snowmman

I was having trouble with the url, but the url should be fine up there now. I didn't think it was useful info at the time.

Ok I know I do too much research, but at the time of the shoe theory, I was musing whether to post this thought, but held back at the time. I had posted it in another forum when I was musing about experts claiming to have knowledge of the layering of dredge spoils, or floating things. A link and quotes from an expert who claims that right feet and left feet from human bodies in the ocean tend to collect on the same but different beaches. I know I'm not an expert on how things float and collect in rivers. This should reinforce that few people are without some study/experiments/data. A fourth foot has been discovered off Canada's Pacific coast May 23, 2008 http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/364446_feet24.html VANCOUVER, British Columbia: For the fourth time in less than a year, a right human foot has been found off one of four different islands in the Strait of Georgia in British Columbia. ... Ebbesmeyer said it may not be a coincidence they were found in the same area. He said left foot wear and right foot wear often tend to wash up at different times at different places because they float differently. He added that there are beaches that collect mostly rights and other beaches that collect mostly lefts because the winds or currents sort out left and right foot wear.[email]

one last thought for the day. I said I had abandoned all "money plant" ideas. But that was when I was thinking the DZ was way east of the black line flight path I have. If instead, the landing site is near Vancouver Lake/Shilapoo Lake as I showed in a couple of possibilities, then a post-hijack plant by Cooper "right at the shore of the Columbia" might still have been a rational plan for a "cooper's dead in the drink" scenario. In that case, there's no story needed about Cooper needing to know about bump prediction. He just knows roughly where he jumped, and he throws some bundles where he knows they will be found close to the Columbia. I always wondered whether he might have done this close to Agent H's retirement to get case closure. My theory was always "if money plant, then Cooper's not a deadbeat". Cause a deadbeat wouldn't care about getting caught in the future. But someone who was in a screwed-up mental state, then had his life turn around (so no more crime) might stress about getting caught and do a later money plant, thinking that would resolve the case...it's the kind of thinking an older, more nervous man might have, who no longer can live with the constant stress of being found out. But it actually just makes the situation worse. But doing it near Agent H's retirement almost guarantees little investigation, because it's around the time of a handoff to a new agent. So maybe clever, maybe not. Maybe there's no money plant and it's just some dropped bundles. Who knows. Lots of equally possible scenarios, I suppose. That's what hooks us all in I guess, everyone can do a scenario!

good detail, thanks georger. Cooper apparently knew about sky marshals, since he mentioned it on the ground. I wonder if he was giving the glare to ascertain if there were any sky marshalls on the flight...I think it was 377 who made a joke about how their cheap shoes are always a giveaway. That's how dogs do it. start with the glare and see what reaction they get.

Someone mentioned this before about how the crew supported Cooper. Maybe the only thing "brilliant" about Cooper was he had this stupid initial idea that came to him while he was on the toilet or something. So he starts off with it. Then it's like no one ever tells him it's a bad idea...it's like everything that unfolds confirms his initial "from the toilet seat" idea maybe is a good one. So what does he do? he just keeps on going till he's out the door. Be interesting to ponder if someone like that CHP officer had been sitting next to Cooper to say "what the hell are you thinking Coop?" The appearance of confidence and skill we apply to Cooper, may, like you say, have all been a patina applied by the crew. Lack of personal contact etc...what happens is people create images in their minds of what they have in front of them. People assume the worst. (edit: or the best? extremes I guess) (maybe primal self-preservation thinking from cave-man days) Cooper knew how to say less, and achieve more. Like you say, totally dependent on others. Maybe the idea of tapping into whatever fears/desires/needs he saw in people. What makes people act like you want them to? Well first, make whatever you want easy for people I guess. People tend to take the easiest path. It's like it's one thing to ask for something. It's another thing to not ask, but create a situation where people will likely do what you want. In the end though, I guess Cooper just came with his wires and flares and an attitude. In his case, it apparently was enough. Lucky guy. but maybe not if Cooper actually died. So who knows.

