snowmman

No. I don't work for you. And you don't work for me. So let's drop the PA's and get back to Cooper?

ok, quade please don't ban me for this. A number of pages ago, I bragged that Russian Roulette, one bullet in the chamber. me and Ckret...that Ckret would blow first. A way I used to put it: Two dicks on the chopping block...who pulls back first?

http://www.fbi.gov/libref/historic/famcases/furdress/furdress.htm The whole article is good data, but I like this part: "Experience has demonstrated that no racket can long exist without: * political affiliation and protection; * terrified witnesses who, although willing to do their duty, are confronted with the fact that duty performed is meaningless and an open invitation to terrorism and brutal retaliation; and * lackadaisical, haphazard, inefficient, and apathetic law enforcement."

Back before when I got banned, I had this weird theory that maybe you guys were all bad guys stealing credit card data from computers or whatever. So I thought "How do I know Ckret is really Ckret?"...so I called up the fbi phone number in Seattle, and left a message for Neo with my name and phone number and address. So Ckret would have no problem finding me if it sounds like I'm a bad guy. I figure: no tear gas cannisters at night, surfers delight! JOKE!

We watched "Heat" for the 3 billionth time. Lucky with DVDs you don't have to worry about stretching the tape. Name the character: "Jimmy - whatsisname - Bohunk, in the joint used to say: "On the street you wanna be makin' roves, you don't put anything in your life you can't walk out in 30 seconds flat if you spot heat around the corner"

so this oxygen detail sounds pretty interesting. How come it hasn't been mentioned in this thread before? or has it? It reminds me of the Dan Cooper comic book thing...That wasn't in the case files, if I remember correctly. We've not discussed it for a while.

Orange1: I've read the DNA was extracted from the tie in 2001. Where did you get the 2002 reference?

Passenger oxygen for drop down masks on the 727-100 is generated individually by exothermic chem reactor cans, not supplied from overhead tanks. Remember the Value Jet crash in the Everglades? Those cans get HOT. Perhaps Tosaw is referring to the portable oxygen tanks that are stowed in the overhead luggage compartments. Most flights carry a couple for medical emergencies. Don't know which compartment they were normally stowed in on NWA 727s. 377 I don't know what Tosaw was referring to. He said not all 727's have them, but this flight did, and when they have them they carry them in that compartment, which was apparently near Cooper. Do we know what compartment oxygen tanks for medical emergencies would be stored? Is it true that not all flights would have them? Supposedly there was an exchange between Tina and Cooper also, but I'm initially just curious about any tanks. It got me thinking about how we discussed the seat selection. I was wondering if there could have been knowledge of these oxygen tanks, if present. Tosaw implies yes. Do we have a pic of the tiebar coming from Ckret? The set I posted I think is pretty close. If we can't get a good one from Ckret, I think we'll have to use mine? Ckret said the mother-of-pearl size was a little different on the real one. I'm interested in seeing that detail.

I'm totally lost. I think we have to start this thread over. Do we vote or something? I found a new thing in Tosaw's book we've not discussed. Oxygen tanks in the compartment over Cooper. Is that myth or true?

I'm still doing my DZ homework. I had to order Catch 22 because of you, and I'm reading that. And I'm watching "The Bodyguard" cause I found out Ckret apparently did a tour as bodyguard. I can see taking a bullet for Rachel Marron, but for Jeb Bush? I'm more impressed with Ckret every day, saw he did K9 too, but I suspect that was just GSD, like Rommel (GSD) at Reno...hey wait a second...Ckret, K9 unit, Rommel at Reno, stairs shredded? :) So you can see I got some thinking to do.

I got a copy of the 1984 Tosaw book off ebay. Finally arrived. Actually has Tosaw's signature. Read thru it. Pretty good detail. Some facts are obviously wrong. One bit of info jumped out at me. Way back when I was theorizing about dredging, I talked about whether stuff could go thru the dredger. Tosaw's book talks about the bladed dredger having 18" blades, and provides testimony of a bird or something actually passing thru it and living. There's an error when it talks about the specific large number of yards of sand dumped at Fazio's. I don't think we have that exact number. I had tried to pursue that detail and posted before on what I was able to find about dredge spoils on the other side of the Columbia. The available data there was for the Ranch on the other side...so Tosaw was a little wrong there in reporting the data. But this whole question about the 18" blades. It's been stated here before that stuff couldn't go thru the dredger, but Tosaw's book has testimony where stuff can go thru? So I can't figure out what's right. I don't want to open up the whole dredging can of worms, since we seemed to have closed that a while back. I can't figure out why Tosaw would be wrong. He obviously talked to someone. He mentions 18" blades and gives an example. He's not prone to literary license. It's just odd.

