snowmman

" searched thru 50 yrs of photo negatives - these are the only frames missing in 50 yrs of picture taking" I can't conceive of anyone in the world being able to say stuff like that. It's quite amazing. I literally forget what I did yesterday. I just found some pictures in an envelope and while I remember taking them I was surprised they were prints rather than digital images. Now would I have a clue how many prints or negatives there should be? No way. and they were from just 6 years ago?

Jo, it's no good publishing 72KB images and asking people to look at them. The resolution isn't fine enough. When you do you your scanning, you can keep it at 300dpi, but adjust the jpeg compression so the final image file size is as large as possible for posting..i.e. just under the 300KB limit for an attachment here at DZ.com. If the image is still too big, try 150 or 200 dpi then.

georger asked: "I wonder if any of us had been put in charge of this case, would the results have been any different?" Okay, trying to put myself back in 1971, with 1971 attitudes, knowledge etc. It seems to me, that the most important failure was assuming the predicted DZ was correct, when really the [lack of] precision of their knowledge should have made them keep a wider area open (all the way down to the Columbia) But then there was a secondary failure in 1980: this idea of promoting a money-travels-a-long-way-in-a-stream theory...with no proof or experiment showing that such a thing could ever occur. If those two things had been handled differently, the public might have responded with information in a different way, or the investigation could have gone a different way. Also, by 1972, the other 4 hijack jumpers should have steered the case to saying "regardless of how Cooper appeared to behave, the probabilities favor that he survived". So while there's no data to say he survived, we should have published the statistical likelihood of survival to the public. Since that's the best way to get info in case he did survive. So there are 3 main things that "someone else" could have done differently. There was no benefit to solving the case, of publishing "it's likely he's dead". Doesn't matter what's true, that's just a reality of getting info from the public. Imagine if Bin Laden stopped issuing releases, and they published "Bin Laden is dead". Would that benefit Bin Laden? or those looking for him?

If Cooper had had GPS he probably would have thrown it out saying "I dont need that", thinking "I have flares and there is some trick involved in GPS and I cant take that risk"... G. :) just made me think of something. There is definitely a bias to the info the FBI releases to the public, which may work against finding Cooper. I was surprised at the Cooper replies "I don't need that". I think Ckret provided two examples of Cooper saying that. Why didn't the FBI highlight Cooper as a guy who says that? Heck that could be the thing that triggers someone's memory. Even though Ckret believed he was breaking with the FBI past history on the Cooper case, I think if we analyze it "in totality" as Ckret liked to say, Ckret's actions were not much different than the FBI approach for the last 37 years.

Agree 200% Snowmman. Obesity triggered diabetes is more of a national threat than terrorism. I laugh at these insurance policies that exclude terrorism and add a big premium if you want coverage. Hmm, lets add meteor strike and sinkhole submersion coverage too. 377 Yeah, I probably made it sound too glib and don't mean to belittle it. I mean we are a country at war, and we've got young kids with deadly weapons firing and get fired at every day. It'll be interesting how this Obama thing plays out. Just having a new guy with new folks can be a good thing..i.e. ignore all the hype, and just think of it like hiring a new CEO who has the freedom to chainsaw a bunch of things. Oh I was reading a good Rand corp paper on "estimating terrorism risk" ..2005 paper. 94 pages (there's a book too). They have a number of models. Obviously it leads to highest risk being in the dense urban environments. http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2005/RAND_MG388.pdf I've been reading how architects are looking at improving building design wrt terrorism etc also. It's actually good to see that "terrorism" can be thought of more rationally as just a thing that humans will always do, and we should design our systems to minimize the effect. It's not possible for it to go to zero. You jumpers always deal with acceptable risk. Like everything, that's what we're really debating cost vs risk. Interesting no one's proposed outlawing airplanes. I saw a thing that said the USAF is buying more unmanned UAV's than manned planes this? year. There are lot of web sites where DIY'ers are building their own UAV helicopters and planes. If Israel can't defend against Qassam rockets, how are people going to deal with 5000 helicopter UAVs sent in a swarm? I see in the US they are testing helicopter UAVs that run using automobile engines or bigger!! massive payload capability in a UAV helicopter. (edit) page 84 of the Rand paper, their recommendations: "5. DHS should fund research to bridge the gap between terrorism risk assessment and resource allocation policies that are cost effective" the other 4 recommendations are good too. like: "1. DHS should consistently define terrorism risk in terms of expected annual consequences"

