snowmman

I didn't read the transcript before I posted, I went from memory so my bad. But I am bringing up the point that we should also look at the possibility that Cooper was flying by the seat of his pants and pulled a rabbit out of the hat. I am not hung on this theory, just putting it out for discussion so we cover all the bases. Tom You may be right. We've kind of discussed that a lot. Ckret mentioned how bank robbers wing it on the escape. I always thought that it was wrong to be derogatory about "winging it". The best plan will always have an adaptive, dynamic aspect, reacting to actual variables. McCoy planned it to death and he got caught. If someone has done a lot of crazy things, and flown by the seat of his pants and succeeded, it's going to be hard to tell him that he needs to be someone else. We all bring our own perceptions of what's needed for success. You mention small business owners/planners. There have been a number of small businesses that have succeeded wildly by just winging it every day. If the dream is big enough, winging it can work. Sometimes it's just the small dreams that need precision. (edit) "winging it" is how we describe strategies, until a few of them actually succeed. Then we say "agile, adaptive" and buy their stock.

orange1 reminded us of the transcripts saying: "Plane has been flown this way have large boxes 2-3hnd lbs thru the door in this config" remember in the video that some of the boxes were lablelled with "lbs". The largest I saw was 450 lbs. This makes sense cause of the double parachutes most(all?) boxes had. I thought I saw one box with 3 parachutes, but that could have been an illusion wrt to PDFs. There are a number of PDF split/merge tools available. Free ones hard to find, although you can download a free trial version pretty easily. I think Acrobat might do it, but I don't have that. I use Ap PDF Split/Merge That reminds me, I've downloaded some of the various video news clips. I should put them up on youtube also, so they're all accessible in one place. I love the idea of Cooper crouched over his laptop in some dank apartment, clicking thru youtube videos, laughing to himself.

Reply> Attached: Albert Weinberg photos. Weinberg was 49 in 1971. I will just attach the photos from young to old - Has the FBI ever talked to Mssr. Weinberg ? Georger Georger: brilliant. Not about Weinberg as Cooper, but as posting Weinberg pics at various ages. He was from the right European areas right? Is the skin in those pics what people would consider "olive" ?? is it a good match for how we might expect pics of Cooper to look?

http://www.thefitmap.co.uk/beauty/cosmetics/skin/olive.htm "People with olive skin may come from Mediterranean countries like Italy, the South of France, Turkey, or Spain; from Mid-European countries like Belgium, France, Latvia, Estonia or Germany; or Scandinavian countries like Norway, Finland, or Russia. People with olive skin can have blue, green or brown eyes, and will have anything from dark blond to black hair. If you have olive skin, you'll find that your skin hides blemishes well, and that when you're out in the sun, you'll tan well and readily."

Hey! maybe it's Phil Day, making a movie! http://www.philday.tv/

To my way of thinking that is completely consistent with ignorance. "Ok, wierd stairs in the back of the airplane. I better get them down before we take off so I know it can be done". If he was really knowledgeable about it he would have known you can't take off with the stairs down (if I remember right he requested that before takeoff right?) Tom Hi Tom. Have you read the second set of transcripts that Ckret provided? Ckret provided an interpretation of those transcripts, but they could be interpreted differently. I'm just wondering about where you got your opinion on just what was said, and by whom, with respect to the stairs. We already showed you can take off with the stairs down. (the Da Nang video...which also has a poor guy hanging on them!) I don't think the stairs issue proves anything either way. Why do you think it proves anything? Nothing you've said is black and white...it's a lot of speculation.

I didn't want to stir up that hornets' nest. I have no idea which is the better sketch, but my gut feel would be that the sketch done immediately after the hijacking would be more reliable than one done a decade later. We know what time does to memory, and evidence has been posted about people who think (& really believe) they saw something because they subsequently read about it. Still, if a colour sketch from 81 is the only one we have, I guess it is the best we can use... though I would take it with a pinch of salt because of the time lag. Through the magic of photoshop, it's possible to take the skin tone from the 1981 sketch, and make the 1971 sketch have the same skin tone. I wonder if it would be useful for the FBI to do that.

Oh, plenty has..it's one of the reasons we are still in touch. I was his star pupil and I love literature. I can still recite the "tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" soliloquy from Macbeth, among others...! But back to Cooper, all this discussion about skintone just reinforces my belief that it is subjective. Ideally I would still like to see a colour version of the sketch. which sketch do you think is "better" 1971 or 1981. There's obviously color on the 1981 sketch. So you're looking for a color 1971 sketch?