What kind of tear gas cannisters were used at Waco? Would you care to explain how tear gas canisters at Waco have any relevance to the FBI's fingerprint master records? Oh, mistake, you're right. Sorry about that.

What kind of tear gas cannisters were used at Waco?

For us amateur investigators, an example of where emotion can easily get inserted into an investigation, is people's cry for cutting Agent C. some slack, cause he's only working on this part time. The right point of view, in my opinion, is to not give a rat's ass about Agent C. If he can contribute to the solution, fine. If he can't, fine. He can decide to do whatever he wants..Life in the US is great for a reason. The second we start changing our behavior because of some emotion Agent C. tries to create, or we try to create, we're creating a group bias. It's unclear what bias would be good or bad. Since the FBI hasn't found Cooper, we should assume any bias is potentially a bad one. So sadly, in my point of view, we have to not give a rat's ass about anyone's emotions. Now you can say, but we need to work as a team, because no individual can solve this. And emotions bind teams. That's absolutely right. So we have to aggressively split out the emotion that binds the team, vs the analysis. If they get mixed, we're just redoing the FBI investigation.

I was thinking of other areas we've not explored yet. The best evidence, in my opinion, comes from the FBI investigation itself. If we understand it, and trust it, it can tell us who Cooper wasn't. First we have to acknowledge that there's no such thing as FBI, it's all humans. And humans are flawed. And groups of humans can be more flawed. It's possible for groups of humans to be less flawed, but we can't assume that. I'm sure working in the FBI is stressful. When trying to give a rectal exam to Agent H, we can use his statements during the investigation and after his retirement to try to understand him. Here's my take. He was self-confident, possibly narrow minded, and given to mixing emotion and critical analysis. His statements about the integrity of the aviation employees, for instance, reflect biases, and places he might not look so hard. I've noted before how Agent H. was approximately the same age as the Cooper estimate. If I put that all together, I suspect Agent H. would have a very hard time doing a good job at the investigation if Cooper was more like him, than different. I'm not suggesting Cooper was FBI, but it's difficult if the suspect might be like you. It would be like looking in a mirror. Agent H., in my view, is the human personification of that FBI investigation. The more we can understand Agent H., I think the more we can understand both what the FBI investigation looked at, and what they may have overlooked. There's also the possibility of conscious bias, but when I look at the videos of Agent H on youtube, I see someone who seems to have wanted to do the right thing, and maybe just didn't have all the skills needed for the particular job. Also, the skills/tools of FBI back then were probably less than today. The cool thing about the Cooper investigation is everyone gets to have a free rectal exam. I like rectal exams. :)

Jan's got some good thoughts. I was musing over her opiate theory, which actually sounds plausible, but if Cooper survived, it's likely he would have been found out or overdosed. Actually maybe that's why he wasn't found? Survived the jump, but then o.d'ed? But a middled-aged dead person in a room full of newly bought smack would surely have been figured out by police. I suspect there were opiate-like effects involved, but probably as a result of the normal things that body produces..i.e. the natural effects in humans, that opiates mimic. It does beg the question of analyzing behavior and deciding what is normal. My bias is to say there's no such thing as normal...normal is just a statistics thing, which gives you no information on the shape of the distribution, or long tails.

one weakness we have is that people throw out cherry-picked data, and imply that something circumstantial, increases the likelihood of someone being a good suspect. This is only true if we know how common the same data is in the population we're selecting from. For instance: what percentage of the US population currently have criminal records of some kind? Are we looking for someone with or without? I could argue without, due to lack of being found. But there could be other reasons for not being found. So arguably criminal record is of no value as a filter. I don't think we all have a common knowledge base, so implying the presence of the attribute in the population doesn't really work. For instance here's a statistic: I was musing about the likelihood of solving the Cooper case, and looking at bank robbery resolutions. I believe the number is that about 60% of US bank robberies are resolved, with the likelihood going down with time to original event. What did people think the number was, and am I wrong or right? I was looking at the collection of things about Duane, and I have no idea how that would compare to a similar cherry-picked list of interesting sounding things from other suspects. Note my fun Mayfield/Cossey thing could be worked up into a cherry picked bit of "data" if you wanted to. Hell the team was called "Bandits" ..get the cuffs! ..but that's obviously stupid. It's Grade B movie stuff, which we descend into all the time. Obviously there's been lots of people that believe they really know who Cooper is. And I suspect they have their own cherry picked lists. On some of those things Jo listed, I have no idea how common some of them are. For all I know lots of people have commuted sentences with no files. I'm not sure why Jo believes that it's obvious it's unique. Lots of people have delusions too. Infinitely rational attempts at understanding people are sometimes wasted. Humans are not machines. They're this crazy organic thing. I also don't know why Jo drops all the obvious things that clear Duane. I just use one, the glasses, and he's off the list. In fact the whole glasses thing makes me really scratch my head about the whole investigation. This forum sometimes has a hallucinogenic feel. And it's not just Jo...it's all of us..kind of a shared hallucination...Maybe that's why we all come here..it's legal LSD!

