snowmman

happythoughts, you might have a good find here: That shoe story is interesting cause Bill Rattie mentions the predicted DZ map and drift lines?, and he posted his comment on Jan 2 '08, at the site you linked to. I think that was before Ckret released the '72 DZ map here at DZ.com? So it wouldn't be common knowledge unless you were really involved in the search? That map wasn't available publicly before Ckret's release, or no? Bill says it was dead of winter in '71. So the search may have crossed over to Jan '72 when the DZ map we have was supposedly created? Bill says he was camped out there for two months. The shoe story made me think this would be a good time to mention again the "Strange Man Walking On Lewis River Rd." story. This is from a newspaper article, talking about the night of 11/24/71. Harold may not have reported it right away. The news article is from 11/29/76 (attached) "Harold Babitzke. who lives five miles from town, said his daughter was startled by "a strange man" carrying a package under his arm on Lewis River Road, which runs past Ariel. "He looked like he didn't want a ride from anybody." Babitzke said. "I really think it was Cooper." I tracked down the apparent Harold Babitzke street address [not included for privacy] but position is: 45°59'34.57"N 122°31'48.42"W [Edit] Google Earth show some cleared fields in that area currently. It's very near the top drift line..right above Lake Merwin. The article mentions the FBI following this lead to a dead end but who knows. I guess not much you could do with it anyhow. Be interesting if Ckret can find anything about it in the files.

Thanks Ckret for the glasses answer. I'm curious now to hear how Jo explains this and reconciles her photos. The only photo I've seen with no glasses is Duane at age 25? Even the 1960 "glamor shot" has him holding glasses in his hand...i.e. temporarily removed. So by 1960 he must have needed them always? Edit: I'm reposting a Jo photo which she described as "1968 location unknown" (paraphrase). I've hiked with guys who wear glasses. It's a pain. You don't do it unless you need them. See photo. Why is Duane wearing glasses there? Note the photo is perfect evidence for time since there is a date on the right border, from when it was developed. It says Jul '69 to my eye when I blew it up. Jo may have misread it as '68. But close enough.

[1 q for Ckret at end] I'm trying to picture Duane doing the hijack. All the photos we seem to have from around 1971, seem to have him in glasses. I suppose Jo wouldn't know what his eyesight was without them then. But he must have needed them a lot. I'm wondering then why Cooper didn't board the plane wearing glasses? Ckret has said the sunglasses/tinted glasses were put on after one of the stews had already seen his eyes? I'm also wondering about the actual jump. If Cooper was Duane, did he take them off, and put them back on when he landed? Did it not affect his ability to pull? I'm just wondering why the eyeglasses have never been discussed before, and how they are a non-issue for the details of the hijack and witness statements. When Cooper bought the ticket from the ticket agent, was he wearing glasses? I'm guessing Cooper only had the tinted glasses, and he wasn't wearing them then, because it would have been very odd? Maybe Ckret can answer about the ticket agent's description. [edit] Quoting a past post from Ckret, to confirm the glasses went on after the note pass: "He had brown eyes (Schaffner saw his eyes before he put on the glasses, he looked directly at her several times urging her to read the note)"

I just realized we have evidence that the stairs were stowable after landing with stairs deployed at Reno. The photo of the man inspecting the aft stairs. A copy is at Sluggo's most excellent web site: http://n467us.com/Photo%20Evidence_files/image044.jpg It's after landing. Stairs look stowed to me. Just more evidence that we should second guess all opinions offered by authorities in the transcripts. Do people agree/disagree with this stowed stairs assessment? [edit] before stowing, but after landing http://n467us.com/Photo%20Evidence_files/image046.jpg also see rommel.jpg previously posted