Orange1, your teacher will love seeing that something they tried to cram in your brain, actually came up in the future! (edit) At least I didn't explain what a "tube" was! (edit) HEY! I just cut and paste the Charing Cross description. I just realized there were no tubes in 1907 were there? Was this some kind of stagecoach station then? I think Orange1 got me! on the sunglasses: Why do people suggest that Cooper somehow had the forethought to bring sunglasses for a disguise, but nothing else was a disguise? ...i.e. it just was what he was used to wearing. Isn't it better to assume it was just all what he was used to wearing, sunglasses included? Why pick the sunglasses as "disguise"? It's a bad habit you got there. You know what that habit will make you dream, Moonpie? You'll dream you're an executive. You'll have your hands on all the controls and you'll wear a grey suit and you'll make decisions. But you know what, Moonpie? You know what those executives dream about, out there behind their desks? They dream they're great rollerballers. They dream they're Jonathan.

Yellow skin? malaria or hepatitis is the first thing that comes to mind for me, in 1971. anyone have knowledge of that? I've not googled much.

Here's a whacked out theory of mine. Take the spliff first. Who was at the 1962 Seattle World's Fair and rode the Bubbleator? Do you remember how the operator was dressed like Flash Gordon? Do you remember the music they played and the voiceovers? (this will also tell me whether there's any real '62 WA folks out there!)

Mr. Genetics is the Decider! Right? A guy with olive complexion and sunglasses in the fall in an airport in the Northwest. What's your first guess where he's from?

what do think of the possibility of Cooper's mom or dad being from Belgium? My parents are non-US native, and I know that had a strong influence on me as a kid. (edit) include grandfather/grandmother.

someone used to dealing with MPCs in Vietnam might also have the idea of negotiable or non-negotiable currency in mind The Perfect War: Technowar in Vietnam by James William Gibson - 2000 "MPCs had been devised for use only by the military or US government employees as a strictly non-negotiable currency; in Vietnam they ended up as an indeterminate currency halfway between the dollar and the piaster...." http://books.google.com/books?id=nY0VLPf0h8UC&pg=PA246&lpg=PA246&dq=vietnam+%22negotiable+currency%22&source=web&ots=nZpT-hzy2W&sig=7LBJAl18knwKbn8A0RBGq099cCA&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result also see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Payment_Certificate

I just noticed "the good book" has a whole nother section on kidnapping, that has a lot more hijacks. William Greene's is pretty funny, since he thought God was talking to him through songs he heard on the radio and advertising messages on television. Supposedly, he hijacked after hearing and seeing a TV ad which stated: "Delta is ready when you are". So there's that possibility. http://books.google.com/books?id=M5VEEhyJHTQC&pg=PA752&lpg=PA752

that makes sense Tom. I guess you're arguing for Ckret's simplified profile. Seems fine. Cini, the guy before him, didn't pick the plane well (Air Canada DC-8 for an apparent parachute plan?) Course he got whacked with an ax. So maybe he overall wasn't too bright. I'm folding in a personal assumption that Cooper lived. If he died on the jump, then I don't really care about Cooper. Then I'm thinking: if he survived the jump and didn't get caught, that tells us something more about him. But he could have just been random like you say, and maybe died, or not. (edit) you know Tom, that McNally needed instruction from the pilots? (I think? I think one was FBI or something like that) on getting his parachute on and jumping, right? McNally was apparently whuffo. Higher exit speed. Night. Lived. And Melvin Fisher gave up. check this page of the good book: http://books.google.com/books?id=M5VEEhyJHTQC&pg=PA753&lpg=PA753&dq=McNally+needed+help+parachute&source=web&ots=QM6oj7G9eJ&sig=pxFMOzq3McDBj1BMzq9X837ffWo&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=2&ct=result (edit) confirming from http://www.tulsaworld.com/twpdfs/2007/Final/W_070807_A_4.pdf] "Two FBI agents posing as airline officials boarded the plane. One showed him how to use the parachute and how to jump from the airplane. Airline attendants later said he had difficulty understanding how to use the parachute. The agents said they could not stop the skyjacking because the gunman kept his submachine gun aimed at an attendant"