Here's another shot, same article (edit) actually not sure who's who in the photos. neither may be cossey. This looks like a different canopy? I think at least one must be cossey.

Cossey kicked Mayfield's ass in 1969. Mayfield wanted revenge. Took 2 years to plan it. evidence attached from 1969 news article. This theory is obviously true...no reason to even debate! actually I just wanted to post this cause I know you guys like historical jump trivia. Who can ID the canopy?

Somehow it feels from all the posts above that I've been transported from DZ.com to the middle of a court room somewhere with lawyers chewing on each other. Or did the US just run out of beer or something? just wondering.

I've been reading some old news articles. I'm not a jumper but I can tell expertise when I see it. Can see how Cossey was a hell of a dude. Probably still is. I can imagine FBI wasted a lot of time on him because they couldn't tell the difference between a good guy and a bad guy. I remember Ckret posted way back the chain of people that called each other before Cossey got called for chutes. Totally random connections. Must have been weird for Cossey all these years to have been thrown into this mess thru no fault of his own...just trying to help out that night. Sounds like he's learned to have his own fun with it though. Good for him! If he did put an instruction sheet in, that sure speaks to his character I think. A rigger isn't going to let someone die accidently, I would think.

Good point. In terms of the witness description, I suspect the "around" part is not the most reliable description. I can imagine they saw the bag at waist level, as opposed to chest level. I'm not sure you could eyeball a bag at the waist and know if it was tied around someone, or just to the rig in front? How could you tell? see rope going around to the back? It's probably loose, so it's not a matter of guessing based on how tight it looks or loose it looks. Maybe people could chime in with thoughts. I'm kinda thinking if you see a bag at someone's waist, you say it's tied around his waist, where you know that or not. (like if you saw it a neck level, you'd say it's tied around his neck..assuming)

So if Cooper survived, how did he figure out this crazy rip scheme? Are we saying that guarantees Cooper is dead?

This article says Cossey was a pilot. Don't know if it's true. http://www.wtopnews.com/?nid=104&pid=0&sid=1372316&page=2 March 26, 2008 - 9:28pm By JOSEPH B. FRAZIER Associated Press Writer "It was my parachute," said Earl Cossey of Woodinville, Wash. "So, yes, I'd be able to identify it to this day." Cossey was a pilot and ran a skydiving school at the time in Issaquah, Wash. When Cooper demanded parachutes, the FBI got in touch with him.

Ckret, I'm just throwing out a crazy idea here. I'm thinking Cooper had a mental plan for the money. Maybe it was the chest container like you say. But he asked for a knapsack. So maybe there was a plan for how he was going to put a knapsack on backwards or something...i.e. the knapsack straps would be used. So then if he doesn't get a knapsack, and he's mentally stressed, he's thinking he's got to make a knapsack. Now this part is true: When I was a kid, I remember seeing how to make a hiking knapsack with a potato sack and rope. Basically the rope becomes straps. Maybe Cooper created some kind of virtual knapsack with the rope and bag, then unsnapped the chest snap on the nb6 and got the rope over his head/shoulder somehow, then resnapped the chest snap...with the money bag against his chest, but the harness closer to his chest. (like wearing a knapsack backwards) That way it's snug against his chest..maybe with rope just going across one shoulder, with the rope on his back, so it doesn't interfere with back container deployment. I'm thinking he would try to make it work like he may have originally planned. (edit) reference: http://outdoors-magazine.com/spip.php?article387 Here Mors shows a practical application of the slip knot method sheet bend using a grain sack. The bottom corners of the grain sack are used as cord in the sheet bend, a slip knot is passed over the corner of the grain sack and inverted into the clove hitch on each corner. A girth hitch is put around the sack top—making a simple grain sack rucksack.