his sunglasses... and then leaves his tie? We don't know. Maybe now is a good time to discuss this again, or maybe not. If some experienced skydivers could chime in on reasons to remove a tie, keeping in mind that he's already wearing a raincoat and a suit jacket... and if you assume Cooper wore the tie, then you also assume he's only wearing a clip on... If you want to get into a debate about which theory poses the least amount of assumptions, we can do that, but we cannot eliminate assumptions because no matter which way you go on this, you assume something, which leads to potential error. This isn't an issue of fact, it's purely speculation.

Prints on a tie isn't even worth discussing at this point, so end of discussion. I asked about this over a month ago and no one on here ever mentioned a thing. I'll ask again... if you're wearing a collar and a clip on tie, why would you want to remove it? Is it harder to put on the harness? If yes, did Tina see Cooper remove the tie as he put on the harness? Does the tie impede him on his fall? I can see that it might get in his way if he didn't strap it underneath any straps OR his coat and suit jacket. If Cooper is wearing a rain coat and a suit jacket, would his tie hinder him? Thank you. As for the FBI not having anything better to do, Ckret only spends time on here that is his "free" time. It's not like there's a Cooper task force... or actually, that would be us, ha ha ha.

Don't confuse reality with perception. All that is required is for Cooper to believe prints were there or could be found on it. I know it's a long shot, I'm just saying the fact that prints weren't found doesn't undermine the idea.

One other thing... I think when the time comes to for us to really look into the location of the money, how it was found, etc... we may want to look at pictures from 79 if possible. Just think about how far down that 74 strata was in 79. Now picture 30 years AFTER that! Comparing how it is today to how it was then isn't going to be as perfect as we'd like. Orange1, I asked Ckret about whether they pulled prints off of it or if it was just "processed" for prints, and I think he may have missed the question since there wasn't much mention of it yesterday when he was on here. There's been too many posts the past week (maybe 7 pages of posts)... I'm not complaining about it, I'm saying it would be easy for someone to miss a sentence or two in all of that.

Yes, the waterline of the Columbia, for example, has changed a lot since the 70s. Because streams tend to be driven by topography, they aren't going to change quite as dramatically as the bigger bodies of water. I will also say that the general location of tributaries isn't really going to change all that much because they're based on topography as well. I have some old maps from 74 that demonstrate this. I will say, it wasn't easy to figure out where the money was found using only maps... I had to use several landmarks, most of which are in Oregon on the other side of the river... the changes to Caterpillar island really threw me off initially!

I first sought out to isolate the area that could possibly contribute to the Columbia in an appropriate way (so that the money would have flowed down river). This does presuppose the money was deposited via the Columbia, but that's okay since we're testing a hypothesis as well. Once we can isolate the tributaries, then we can test a hypothesis, which was, knowing the facts regarding flight path, winds, type of parachute, altitude, and the time of the jump, is it possible for Cooper to land near a tributary? So far it appears the answer is a definite no. We're going to look at some better maps, etc and double check. If the answer turns out to be no, then we can absolutely say the money didn't seperate from Cooper at the jump, and he didn't drown or die upon impact. BUT, to say these things we must know we're dealing with reliable facts... otherwise the conclusion isn't worth beans.

We're getting ahead of ourselves. Before we discuss how money got to where it was found, can we first go back and really make sure we hammered out the details of the landing zone? If we can confirm some of the things we know, such as flight recorder info, altitude, time of the pressure bump, speed and direction of the winds, and the flight path... then we might be able to conclusively end a lot of speculative theories. I think this has been shown already, but let's verify the facts before we jump to the next topic. But, at a glance, I'd certainly say your story would seem to fit the facts. I'd also add that when you became adamant about the area in front of Himmelsbach and the crew, it strengthened your credibility. If you were just looking to concoct a story, it would make it fit really nice if you had said "yep, this is the place!" Further, as of right now, my instinct tells me the money was not buried where Ingram found it, but we have yet to really get to this point and discuss possible burial (other than it obviously got there after 1974). But those are just my opinions. I'd like to make sure we have some of that other stuff locked down before jumping to a different topic. You have to establish FACT before you can begin weighing theories against it. Now that I said that, thank you for clarifying. I can tell you with absolute certainty that there's a railroad line running north and south that runs through battleground. Your post mentioned it going east as it goes north... this same rail does head east, it follows lucia falls rd. It heads all the way down into Vancouver as it travels south.

My personal opinion is that something similar to this may have very well happened. It seems plausible.... hopefully we can get to the point where we start weighing different scenarios and testing them out against logic.

Now I know you and I are on the same page! What made me think there was an error in what was known was simply that you were asking about how Cooper could have landed near a Washougal tributary. Based on what's been provided, this cannot happen. If the pressure bump timeline was inaccurate, then this enters into the equation. Please check your PM. I'm going to send you a link where you can upload big files and send them to people via email. Please post here what you can, but if the site limits you, then perhaps offer that such file can be sent via link. Ckret, you and I are in total agreement as to that money. I personally think it was a gift from God... I'm not even religious. Bren, I want to caution everyone on here, myself included, not to let a resulting new question confound the answer to a prior question. If we can answer one question with a high degree of certainty (meaning 99.99%) then we cannot allow the next question it might raise to cause doubt of the answer.