[Edit: we've said "lights out" on 305 may have been for dark-adapting Cooper's eyes. After reading this, one might muse about avoiding intercept with lights out, along with my theme of radar inaccuracy possibilities] This is just going to be a dump of some anecdotal info from two SAGE folk, but without direct knowledge of the 305 event. We know the '72 map was made using USAF radar data. We don't know what radar. We speculate SAGE at McChord was involved. McChord definitely had a SAGE site. [Edit] reading some of the stuff below, and knowing that F106 intercepts were standard for SAGE, we might think SAGE is likely. I actually got to touch an old SAGE console recently. They actually have built-in cigarette ashtrays and lighters like a car. And rotary black dial phones. Funny imagining they were supposed to save us from Russian bombers. I was musing about possible inaccuracies in USAF radar from McChord. There are theories that the radar info is from SAGE, which would make the Mt. Hebo site likely. Individual radar radius was probably 150 miles? although rain would attentuate the transmitted signal, and irregular terrain, and low altitude would make it less effective in the Flight 305 case? (there are a number of academic papers that address the issues of low altitude radar propagation factors) Also, you can read the detail here which makes it reasonable to guess that the two F106 chase planes may not have radar intercepted 305. Note we have no data on positioning that comes from the F106s. 305 supposedly had lights out. Low altitude intercepts (to me) seemed to be dependent on visual intercept to a degree? [edit] Story about F106 S-turns could have been not wanting to fully admit poor intercept capability? Who knows? No data on visual intercept success. anecdotal info from another SAGE site scope operator: -------------------------------------------------------------- source 1: SAGE tied in radars from throughout the region, not just from the home station, and could also get feeds from adjoining divisions. In 1972 the 25th Air Division's area of operations included all of Washington, Oregon and portions of northern California, northern Nevada, western Idaho and western Montana. The site which probably did most of the tracking once Flight 305 got south towards the Columbia was Mount Hebo AFS (689th RADS) on the Oregon coast, possibly back-stopped by Keno AFS (827th ADG), although that was well south near Klamath Falls and possibly by the 637th ADG at Othello AFS. Mount Hebo would've provided the best picture of the aircraft and allowed tracking of it with all data transmitted to the SAGE DC. The latter ordered the launch of the two 318th FIS F-106As. From what I understand, the squadron was having a party that night and had trouble finding two pilots who were in condition to fly. I suspect the story is apocryphal, as the 318th maintained a 24-hour alert facility at the south end of the McChord ramp...still, it's a great story! Anyway, McChord wouldn't have had any trouble tracking the B727 as it moved south. If Cooper had stayed on the plane into northern California, the 25th AD would've handled tracking and interception duties off to the 26th Air Division out of Luke AFB, AZ. ----------------------------------------------- source 2: For me, close to a radar site is less than 30 miles. As to other Air Force radars operating back then, they would have belonged to units of the Tactical Air Command (TAC) and used for their training purposes. SAGE was part of Aerospace Defense Command (ADCOM) and did not have access to TAC radar information. And a radar's range was nowhere close to 600 miles. The genius of SAGE was that it took all these radars with limited range, and had each one send it's radar info via telephone lines to the SAGE computer. SAGE then put all of that info together into one large picture that saw everything that all of the individual sites saw, all in picuture. This, by the way, was the beginning of today's internet technology ... sending visual information via telephone lines for processing and manipulation. And the first mouse was a SAGE lightgun, but I digress. TAC had no system like ADCOM's so whatever an individual site saw, if it was up and running at all, that would have been it. I have no personal experience with TAC but I think their sites were just running to control daily training missions whereas ADCOM sites were up "turning and burning" 24 hours a day. We, after all, had a missioin to defend America 24 hours a day. TAC was training to do a mission some day ... maybe. I was thinking about what you said regarding the F-106's having problems because the Northwest 727 was going low and slow. I don't know if this has any bearing on your research or not but we used to practice low and slow intercepts, anywhere from as low as 2,000 feet up to 7,000 feet, depending on how close our military air space was to the radar site. Due to the curvature of the earth blocking out targets at increasingly high altituded the farther away they were from the radar, that put limits on us. Close to the radar site = very low. Not close to the radar site = not so low. The standard procedure for F-106's was for two of them to be on every intercept. For low targets one would fly by the target aircraft as slowly as he could but still be passing him. Once past it the F-106 would zoom ahead, do a right turn in a racetrack pattern and come in from behind the target again. While this one was repositioning himself the second F-106 would be in position to do his low, slow flyby within visual range until he passed the target, and then he'd zoom ahead and reposition himself, with the two six's taking turns keeping a visual on the target. This was challenging work, which is why we practiced it. I have no idea if the F-106's did that with the Northwest 727 with Cooper on it, but those are the procedures. Trying to do this at night in the mountains and out of radar contact ... that would have been a very, very difficult endeavor. Unlike today's fighters, the F-106 did not have "look down" capability. Than meant that at low level looking down on a target, the target would just blend in with the background radar clutter and would be almost impossible to see. Today's fighters have doppler hooked into the radar so the radar has the ability to "see" something that has a different speed to it other than the ground below that was passing by. So what would be easy for an F-15 or F-16 to do would be almost impossible for an F-106. --------------------------------------------- Edit: Speculating about stored SAGE data and who might have analyzed it for the '72 map: Source 1: I don't know how long the old magnetic tapes would've recorded but yes, the tapes were stored for later review and analysis. The four air defense sectors (later three, then two) retained this ability through the transition to the Joint Surveillance System (JSS) during the late 1970s/early 1980s and still have the capability with the new BCS-F set-up, although I'm pretty certain nowadays all recording is done digitally vice on magnetic tape. One of the primary missions of the 84th Radar Evaluation Squadron (RADES) is post-mission analysis of intercepts, disappearing aircraft, inflight disasters (the STS Columbia's breakup over Texas several years ago), etc.