georger said: heh...funny. so you think style is important huh...i.e. it's important to shoot down the guy who acts like a jerk? Because you know what style will lead to a desired goal? How about another judgment. Who's got better results? Answer: none of us. There's nothing you can show that says my behavior is inferior to anyone else's, in terms of achieving the goal. Noodle on that!

Oh yeah, that's all fair. I'm not criticizing his plan or lack of plan or whatever. He could just have been having fun, like us all, and that's good enough. To be more direct though: He invested a year in his postings, almost. I think there could have been a better plan for the same energy investment. Remember he tied up a certain amount of TV time also. Have to evaluate whether his TV time was positive or negative. If it works against possible TV time in a better way in the future (americans get bored with same old, same old) then it was not the best thing.... Oh, reminds of one thing. 2008 was the 100th anniversary of the FBI. I always wondered if that played into the Cooper thing a bit: wouldn't it be cool to nail Cooper on the 100th anniversary? I think one thing with Carr is he hadn't sorted out what part of his Cooper investigation was about ego, what part about being a hobby, what part was about the FBI doing a real investigation, what part was just relieving boredom by posting on a DZ.com forum and fighting with folks with us. re 2008: In fact, if Cooper was alive, and wanted to say "here I am" or someone wanted to turn Cooper in, probably the worst time would be the year of the FBI's 100th anniversary...guaranteed the PR folks would spin it to Cooper's disadvantage. Also the year of the outgoing terror presidency. Surprised in Bush's last speech that he saw it necessary to try to convince the US that our biggest threat as a country was still terrorism. Hell we have lots of threats. Why didn't he go thru the top 20, instead of focusing on one? I don't think the numbers add up that way re "terrorism". It would be interesting if they do. I've always wondered why people buy that terrorism-is-biggest-threat argument.

No I never hazarded a guess on the photo. I just ignored it. I thought when Jo introduced it, she said some had suggested band uniform. Not me.

interesting thought Georger. Remember that all transfers of old photos are thru scanners. What makes you think of the camera vintage? fixed focus or ??? I'm wondering if any scanner artifacts (Jo probably doesn't use state-of-the-art scanning) might confuse the issue. it's interesting we have to deal with modern full digital photo info here, and old film -> paper -> scan -> computer transfers also.

good story 377. I didn't know you had tried ultralights. I saw a vid on youtube where an ultralight engine died on a guy, and he basically plummeted into the trees..a number of injuries but survived. Sounds like you played it pretty cool, to your advantage. I thought they don't glide very well? The barbed wire story reminds of when me and a friend first discovered electric wire fences as kids. It was his idea to have me touch it with a pipe to see what happens. Ouch.

Nah..it's like the Alaskan gold rush. Best way to make money was to be the guy selling shovels. Instead of working both sides of the fence, I want to be the guy who sells fencing. Kind of the arms dealer in the arms race. Have you ever looked at any historical stuff on barbed wire in the west and all the permutations. Fascinating. Barbed wire was a big deal. There are people who collect all the historical variations.