Many of you can tell where my opinion lies. I do believe the money is telling us a story, and that's precisely why I've spent so much time on it from the very first post I made on DZ. My opinion just so happens to fit what's known. But now that the agent on the case has expressed doubt regarding the timeline and the flight path, everything is up in the air. We cannot make progress until we're dealing with what's known. Working with assumptions can lead us to the truth, but that truth would always be called into question simply because we never ruled out and eliminated the fiction.

We can no longer rule this out as long as the facts of the case are in question. I can say that given the information provided to us earlier, Cooper losing the money in air would be impossible.... but I guess we're back at square one.

No problem Ckret, I'm not mad. But it would be helpful to know how reliable the flight information is. Because I sincerely believe the next question "how does the money get there" is much more challenging to answer simply because there could be a lot of ways! If we're back to him dying upon impact, then we have to essentially start all over. If we think he hiked into the mountains and then placed money or died, that's a viable theory. I ask you this, because I can't really answer this... what do we know and how do we know it? Thanks for all of your help. There's simply no way to begin to answer questions without the help you've given on this forum. I mean that, 100%. Thank you again.

I need to be careful here not to speak for someone else, but from my understanding... we're talking about a different area. How skyjack came to that opinion was that Duane went to an area along the Columbia, he went down towards the river and instructed her to stay in the car. He took something out the trunk and went down. She fell asleep. Later in 2000 or 2001, skyjack returned to the vicinity and attempted to find as many places she could find that Duane took her to. One of those places was this spot on the river... a person with her told her that there used to small cabins or "shacks" as you say. Now there are homes. My understanding of this particular location is that it's somewhere between the I-5 and I-205 freeways. Skyjack71, if I'm incorrect on any of the above, please correct it. First, it DOES sound familiar. One of the things I wanted to look at was whether this was feasible (ie, get to a phone in under 2 hours)... but now I'm being told by the FBI agent on the case that the flight information, timeline of the bump, etc are all unreliable, and therefore any conclusion based on that information would also be unreliable. It would appear possible that Cooper could have landed on land in an area between I-5 & I-205 if my estimated flight path was correct. I need more information... the assumption that will need to be broken would be the time of the pressure bump. It seems to me these new theories that are arising are very contigent upon the flight path and the time of the pressure bump. Quite simply, we need reliable information to obtain a reliable answer. Thus, my post above. Wuffo... you are thinking exactly like I was thinking when I woke up this morning... can Cooper get to a phone?? Can he do it quickly? Now we may never know simply because we've been told the facts of the case aren't reliable.

Ckret, Thanks for the post. I don't know about kool-aid, and I don't know if it's possible to "solve" the case. What I can tell you is that if you take the information we have to go from (radar, captain scott logging the bump, type of canopy used, known winds, known location where the money was found) then you can eliminate a lot of theories. What you're suggesting, that Cooper landed somewhere else, is precisely what people have done since 1980... "oh, you mean the money was found there? That means we were way off in our calculations of where he landed!" I think that's a valid thought, but it assumes everyone who helped calculate the landing area in 71/72 were using faulty information. It's also a convenient way to support a paradigm. Ckret, I can easily outline an area that would feed the washougal river. I can have this done by tommorow. What I'd like if possible is more details regarding the flight path. We have the details of where it was when it crossed the Lewis River... I'd like to know where it was later on. You've already posted the known winds. If you can, can you please double check the known winds, including their direction. I can tell now from what I've done so far that it appears possible for Cooper to land in the tributary zone if he jumped later than he did, but my instinct would tell me that he'd land in the area that feeds LaCamas, and this area has become extremely developed... with houses upon houses, but I can't say for sure without more information. I had estimated the flight path based on a published photo showing the route... but if you can provide us with more detailed scans, that would be extremely helpful. Can you please post the flight path information? Where it was, when it was where, and how we know they're reliable, if possible. One last thing, and I only say this because of the Kool-Aid comment... I find it somewhat amusing that you stated in a news paper article that people will try and twist the facts to fit their theory of who they think did it. Now, who's the one playing with the known facts to fit a theory? Without the proper flight path information, we're assuming the following exchange may have taken place: Can we keep the jokes to a minimum? I suppose I asked for it with the comments about money swimming upstream, but still... kool-aid suggests I'm some crazy cult follower and I would hope what I've attempted to do here does not fit that description. Ok... I will outline the Washougal tribuataries for you and post them by the end of the day tomorrow. If you can, please post some more flight information... along with the Hancock (?) interview you mentioned a few days ago.