Yeah, Orange1, that web account is backed up by news articles from the time period also. Here's a '95? 727 rear stair indicator lite going on right before landing. I think the real message is that we don't know about accidental deployments. They don't all make the news. They also might not want people to know if the Cooper Vane is not 100% reliable.? PBIA'S FIREFIGHTING TEAM RESPONDED TO 44 EMERGENCIES IN 1995 Palm Beach Post - NewsBank - Jun 9, 1996 On May 13, Pilot Frank T. Gravina prepared to land the Boeing 727 when a rear stair indicator light went on in the cockpit. ...

[I just realized it was a DC-8! Don't know what that means to a Cooper Dufus Theory!] I read that it was a shotgun not a handgun, and he had dynamite and a parachute in a package tied with twine. They say he was going for the parachute when they whacked him with the fireax, but I'm not sure if there was really a chute. Evidently the dynamite and shotgun were real? Note this NYT article from the trial doesn't mention the dynamite, and it says Cini said the package had a parachute. So I'm wondering. (see attached) Here's some google news snippets. Some make it sound like real dynamite, since they mention the number of sticks. I think some said 54, some 60. Canada Jet Crew Subdues Hijacker After 6 Hours New York Times - Nov 14, 1971 Mr. Bonny knocked out the hijacker, identified as Paul Joseph Cini, ... The hijacker, armed with a shotgun and saying he was carrying dynamite wired as a ... Canada Jet Crew Subdues Hijacker After 6 Hours New York Times - Nov 14, 1971 Mr. Bonny knocked out the hijacker, identified as Paul Joseph Cini, who was about to ... had with him a twine-wrapped package he said contained a parachute. ... reno_evening_gazette (Newspaper) - November 15, 1971, Reno, Nevada The young man, Paul Cini, was reported in satisfactory condition in a Calgary ... Armed with a shotgun and a package which he said contained dynamite, ... Here's one that says it 60 sticks of dynamite Daily Review, The (Newspaper) - November 14, 1971, ... identified the suspect Saturday as 27-year- old Paul J. Cini of Calgary. ... The other bag contained 60 sticks of dynamite, with which the hijacker ... Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - November 17, 1971, 'Quiet, Aloof CALGARY (CP) Paul Cini, 27, charged in.the hijacking of an Air Canada DC-8 Friday, was described by his neighbors Sunday as "quiet and very ... [Hey: Bonny Lake connection: Mr. Bonny was the guy that knocked out Cini :) about as good as mentioning D.B./Depoe Bay connection !!!]

I was thinking about whether we might be putting too much thinking into this. and whether Ckret may be right with what we might call The Dufus Theory. Cini was planning on parachuting. And he was before Cooper. We don't go on and on about where Cini might have gotten the idea that he could parachute out of a [edit] DC-8. (Edit: I didn't know Cini wasn't 727) But that apparently was his plan before he was stopped while going for the package supposedly containing a chute. So we could say "Cooper got the idea the same way Cini got the idea". The only problem is that we don't know of any Details where Cini acted like he knew about planes. It seems Cooper did know about planes a little...so we start dreaming about how he must have brought his knowledge up to similar levels in the other required areas. But maybe he just didn't. Maybe just kind of a morph of Cini. As far as I can tell, Cini had a package that he said had a parachute? I'm not sure if he had a real parachute. He brought it with him? Can anyone fill in the facts on the Cini case, parachute-wise?