That "open it to the public" is an illusion. I'm not saying that it's a bad idea. I'm saying the way he did it was a bad plan. Here's the way to think of it. Assume the goal is to find Cooper and you want to open it to the public, with a fixed amount of resources. Were Carr's actions that best that could be done? That's all I'm saying. Carr's a fine guy, I'm sure, but you were touting him as an example of rational, and that's not clear to me. He's just another guy, like us, irrational etc. I know I'm irrational. Everyone is in different areas/degrees. There's not much we're sure of. Even for example the "one-minute-off" thing. There's a set of assumptions that go into the "one-minute-off" analysis being correct, as opposed to "one-minute-off" being wrong, and the initial stuff being correct. (Test: in your mind, summarize the theory behind the one-minute-off idea...you have to make a statement about what the data looked like when drawing the flight path on the Carr map..i.e. pairs of time/positions, or one time, and sequential positions at one minute intervals, or ???) In terms of other random things, I've even seen news articles claiming 8:13 as being some important time, with jump a few minutes after that. So things like saying 8:15 was the probable jump point, may have been said way before. Half of me thinks everything we've discussed, was already in the FBI files, and Carr was just stringing us along.

On the one hand that sounds logical, but remember Carr was the ultimate irrational person for his plan on how he was going to find Cooper. There was no rational reason why any of his actions would help find Cooper in 2008. I think Cooper was the most rational person.

wrt to Georger, and that russian thing, I honestly didn't know if he was pulling our legs, or whether he thought there was something there. I still don't know. I thought the russian thing is all a joke. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I didn't introduce, so I didn't mean to go off topic. I thought my Menard's thing was a good example of how back in 1971, chasing the dry cell purchase might have paid off. I thought georger was implying that didn't make sense. georger's posting style made me think that direct statements wouldn't offend him like they might Jo. If I offended georger or pulled the thread off topic, I apologize. Did i mean to throw barbs at georger? I guess so, but no worse than what he throws at Jo. Seemed to make sense. If what georger said about the money find is true, then that info is as seminal as anything Sluggo provided about the flight path. I still am not sure if it's all true though. He had a lot of detailed info, that I can't source.

"Seeeeeesh. Get a life!" I've never seen statements like that actually affect anyone's behavior on an internet forum. Has anyone? Any case examples?

The first paragraph of what you posted was from a google cached version of the joke page: here: http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:ruIK9EQjEfkJ:www.todayinah.co.uk/index.php%3Fuserid%3Dguest%40todayinah.co.uk%26searchfield1%3DFrance+being+debriefed+at+a+CIA+safe+house+in+France+was+shown+a+photo+of+Cooper&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1 "December 2 On this day in 1971, suspicions that foiled would-be hijacker D.B. Cooper was a Soviet spy were confirmed when a KGB defector being debriefed at a CIA safe house in France was shown a photo of Cooper and identified him as one Dmitri Kaprinsky, a sleeper agent who'd been working undercover in the United States since the late 1950s. 'D.B. Cooper' was an alias created by the KGB to facilitate Kaprinsky's infiltration into American society." How I am supposed to take what you say following that seriously? You copied this first paragraph. What actual facts are you talking about? I said 50 times - THEORY THEORY THEORY THEORY THEORY. Do you need the word explained OR is it that YOUR theories are the only THEORIES that matter here? What is this? You explain.... if this is something more than pure smarm on your end? G. sorry, I'll back off. From your chewing on Jo, I thought you appreciated a good dog attack? My mistake. "pure smarm" ? never been accused of that before, but pure must be related to high quality, so I'll take whatever compliments I can get.

he didn't say NSA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxm7-yM7l1s

The first paragraph of what you posted was from a google cached version of the joke page: here: http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:ruIK9EQjEfkJ:www.todayinah.co.uk/index.php%3Fuserid%3Dguest%40todayinah.co.uk%26searchfield1%3DFrance+being+debriefed+at+a+CIA+safe+house+in+France+was+shown+a+photo+of+Cooper&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1 "December 2 On this day in 1971, suspicions that foiled would-be hijacker D.B. Cooper was a Soviet spy were confirmed when a KGB defector being debriefed at a CIA safe house in France was shown a photo of Cooper and identified him as one Dmitri Kaprinsky, a sleeper agent who'd been working undercover in the United States since the late 1950s. 'D.B. Cooper' was an alias created by the KGB to facilitate Kaprinsky's infiltration into American society." How I am supposed to take what you say following that seriously? You copied this first paragraph. What actual facts are you talking about?