I like the way you think! You have the type of thinking that will help solve this case. I can answer *some* of your questions, the others we can't determine without Ckret's help. Could they be three miles off? I can't answer this. I would venture to guess, if we're talking about radar information the answer would be NO, but if we're talking about the flight crew recording the pressure bump errantly, then maybe. I like your theory. There's one quick problem it would have to overcome... There's a waterway between where the money was found and any hills. This waterway flows parallel to the Columbia river. Therefore, if your theory were to be correct, the money would have had to been buried between these two points. The area above where the money was found is relatively flat... it would be a few miles before there's any type of hill. Where your theory could hold out would be if he did this further East... in that tributary zone. If you go into the areas that feed the Washougal river, it's very mountainous. I also think *if* the money washed down through a tributary, the Washougal tributaries are the better bet. I can't speak to a cave or not, but good thinking. The downside to thinking the money was buried in the SE mountains of Clark is simply because it's very slopey and extremely wooded... it's not the most ideal place to bury money if you ever intended to retrieve it someday. But, we can't discount the idea because of this. See the attached map 46. The little streams next to the money area lie in a very flat, marsh-like area. The waterway I spoke of is in the upper right quandrant of this map... that is lake river and it flows north. The obvious waterway to feed this location is the Columbia River. Tributaries that can feed the Columbia all reside in the tributary zone... OR at any point directly on the Columbia river and to the west. In other words, the likely place the money came from IS the Columbia... the proper question would be, did it travel through a tributary first, or did it have a more direct shot? You asked about a possible old hunter's shack. Well, I don't know about this, BUT on that beach where the money was found, there are a few buildings that might be described as a shack. I don't know if they were there in 71 though. If there were, my guess is these were all searched in 1980 as was that whole beach.

First, it was myself who posted the 50 maps and the explanation. It's a bit tough to follow, so don't feel bad. Ideally, you would want to print out every map and then paste them together to form the county of clark. You could then see quite plainly where every stream, creek, and river flows in the county. The waters of Lake Merwin feed the Lewis River. The Lewis River adjoins the Columbia river several miles to the north of the where the money was found in 1980. If Cooper died in Lake Merwin, or if the money washed into Merwin (which would be likely given that about 80% of the landing zone fits tributary areas that feed Merwin or Lewis River) then there's no way for that money to float against the current of the Columbia and wind up where it was found. Who knows, money, to my knowledge, isn't very skilled at swimming upstream and maybe it just took 8 years for this to happen. The other tributaries in the landing zone feed the east fork of Lewis river, which then adjoins along with the LEWIS river. As I said above, stacks of cash can't really swim upstream, especially with rubber bands strapped around them. For more information, please see maps 34-39. Merwin Lake itself is like a double-kill. Not only does the money have to swim upstream, but it also has to go through the Merwin Dam before entering the Lewis River. I'd say it's not even a question or a calling into question, it's a complete destruction of that theory. Now, if someone wants to argue that a pelican came along, grabbed a few stacks of cash, and then flew over to Tena's bar at some point in late 1979 and dropped it on the beach, then maybe that person just solved the Cooper mystery.... or maybe they need psychiatric help. Due to size limitations of attachments, I cannot put the maps onto one big map and post it. The file would be huge... over 5 MB easy... or I would do this. I will admit that the landing zone map I posted on page 47 is a bit challenging, because I did not show my work. I located two specific points, J & N which basically gave me the flight path range. I had to eyeball the northern range where it crosses the Lewis River. I used Merwin and LaCenter as easy landmarks to give me an accurate box. On that particular map, the box is light blue and the red lines are the flight path. I then took the southern most point that Cooper could have jumped and determined it was roughly 9 miles from the closest possible tribuatary. That particular tributary isn't very likely simply because it's on a farm, the land is fairly flat, and the creek *appears* to be dry for most of the year. However, it does feed into LaCamas Lake when there's run-off, so I cannot disregard it. 9 miles equates to Cooper having to travel at a rate of speed of 54 miles per hour. The winds were at the most 16.1 mph and they blew in the opposite direction. Thus, when you take both factors into consideration, (landing area cannot contribute to the Columbia in an adequate way & Cooper cannot land in a proper tributary zone) the only logical conclusion left is that the money was moved at some point by foot. It's a process of showing there's 0 percent chance of the money landing in the landing zone and making its way to Tena's Bar naturally, and then also showing that Cooper cannot make it to a tributary on his way down. 0% chance for the first, and 0% chance for the second. You're left with the answer that Cooper moved the money (or someone found the body/money and moved it without ever telling anyone). I realize it's not only a lengthy process to go through the solution, but I posted the solution none the less. I told Ckret to print them all out and then paste them together if he wanted to see the conclusion. Now we're forced to debate the question of whether or not Cooper actually jumped, where he may have landed, if he survived... in other words, basically re-evaluate everything that has been shown to be fact both by the FBI and through my analysis using FBI facts. I guess it's easy to start completely over than it is to begin pondering the next question... which Ckret already posted, and that is "how then did the money get to where it was found" There's probably a million possible "solutions" to that question, but if it were me, I'd start on discussing the facts of how the money was found, how far below the surface, etc... basically things I asked at the very beginning. I asked them because I had always felt it improbable that the money naturally found its way there.... now I know: it's not just improbable, it's impossible.