This is just a harebrained thought. I learned about accidental inflight stair deployments on 727s reading news articles, and in airline "accident" reports. We've been musing about how the idea/knowledge of stair deployment might have arrived in Cooper's brain. Rather than engineering or test flight results, I'm wondering if there were any accidental stair openings inflight for 727s in the period '65-'71. Boeing might have records of this. The news article I read talked about how they opened the aft door, secured a crew member with seat belts and leaned out to close the stairs which had opened about 2' Be interesting if we could dig up any reports of accidental stair deployments '65-'71. inflight or other.

hey ckret, you must not be good at searching news online. Your name was in news articles...along with the other 3 on the team..boy/girl/boy/girl hmmmmm...what happens in Iraq stays in Iraq? JUST KIDDING! Edit: passive-aggressive. Hey you got my profile! :)

Hi quade, so you're saying you know how far the stairs extend out when deployed? Don't we know they don't stay deployed when hit by air pressure? I'm not sure what data you have. Can you specify in feet? You might be right. I'm not sure what data you're using though on the stairs. Edit: I'm also not sure how you're explaining the landing then? Is the landing a different situation on plane angle?

I saw a post where someone was claiming Cooper was a loner. in 1971. The Loner label doesn't add up for me. I'm reflecting a bias.The attire/personal care/behavior doesn't seem to fit, unless it was a disguise. Hard to disguise behavior though. The interactions with the stews, the dress, he appears to have shaved that morning, combed his hair. Worn a clip on tie with a cheap tiebar, possibly from a men's jewelry "set". Tina didn't hand him a book of matches when he asked for a light. She lit it for him. A loner? She probably would have just given him the matchbook. A loner would freak Tina out with one look. Wouldn't want to put your hands near his face. Too intimate/trusting. To me it sounds like there was someone who cared about how Cooper looked. And there were people with whom Cooper cared about his appearance. The "evidence" being thrown out for Loner status is actually all guesses about things that might have happened that we have no data on (week missing, people noting something about him afterwards, or not being noticed/reported)...That's all speculation based on theories about something or other..but not stuff we have data on. The evidence we have that's fact is his appearance, dress, and personal hygiene and behavior. If someone pushes "Loner" theories, shouldn't they be pushing "Disguise" theories also? I don't get this Loner status theory. Maybe could give some more detail on thoughts?

377: I'm not a plane guy, but just guessing about airspeed, ground speed and angle of 727 relative to ground, what's the difference between the landing at Reno with stairs deployed, and a possible takeoff? Is there any? Isn't the Reno landing a relatively close reverse experiment? We have a visual picture of the results of that experiment also, on the stairs, right? (UPI photos, plus the cronkite video). And we know the landing was successful. Plane didn't catch fire, etc. Don't know if they replaced the stairs afterward. Didn't matter if they could stow, cause that wasn't an important issue in the takeoff scenario. My main point is that Ckret goes on and on about how Cooper obviously didn't know about the stairs, I think mostly because of this "can't deploy on takeoff" issue. Partly because of needing Tina to show airstair deployment mechanisms I suppose? What appears to have been true is that the pilots wouldn't takeoff with stairs deployed. Maybe Cooper couldn't predict that. Maybe he could predict what was technically possible, but couldn't press his hand when the pilots refused. I don't think this is an important theory, but it does highlight in my mind, that some "facts" we have are possibly unproven, and in fact just opinions, on close examination.

normally we don't like going down the conspiracy theory path here, I know, but a lot of stuff was going down in Southeast Asia in late '60s, early '70s...you could imagine that there was suspicion on who Coop was, and it may have been decided that the greater good was served by giving him a pass because maybe otherwise the greater bad might be revealed. Or some other reason for a pass. Plausible. Likely? dunno. Sounds too spy novelish, I suppose. But ignoring conspiracy stuff, and even ignoring the SEAL claim here, someone in a position of authority knew about boxes going out, somewhere, somehow, in flight, with wheels and flaps in something close to the Cooper Configuration. these quoutes are part of a larger extract on: http://www.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=191806