trainsurfing is apparently a niche thing to do in some countries, especially Germany. I read somewhere that it's not strictly illegal to ride outside if you have a ticket, there. watch the suction cup usage here on this high speed train http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZvm5H4F-aA So here's the idea: I need some jumpers who are willing to suction cup themselves to the outside of a commercial jet taking off, and release and jump once the jet gets to altitude. Since there are cases of guys crawling into the wheel wells of planes taking off, I figure this is possible. Oh p.s. This is part of a top secret hijacking plan, so keep it under your hat. Worst case, we'll just film and put it on youtube, but that will be worth it enough?

georger said: " ... the Russian link is viable so Im sorry you arent interested..." georger, my quick look was that the russian thing you quoted was a total joke. what are you referencing? Here's the joke page: http://www.todayinah.co.uk/index.php?thread=The_D.B._Cooper_Story&userid=guest@todayinah.co.uk 11/24/71 In 1971, would-be hijacker D.B. Cooper was arrested by FBI agents just minutes before he was scheduled to board a Northwest Airlines flight from Portland to Seattle. Earlier that day, the agency's Portland office had received an anonymous tip about the hijacking plot from a tourist who said he overheard Cooper talking on a payphone to someone identified only as 'Raoul'. 11/28/71 In 1971, FBI agents made a shocking discovery in the case of would-be hijacker D.B. Cooper: the mysterious 'Raoul' he had been talking to prior to his arrest was a high-ranking station chief with Cuba's DGI intelligence service. This suggested that Cooper might have been part of a Soviet spy ring and the hijacking attempt was actually a cover for a possible defection to the Communist bloc. 12/22/71 On this day in 1971, FBI agents in Los Angeles intercepted a KGB liquidation squad that had been sent to the United States to kill sleeper agent Dmitri Kaprinsky, alias D.B. Cooper. 4/9/1985 In 1985, thirteen years into his life prison sentence for espionage and attempted hijacking, Dmitri Kaprinsky, alias D.B. Cooper, died of a heart attack in his cell.

Pal Dows is 20 mi N of Iowa City. georger has said he's in Iowa City. There is only one Menards in Iowa City 2605 NAPLES AVENUE Iowa City, IA 52240 I'm guessing georger wasn't able to buy one. on Jan 12, 2009, the Gazette Online says that there were hard to find in Marion and Cedar Rapids. Would guys like Billy Horrigan remember a description of who he sold to? http://www.gazetteonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090113/NEWS/701139992/1006 Gazette Online, IA - Jan 12, 2009 Lowe's Home Improvement Center and Home Depot in Cedar Rapids were both out of snowblowers. Menards stores in Marion and Cedar Rapids each had only one model remaining. "I'm sitting on eight or 10 of them, mostly the bigger ones that take a larger snowfall," said Billy Horrigan, manager of the Theisen's store at 3111 16th Ave. SW in Cedar Rapids. After they are gone, Horrigan doubts he'll be able to order any more. Lenoch & Cilek Ace Hardware made a serious effort to order enough snowblowers this winter, and the bet appears to be paying off. "We've kept up, through corporate, with finding different dealers," said Emily Meis, assistant manager of Lenoch & Cilek's Coralville store. She said the company's stores still had a good variety of snowblowers priced from about $400 to about $1,500 on Monday. Home Depot in Cedar Rapids wasn't so fortunate. The store ordered more snowblowers than last winter and still ran out. It scoured other Home Depot stores as distant as Idaho to find extra snowblowers it could sell, but eventually ran out again. Sales of snowblowers at the Cedar Rapids Home Depot are up about 40 percent from last year, one employee estimated.