(edit) note the grudge+money motivation here! CHP officer talked Frank Goodell, 21, out of it in Jul 1972. Goodell got $455k, handcuffs and a parachute. I suppose the details of the Cooper case prevented personal contact, so maybe that was more important than any perception of Cooper. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,877868,00.html Just 26 hours later, a Viet Nam veteran with a grudge against the Army for not permitting him to marry his Asian girl friend boarded another PSA plane in Oakland with his own quick-money scheme. Francis Goodell, 21, AWOL from Fort Riley, Kans., demanded $455,000, a parachute and handcuffs from the airline. Airline officials managed to gather the funds and equipment at the San Diego airport. On the return trip to Oakland, Goodell was talked out of his adventure by his lone hostage, Captain Lloyd Turner of the California Highway Patrol. (edit) Apparently he had two guns Times Standard, The (Newspaper) - July 7, 1972, Eureka, California The hijacker, identified by the FBI as Francis Goodell, Manassas, Va., handed over two guns and ... It was the second hijacking of a PSA plane in two days. ...

(this might be the most interesting alternative?) First: Land in Vancouver Lake. Then: Money drain towards/down (edit) Lake River on the N side of Vancouver Lake, but take a quick turn and travel ~2 miles down the faint creek I've outlined in the attached. It may have been more substantial in '71 before. Note it's still there, just doesn't connect to (edit) Lake River. It may have connected in the past, or during flood situations. I've also attached a topo map that shows the faint creek across Shilapoo Lake area (current map, may be different in '71) nicely, it goes right toward Tena Bar. The '96 info tells us flooding can get water to Lower River Rd. (I'm not sure if that's Lower River Rd on the E side of Shillapoo, or the NW leg that's right next to Tena Bar) from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver_Lake Vancouver Lake is a large lake just west of Vancouver, Washington, United States, north of the Columbia River and Portland, Oregon), south of Ridgefield, Washington and the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge. The lake is very shallow, with a maximum depth of 12-15 ft and a mean depth of less than 3 ft. There is an island in the northern half of the lake. The island was formed from tailings of an Army Corps of Engineers dredging project, which dredged around the perimeter of the lake in the early 1980s. Lake River flows from the north shore to the Columbia River near Ridgefield, Washington. Due to seasonal variation in relative river and lake levels, Lake River experiences intermittent flow reversal and flows into Vancouver Lake for considerable periods of time. The sources for Vancouver Lake's water include a flushing channel (equipped wth tidal gates to control flows) from the Columbia river near the SW shoreline and Burnt Bridge Creek on the NE shoreline, which winds about ten miles through many of the city's residential areas. Until the 1980s this creek was neglected and a major source of pollution for the lake. Lower River Road leads west out of Vancouver to a park on the shore of Vancouver Lake which includes a large swimming area. A trail leads to Frenchman's Bar Park on the nearby Columbia River.

this one has longer time estimate to the bump (or other adjustment of some sort that leads to bump roughly over PDX) Wind would have to be from the SE roughly? Maybe no flight path error, but landing instead in Vancouver Lake area..because the canopy drift can't be as far as needed? ...float across Vancouver Lake initially, then flooding somehow travels the money across Shilapoo Lake region. You can see I'm not a fan of money travel in the Columbia. but I suppose other alternatives lay there.

oh thanks! I had it all wrong. Sluggo should put some of this in his facts vs myth. So the only communication thru the mike was the "No" response? I thought there was mike communication about not being able to get the stairs down, which led to the plane slowing. In any case, you're saying there was minimal mike communication, so we shouldn't intuit much from that. Be nice to have the exact amount of mike use nailed down.

I've posted before. Paul Cini...got grabbed by the throat and hit with a fireax on the head. He had a gun, but he had put the gun down at the time. old guy in portland next year, claimed he had nitroglycerin, got talked down. (attached..interesting age/name..but obviously not cooper striking again) This guy got beer: Calmed by Beer, Jet Hijacker Gives Up to Argentine Police Los Angeles Times - ProQuest Archiver - Jul 5, 1971 HIJACK. Tranquilized with beer and reassured that the 73year-old U.S.-Argentina extradition treaty doesn't mention crimes in the air, champion long-distance ... That's an interesting assertion. Do you have transcripts from the other hijackings to back it up? Personally, if I thought someone had a bomb that could blow me up, I'd probably be pretty deferential too.