I wanted to throw this out as theory, because as far as I can tell: 1) the pilots didn't understand you could deploy in flight, yet we're relying on their (or others) testimony in the transcripts that you can't take off with stairs deployed. 2) They thought the stairs would sustain worse damage on landing, such that you couldn't stow them. That appears to have been wrong. It looks like the cloth panels on the stairs were shredded due to wind. You can see that in the "Rommel" photo I posted, or at sluggo's site from the Cronkite video. So we have a lot of apparently wrong opinions about what you can do with airstairs deployed, yet we're supposed to believe you can't take off? We know the stairs move up to maybe 2 ft opening when flying "reasonably fast". I'm guessing based on some recent news articles where 727 stairs have opened in flight even though Cooper Vane installed. They're supposed to test them during the preflight but I suspect sometimes the Vane doesn't twist right with airflow. I found 2 cases where 727 stairs opened in flight in the last 12 years or so (if memory serves correct). So if the stairs will fold up a bit, shouldn't that protect them on takeoff? Until there is other evidence presented, I'm theorizing that you can take off in a 727 with airstairs deployed. I don't know if it's been tried. But there's no evidence that says it's not possible, and related evidence we have suggests it might be possible. Remember: we don't care if the stairs are damaged a little, as long as you can still jump from them, and fly the plane. We've accepted this "Cooper was wrong about the stairs" idea as fact, yet there is no evidence that says Cooper was wrong.

Hi 377, good info. question: your post implies some fuzziness that I'm not sure needs to be so fuzzy? Remember the transcripts have these odd statements at 6:59 (page 12) "MSP FLT OPS HAVE NO CNTRL PROBLEM WHEN XTNDD MAY BE SUM SLITE PITCHUP BUT ERY CNTRLLBL PLANE HAS BEEN FLOWN THIS WAY HAVE LARGE BOXES OF 2 T0 3HND LBS THRU THE DOOR IN THIS CONFIG" So that doesn't sound like "safety" test results. It sounds like airdrops. Unless maybe it's just throwing garbage out the door during a test?. They then go on to specify "..MUST BE DOWN WITH LANDING FLAPS" So where did this info come from that was then relayed on the radio? I guess we've been thru this before. It seemed like maybe you forgot this part of the transcripts? Am I misinterpreting your post? or the transcripts?

Any KC-135 boom operators or anecdotes out there? People chime in with info/applicability? I wanted to maybe show that "loadmaster" sounds good, but there seems to have been other ways to have gained skill/some-knowledge acquisition of similar quality/applicability? (check the photo and read the full post for why) But: I don't think boom operator meshes with future business man attire. Who knows though. Showing bias. Attached photo of refuel, plus a cool c-130 cargo drop just cuz it was kool. info off web: Note parachute training happened regularly. The KC-135 Stratotanker is for aerial refuel. It was another deriviative of the 367-80 (Dash 80) program, as was the 707. Note the refuel boom comes out the rear of the plane. There used to be some kind of escape spoiler for safe parachute exit? The KC-135 crew members were trained to be able to grab/use parachutes for emergencies or some operations. They got annual parachute training. Now apparently they have a harness available for those operations and no parachute. Only recently, the USAF announced that parachutes have been removed from KC-135 operation, because it's statistically safer to stay with the plane. http://www.afrc.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123087912 background/McChord connection: The Boeing model 367-80 (Dash 80) was the basic design for the commercial 707 as well as the KC-135A Stratotanker. In 1954, USAF purchased the first 29 of its future fleet of 732. The first of these aircraft left the assembly line at Renton, Wash. July 18, 1956, and flew for the first time August 31, 1956. The Strategic Air Command positioned a squadron of KC-135 tankers at McChord in June 15, 1960. The new unit, 22d Air Refueling Squadron, was an element of the 92d Bombardment Wing (Heavy) based at Fairchild AFB, WA. After a 2 year stay at McChord, the 22nd ARS was deactivated on July 1 1962.

yeah, and Cooper didn't wear a hat, even though it was raining. Does that mean anything. Dunno. Edit: To Ckret: The most important part of the crime was to not get caught. Secondary most important: keep the money, although that's debatable. Third most important: Live. Living's not important if you're caught, right? Prison same as death essentially (look at poor McNally) I was thinking that I can see why Ckret has to be the good guy not the crook. If me and Larry played a game of Russian Roulette with 1 bullet in the revolver, I think he'd back down before me. Winner gets the FBI files :) Edit: The homburg hat is rumor, right Ckret? no wonder we can't find him. We still don't agree on what is fact vs myth!

thanks for the reply Ckret. I was a little abrasive in my last post, apologies. You obviously didn't understand the theory I was stating, because I wasn't saying his plan didn't turn into a jump plan. I was talking about a possible initial plan that was better than your initial plan, if one just looks at the evidence we know of in this forum. It was just a theory. I'm surprised you couldn't understand what I was saying, But I'll drop it. If you think your posts make it clear that there's evidence to suggest he was a loadmaster, then okay.