I had this as a setwork at school. I hated it. Probably a good thing. Ted Kaczynski apparently liked it. My point in posting all that Ted stuff, is twofold 1) Cooper's family, if any, will view him like David viewed Ted. They won't recognize a twisted view of Cooper now. 2) The things that motivate and steer twisted folks, can be very rational seeming, and deep and layered. That's why I was saying our analysis seems to be way too shallow in terms of motivations or who Cooper might be. I don't know how we got into shallow descriptions. We're talking about a hijacking! Bomb (fake)! Threatening to kill people! Jumping out of a 727 at night! Saying it's some bumbling fool, motivated by money, doesn't resonate with me. Sure bumbling fools tried to hijack. But they got overpowered, shot, gave it up, etc. Cooper went out the door with the money. Sure he might have died. But it seems wrong to rule out deep layers of psyche/motivation..i.e. stuff that we more normal folk would turn away from and dislike. But then again, he could have been just some random dude, who got the money and jumped out. If Cooper is twisted though, it should be easier to find him, if alive. For all these skydivers liking the idea of being called possible hijackers...you're whuffo! All these people who say they know people who would do it for the thrill..they're whuffo, because they never did do a hijack!...face it, jumpers or not, we are all whuffo when it comes to a hijack.

I understand. I can see how it makes sense that the money bag was in the van. Hey are you going to be on the National Geographic show? Who all is going to be on it?..just the new posers? Not really fair, since you've taken a lot more crap than these johnny-come-lately's... Hey if NG talks to anyone here, put in a word for Jo. I'd be williing to watch the show to see her. (so I don't have to travel to Florida to make Sluggo happy)

I love all the lit stuff people are doing on the web. You can get the entire text for "The Secret Agent" here, for free: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/974 tonight's read for me!

Another interesting passage towards the end of Ted's Wikipedia entry: In January 1995, Milt Jones, a graduate student in English at Brigham Young University working with English professor Dallin D. Oaks, noticed that Joseph Conrad's 1907 novel The Secret Agent provided a rationale for the bombing of professors and scientists. After Kaczynski's arrest, it was discovered that, like the character known simply as "The Professor" in the novel, Kaczynski had given up a teaching position at a university to pursue a lifestyle as a naturalist. Investigators further learned that Kaczynski grew up with a copy of the book somewhere in his home and had during interrogation admitted to have read it more than a dozen times. He also allegedly had used the pseudonyms "Conrad" or "Konrad" at times when he traveled to distribute his bomb packages.[51]" (edit) Analysis of "The Secret Agent" here: http://ductape.net/~steveh/secretagent/ excerpt from the book: "There could be nothing better. Such an outrage combines the greatest possible regard for humanity with the most alarming display of ferocious imbecility. I defy the ingenuity of journalists to persuade their public that any given member of the proletariat can have a personal grievance against astronomy. Starvation itself could hardly be dragged in there - eh? And there are other advantages. The whole civilised world has heard of Greenwich. The very boot-blacks in the basement of Charing Cross Station know something of it. See?" (44) my note: Charing Cross tube station is a London Underground station at Charing Cross in the City of Westminster. at Google books you can read some of the book for free: http://books.google.com/books?id=V8vrXfAiPRUC&dq=%22The+Secret+Agent%22+Joseph+Conrad&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result (edit) From that excellent analysis of the book above: "Comments on Style : Conrad has a unique style on which his specific diction and somewhat advanced vocabulary, coupled with complex sentence structure and plot development, hold the potential to confuse and frustrate the average reader, while attempting to engage their minds and create original thought. In depth description is also very characteristic of Conrad’s style and is found through many of his works. Due to this stylistic writing, an inexperienced reader may find themselves becoming to lost in his descriptions, and lose the story line in the process."