all we need: 1) Wind from the East at Portland 2) 6 mile error in the hand drawn flight path (more like tracking I5) 3) 3 mile canopy drift (I'm guessing based on the '72 map, at canopy drifts) then minimal float/money movement needed. see attached The bump time estimate can be reasonably fudged to be around the BTG vortac as required for the above. Shilapoo lake area is interesting. They're planning on doing restoration there...have been discussing plans for years. It used to flood a lot..They have dikes and pumps I believe. Farmland in some area now. A lot is state owned for wildlife sanctuary etc. But it's nice and remote. Maybe soft ground. Good auger-in potential.

okay, all you pilots will say this is obvious. But the idea of short, to the point, messages when using a mike, to keep the channel clear, is not a natural behavior for humans, right? I'm also impressed by how the transcripts and Scott's "will talk to him" phrase almost seem deferential to Cooper. It's like Scott was almost treating him as a peer, if not superior. And that's without seeing the guy. i.e. Scott seemed to be affected just by the guy's manner of speaking/language. We never hear anything describing Cooper as droning on and on about his worries or whatever thru the mike in the back. None of the males seemed like they thought they could talk Cooper down. On other hijacks, the crews did talk the person down, when it was obvious they could. It's like they were responding to an Alpha male in the dog pack. At least it seems that way to me, based on what we know.

thanks Ckret. Ok, I'm starting to believe all plant theories are nonsense. Sometimes I think the crazy theories stay around too long (like Duane theories) because we don't go thru the pain of accepting them as true and exploring what that means. So I like to accept a theory, then explore it. Then discard it if necessary. i.e. thesis->experiment->results->new thesis. I'm having a hard time though with a new jump zone plus money found at Tena Bar story. Somehow we need more data.

I'm digging for another clue here. We're told the tie was found on a seat, is that correct? was it folded in half on the seat? I like the idea of "forgotten" but I'm interested in how it was put down when it was removed. Maybe was removed while Cooper was standing. He'd have to stand to put the rig on, while the plane was on the ground. What seat was it found on? Probably not close to 18C or was it? Maybe he removed it before he got up? I'm really wondering if it was found neatly placed on the seat, or randomly thrown on the ground or what.

I know it's easy to zero in on the "technical" expertise, but I'm more impressed by the social expertise displayed by Cooper. And self-control. How come we don't talk about that much...do we all assume it's just natural, anyone can have it/do it, and the technical stuff is the unique stuff..? I think the technical stuff is the easy part. You can read that in a book. and we're not just talking one on one? he's controlling a number of people, some indirectly thru a microphone. Someone yelling "No" and that's it (you don't get any more explanation) is different than someone whining on and on thru the mike. Used to giving instructions and having them obeyed. Doesn't need to hand out a detailed written out plan like McVoy, because he knows (or thinks?) he can bark out the instructions verbally, have them be understood, and adapt on the fly if necessary. He knows he's not going to forget some detail. It's all in his head.

Treasure! oops what a giveaway...no just kidding. I didn't create those, just grabbed them off someone's web page they had created for an annual get together there on the south end of caterpillar island. Thought it was useful looking. looks like it's the dock there at quinn's cove? Yeah, you can see it labelled in the handdrawn map from the same post.

people theorizing about extortion motives and saying once there's money, then it's all about financial gain. let's bring it into the modern day. Hacker gangs, morphing into extortion/financial gain plans. What's their motive(s)? If you say "they just want money, and they found an easy way to get it" ....uh yeah, you could believe that if you wanted to. That may have become the primary focus when the money angle was desired. But saying that was the only motivation? don't think so? But whatever. Mixed motives are somehow verboten. Humans act with single motives, by decree, I suppose. So let's move on with our own singular motives!