Now that's clever Snow. Also tracing the dry cell was a good idea. In the early 60s I was my hardware store's only customer for those big screw terminal cells. I used them to power the glow plug when starting my model airplane engine. They'd stock a new one about every 6 months, I'd buy it and they'd order another. 377 "....ah yes, Agent 377, could I interest you in a nice ceiling fan - we have them on special right now - only $3.99! as for that battery, well yes, we had a guy in here last Thursday. Let me see. He purchased the model RA38A, I think. We have them on special also. Only $2.99. Ah yes well, this guy spoke perfect Russian. We had to get our Betty out of the warehouse to translate. That's our Betty Kippov from Lenningrad. Her dad's family settled here in 1830. Been 'round here longer than white people haeve! Say, I gotta son likewould like an autograph from a real FBI agent. Here, on this paper. Just write it in care of: 377. He think's he's an aeroplane!" Georger Hey Georger I'm assuming you're a fan of the fake history wiki's on the web with your russian postings? Contrast what you're making fun of with this approach: "Hi world..My name is Larry Carr, FBI agent. We think Cooper died, but we're hoping someone will call in and tell us who Cooper is. The phone number is xxx-xxxx" Now how in the world does something dumb-ass like that make sense? Georger: how long do you think it would take me to find out what model snowblower you bought, if you bought one? (and what cost. I'm assuming I'd have to fly into your area) And I'm talking with no more info than you've offered so far. Would you bet against me? (edit) Oh maybe I can enhance the dumbass nature of the above "Yeah we have citizen investigators that are helping us"

While dry cells were commonly available in hardware stores in 1971, they weren't purchased at high rates. A store might sell one a week? There couldn't have been that many interesting hardware stores in the WA area to cover. Surprises me the FBI didn't plaster information for hardware store people to respond to..i.e. looking for someone that bought flares, dry cell, red wire. Probably would have been easier than hunting down the JC Penney tie, since it's unclear when the tie was bought (years before or ??) the flares, dry cell, red wire were likely bought just before the hijack. (not provably so, but likely). This was before big box stores took over hardware. Hardware store people would remember stuff like that in those days, I think. (edit) in fact, if Dunbar hadn't disappeared, that would be a good angle for any tv documentary to play up: appeal to people who worked hw stores in the area in 1971 to try and remember anyone. Heck if we have night clerks at motels, let's get hw store clerks too!

No, I understood that the weather conditions were worse than Cooper would have dealt with. But Cooper probably would have been wet. From the canopy descent, or the landing. Wet and 40's is seriously dangerous. He could well have been shoeless too. If he was wearing loafers, they would probably be gone. Even ankle high slip ons could well have been blown off at the exit speeds he experienced. We can be fairly sure he didn't have dry clothes to change into. Even his overcoat, if he managed to keep it, wouldn't have been much help. Wearing just a wet suitcoat, if he didn't find a way to get warm, he would be in major trouble. He could well have built a fire. He was a smoker. (one thing I miss about quitting is not having a lighter on me all the time). He also had the fake bomb, which was probably flares. But, he was getting lights from Tina, so did that mean he was out of matches, or just saving them? And did he keep the "bomb" or just toss it away? Fair enough, wolfriverjoe. We're all just thinking about probabilities. And even a small one either way could have been Cooper's resolution. So we can't know. However, you raise a good point. Assuming he landed okay, and recovered the canopy, and then perished that night. Would his body have been more easily found, or less easily? If the same likelihood, then we can just as well assume he "went in" without pulling, right? I think we only need to lump scenarios into ones that lead to different outcomes that facts might back up, like where his body might have been found, or why it wasn't found? Here's my fun scenario. Cooper lands with the flares in a field. Walks to a road. Lights the flares and puts them on the road like there's been an accident. Car stops and Cooper says "My car ran off the road, can you give me a lift to town"...and gets in. No one expects the bad guy to lay out 3 road flares on the road. Nice way to get a car to stop for you in the middle of the night.

hmm...are you saying I've got to find out where you studied 20 years ago now? Hey I already searched on you a while back when we were talking about it, and found an article you wrote recently for work that had your picture. Guys: with respect to the most important question posed on this thread: Is Orange1 a hot South African babe? The answer is yes. oh, I meant she's smart. Yeah that's it.