Ted was 7 years older than brother Dave. I've attached a picture of Ted (9) and Dave (2) with the family's pet parakeet. And a picture of Ted as a baby in Chicago, Oct. 1942. Other pics at http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/specials/chi-080302ted-photogallery,0,7753132.photogallery?index=chi-ted009t20080212130409 Following text from wikipedia. Interestingly, I had never heard about the real connection with MKULTRA. Remember how I was joking about it with Duane? Real life is sometimes more bizarre than one can imagine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Kaczynski Dr. Theodore John Kaczynski (born May 22, 1942), also known as the Unabomber, is an American mathematician and social critic who carried out a campaign of bombings. He was born in Chicago, Illinois, and excelled in academics at a young age. Kaczynski received an undergraduate degree from Harvard University and earned a PhD in mathematics from the University of Michigan. He became an assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley at age 25 but resigned two years later. In 1971, he moved to a remote cabin in Lincoln, Montana. From 1978 to 1995, Kaczynski sent 16 bombs to targets including universities and airlines, killing three people and injuring 23. Kaczynski sent a letter to The New York Times on April 24, 1995 and promised "to desist from terrorism" if The New York Times or The Washington Post published his manifesto. In his Industrial Society and Its Future (also called the "Unabomber Manifesto"), he argued that his bombings were extreme but necessary to attract attention to the erosion of human freedom necessitated by modern technologies requiring large-scale organization. Early life Kaczynski was born on May 22, 1942, in Chicago, Illinois to second-generation Polish Americans Theodore Richard Kaczynski and wife Wanda Dombek.[1] From grades one through four, Kaczynski attended Sherman Elementary School in Chicago. He attended grades five through eight at Evergreen Park Central school.[2] As a result of testing conducted in the fifth grade which determined he had an intelligence quotient of 167,[3] he was allowed to skip the sixth grade and enroll in the seventh grade. Kaczynski described this as a pivotal event in his life. He recalled not fitting in with the older children and being subjected to their verbal abuse and teasing. As a child, Kaczynski had a fear of people and buildings, and played beside other children rather than interacting with them. His mother was so worried by his poor social development that she considered entering him in a study for autistic children led by Bruno Bettelheim.[2] He attended high school at Evergreen Park Community High School. Kaczynski did well academically, but found the mathematics too simple during his sophomore year. He was subsequently placed in a more advanced math class. Kaczynski quickly mastered the material, and skipped the eleventh grade. With the help of a summer school course for English, he completed his high school education two years early. He was encouraged to apply to Harvard University, and was subsequently accepted as a student beginning in Fall 1958 at the age of 16. While at Harvard, Kaczynski was taught by famed logician Willard Quine, scoring at the top of Quine's class with a 98.9% final grade. He also participated in a multiple-year personality study conducted by Dr. Henry Murray, an expert on stress interviews.[2] Students in Murray's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)-sponsored study, dubbed MKULTRA, were told they would be debating personal philosophy with a fellow student.[4] Instead, they were subjected to the stress test, which was an extremely stressful and prolonged psychological attack by an anonymous attorney. During the test, students were strapped into a chair and connected to electrodes that monitored their physiological reactions, while facing bright lights and a two-way mirror. This was filmed, and students' expressions of impotent rage were played back to them several times later in the study. According to Chase, Kaczynski's records from that period suggest he was emotionally stable when the study began. Kaczynski's lawyers attributed some of his emotional instability and dislike of mind control to his participation in this study.[4][5]

Believe it or not, that information actually is available on the web. But you have to be living in our suburb to register on the relevant website. If you're that determined to hack in, well... by the way, we don't have yards here, we have metres, so you would have to convert Anything that is in anyone's brain is on the web. A lot of stuff that isn't in anyone's brain is on the web. Anything that creates social value (groups) is on the web. Anything that creates money is on the web. Anything that can manipulate people is on the web. Also: the eye in the sky can tell stuff if you're on planet earth: google earth/google maps. The stuff they're doing driving around taking pictures extends that. it's interesting, in some cities you can easily see cars parked outside homes, so you can get a guess at the automobiles people own or other stuff, like hobby activities, (boats etc). Like I said: big brother is not the 1984. it's big neighbor to worry about!

lol. every skydiver has rubber bands- you ever seen a D-bag? i thought i had kept my paper bags well hidden though Oh, and my neighbour 3 doors down on the other side of the road is a Mr Cooper... not Dan or Sam but still; do you think I should put him under surveillance? well now you're just taunting me to post the exact number of yards between your house and Mr. Cooper's house.

Thanks Jo. I always wondered if descriptions were colored by who people expected Cooper to be. i.e. if Cubans were hijacking to Cuba, then hijackers must be Cuban. I actually read a State Dept brief from the '70s I think, saying they expected Arab hijackers because of the strong support of Israel by the US. Number-wise, I don't think that turned out to be true. By asking to go to Mexico, I'm wondering if that also colored perceptions. Hey, I'm always searching. Here's an actual State Dept telegram, where they were discussing a 3-way deal for hostage exchange, in relation to a hijack, back in the day. I didn't get it from Felt.

Good stuff sluggo. The first one was interesting. Who was the Professor Sam Cooper character? Was that a brother of the Dan Cooper character? can anyone translate that text in the first attachment? It's austrian? I've not searched for other references to Prof. Sam Cooper yet. (edit) "Vater" is father in german. So now I'm thinking Prof. Sam Cooper, is Dan Cooper's father? He does look older in the drawing. So I guess that's right?