just specified a destination? (not enough data really unavailable on McNally) According to the news articles, he supposedly preplanned the jump (DZ) with his buddy, using some kind of "calculator/tables" they found at his home later...i.e. time + predicted airspeed is what the FBI were saying. They said he got fooled cause the plane circled an airport at one point, so his time calculation was off and he jumped early. Did McNally know if there was one route or more? Dunno. It's probably in the FBI report. McNally ended up jumping in a different place (Peru, Indiana) than he said he planned. The news articles say the plan was closer to his house. But he got home somehow (Wyandotte, Mich. 150 mi. away) And even though the first reports said he lost his pants, he had pants. (doubt he lost his pants). Do we care how much knowledge McNally about flight routes? No. Heck his hijack went crazy when the crazy citizen (David Hanley) ran a car into his plane on the ground (Lambert Field, St. Louis). He had to switch planes, and as a result I think that's why he got hit with two hijack charges..two different planes. So McNally had a plan evidently (supposedly him and his buddy worked on the plan for five months). But on execution, yeah, he had to wing it a bit. Do we really care? All that matters is where the damn guy jumped, right? Who cares what his plan was? (edit) Nice quote on why they selected their hijack airports: [agent] Welch said they decided to hijack an airliner in St. Louis rather than at Detroit Metropolitan Airport because the Detroit airport was too close to their home area and because they felt security devices were less stringent at St. Louis airport.... ..."The original plan .. called for McNally to jump from the plane near Monroe. Mich" Welch said. Monroe is about 40 miles south of the .. homes of the two. Evidently McNally just called his buddy Petlikowsky up to come pick him up from the actual DZ. After being dropped off at a motel by the local sheriff. (part of his undoing I guess, in addition to fingerprints). So it didn't really matter what the planned DZ was. Basically all the same. (edit) McNally was an unemployed service-station attendant, high school dropout. Don't know about Petlikowsky.

Ok, say I'll accept the "money-only-reason" Ckret has floated, as fact. So what can I theorize about if that's fact. Well, what about Cooper's past and future? If he dealt with money issues this way in '71 and survived the jump, he likely also ran into money issues in the future. Because a bad money manager will likely continue to be a bad money manager. (if dealing with money problems at this scale) ...How did he deal with future money issues? More crime? Or how did it make it to age 45 without running into money issues? Or did he, and did crime to resolve it before? and somehow FBI just couldn't match him up to the Cooper case, even though he had a record? Seems to me, if it was just about money, then we're talking about a guy that no-pulled or died pretty quickly afterwards somehow. (maybe someone offed him? or he had an unrelated accident/sickness/etc) If we're talking about someone who survived, and continued to have a non-criminal life, it's hard to believe it was just about money. Does that make any sense? I'm thinking Cooper was a one-off crime. Are you thinking it was one-off, because then he died? Are you thinking there are elements of this that show prior criminal activity? Are you thinking Cooper did more crime after this if he survived? I'll buy the "only-about-money" theory, but you got to flesh it out a bit, because I can't picture why Cooper didn't get caught, with this theory. Ckret: If your knowledge of typical criminal behavior is correct, you should be able to give some guesses/insight on the above questions? I mean you're so confident about this, you must have an opinion on the questions that the theory generates? (edit) Oh if you're asking me what I would have done...I'd just tell them to fill up and head south. I'd jump when I saw some city lights. Wouldn't care what city. I'd keep it random, because FBI can't deal with random. I'd just keep it over land, cause I wouldn't want to drown. I'd keep them thinking I could have jumped anywhere along whatever route they took. Worst case I jump right before they land at the destination. I guess that's a bad random plan Ckret and you'd bust me in a jiffy because you'd know I didn't have a plan..i.e. I had no plan because the plan was an inobvious plan. There's no obvious reason why any landing site would be better than another. Any city will do. Keeping it random is actually the only thing that helps the success probability. Now you can argue criminals don't think that way. Okay.

"If it were anything other than the money he would have stated it." uh. Maybe I'm the dumb one here. So money is always an implicit motivator, and doesn't need stating. All other motivators need stating. Hm. okay. Alternate theories: -All motivators need stating when you get the mic: "I want a nice car, dammit and I want it now" -No motivators need stating: "." -Motivators sometimes get stated and sometimes not. -Motivators get stated, but they're not the real motivators. Humans can be random event generators. Not worth stressing about some things too much. Actually, that's what keeps human life beautiful. Random events are required for us all to keep life worth living.

This is way out there, but I'll throw it out while I'm musing about it. I've grappled with various money plant theories by various possible people. Cooper or non-Cooper. This is a Cooper post-hijack (some undefined time) money plant theory (at Tena Bar). I've been looking at my GE pics, and you can see where I've put a stickpin at 2015 Guess, based on a guess of rough time of oscillations to bump like we've been discussing, but also because of the sharpish turn there. I'm thinking the pilots might have thought "finally he's gone, now we can just fly the damn plane" What's interesting, is that it aligns with the money find location, along an imaginary E to W line. Except the money find location is too far west. And the wind wasn't blowing that way. So you can go down the path of saying "Well maybe Cooper jumped later and landed in the river with a no-pull" and then we're back to money + water movement, and maybe lost money bag or whatever theories. Or you could say Cooper at some point decided to do a money plant. He might have suspected the FBI would get the bump/jump point timeline correct. He wouldn't want to plant where he actually jumped, because maybe it would be unlikely for someone to find it, or the FBI might interview the area and actually find someone that remembered something. (edit) or because the DZ would actually imply then that he lived! And it's got to be somewhere that's plausible that it wasn't found for a while, and has a backstory that maybe helps people think Cooper's dead. But has enough human traffic so that it could actually be found. It might take a couple years to be found. There could have been a couple of money plants in similar areas, and maybe only Tena Bar was found. So you look at a map, decide where you actually jumped, then draw a line over to the river and hope they got the flight path kinda wrong. Do some money plants, cross your fingers, and go on with your life. Which actually is a rational plan, because rational people like Agent H. and Scott apparently sat around at some point discussing "well maybe the flight path was actually here, or here" etc because of where the money was found. Even Tosaw emphatically said "he knows" because of the various data that aligned with that money find location.

re "bar to car" the tiebar, in fact Cooper's whole "costume" can be used to imply something about his employment. (edit) or recently past employment, if he had been fired or laid off? So maybe I meant to say "theories about his employment would seem to imply car". Although it is just a guess, based on my thinking about aviation employment in those days. On the other hand, an opposing theory might be: "Cooper lived and worked in a city with public transportation"

This is going down another track, chasing the thinking of "Loner". Loner was introduced as a way of explaining why no one reported Cooper missing, if he died. Now lets forget human relationships and just think about "stuff"...the trappings of life we surround ourselves with. Ok, he probably had a bank account. Let's say the money just went unclaimed after he's dead. Ok, let's say he was renting. The landlord just forgot about him and threw out his stuff, and rented the apt to someone else. Assumed he skipped out. But if he was some kind of engineer type, I'm thinking he'd own a car. Sure he might not have used it to drive to the hijack, so it wasn't found at PDX if he died. But if he died, his car (assuming he owned one) was sitting somewhere. Wouldn't someone notice that eventually? Are we saying that if Cooper's dead, he probably didn't own a car to drive to work? Or are we just saying "Yeah Cooper had no friends and no stuff, or any friends and stuff just got ignored when he died". Why would you have that tie-bar and no car? Did he work in a city and use public transportation? I thought most of the big aviation employment centers were outside major cities. Thoughts?

Sluggo you referenced some southern style police names. I think we need to be very accurate in our facts here. I can provide the exact quote from the Muppet Movie Dr. Teeth: It's the man with the badge, the PO-lice, the cops, the fuzz, the P-I-... Miss Piggy: Don't you dare! Dr. Teeth: I wouldn't think of it.

Hi Sluggo, can you quote the source for the quoted statement..was that from Ckret? The problem with the transcripts now is we're second guessing them sometimes, as possible misintrepretations sometimes (like the description of "he's got the knapsack around him" when there was no knapsack) If Cooper's request was as you state, it certainly changes my thinking of this whole airstairs demand, and Cooper's possible knowledge. I had originally thought Cooper said stairs down after takeoff based on reading the transcripts, but then Ckret was so insistent about Cooper wanting the stairs down at takeoff I assumed there was testimony that we didn't have that maybe Cooper really wanted the stairs dragging as the plane took off...which is why I was going on and on about that a number of posts ago. Now you just posted a apparent "fact" that was what I thought was the original Cooper request all along. If so, that's great. And thanks for all the clarifications and drawings. Good stuff.