I was thinking we're such a diverse group, that we may not all have the same idea of what people in different "groups" or "subcultures" might have looked like, or dressed like, back then. Attached is a photo taken in 1968 of a Boeing engineer/manager, also a pilot. Aged 45 in the photo. Notice the Boeing plane model on the table. This picture, from the small number of photos that I've seen, seems like "typical Boeing engineer/manager type" in that time period and age group. I'd be interested in whether I'm just showing my bias and whether there was more diversity in that kind of group then. As we've noted, a lot of males looked like this. The hairstyle is common etc. It also shows the likelihood of a family for such a subject, and even maybe how the family interactions might be affected by the job. I would also note that without understanding the anthropology of those days, and what people looked like, it's easy to think some of the suspects we've mentioned have strong facial match to the sketch, when they really don't, compared to other men of that era. It's because we're not used to looking at suspects from the right pool and age group.

Ckret: feedback on your theory Not sure what's suggesting military service. Not jump experience, right? What then? language? What percentage of Boeing engineers in that age group, say, had military service? Is it 80-90%? Or what percentage of pilots in that age group? Engineer or Pilot would probably provide most of the knowledge Cooper apparently had? Why military service required? Said-in-the-nicest-possible-way: Sometimes I think your theories are as not-backed-by-data as the rest of us! Hey You're One of Us! Example: I looked at the US census reports for 1970 for the OR/WA states. It's split by age groups..including 35-44 and 45-54. male/female is approx 50%. Assuming all other traits are equally likely (jobs/hair color/weight/height), then including the 35-44 age group in the suspect pool only doubles the number of possible suspects. (Edit: had typo on 2nd range of 45-54..each age group is ~190 thousand in WA in 1970) When I suggested expanding the age group you implied that it would greatly increase the number of suspects. When we have zero suspects, and you're worried about only doubling the total pool we're fishing in, it doesn't seem right to me. I also think my plan-was-no-jump-but-fake-jump is more backed by the evidence. Did you hear the story of the guys who ran up to plane while taxiing and opened the baggage compartment and grabbed a money bag with a boatload of money...all while the plane is moving... Messing with moving planes on the ground is something people usually can't conceive of. Although they thought of it on landing at Reno. Why not at takeoff?

These were issued weekly. I have the whole week for 11/22/71 to 11/28/71 with a legend description for the notations on the map. I can't upload even the 11/24/71 because of size limitations. I'll attach a screen shot of the Portland area. It gives us wind direction and speed at Portland if you know how to read the notations. The wind comes from the direction of the "feathers" on the wind indicator "arrow". The speed is indicated by the number of barbs on the arrow reference: http://weather.about.com/od/b/g/Barbs.htm There is one full barb, so I'm reading 10 knots from the South, at Portland. This would be good for estimating canopy drift if Cooper was spotting from the rear of the plane looking for lights or something near Portland. Notably, the wind is not from the East, blowing towards the money find location. If people have better data sources for wind at PDX 11/24/71 that would be nice. The full weather map showed the 36/51 min/max (edited: fixed typo on temps) temp range for Portland. Also of note is the precipitation patterns throughout the US that day. Maybe Cooper might have said "Mexico" solely because the only clear weather in the country from WA that day was going South or Southeast (not North or East) The weekly report also noted on 11/22/71 there was "several inches of snow in N.E." (new england?)

okay, I think you're responding to an earlier post, cause the subject doesn't match your replies, which are good thoughts/info, though. I think the replies actually help strengthen my Plan Was No Jump theory? There is no evidence that says the plan was to jump. Any thoughts/evidence to contradict that?

Just exploring the possibilities Ckret has suggested about Seattle first choice DZ. After landing in Reno, they explored the surrounding area a lot with cops and dog (The GSD dog's name in the Cronkite video was "Rommel" ...(really!)) I was wondering: what if the plan was never to jump, just fake a jump. Cooper runs down the stairs at takeoff. Cooper's timeline guaranteed 305 would takeoff in the dark at Seattle. If he wanted the stairs down at takeoff, he could get away, and have them think he's still on the plane. Remember he put everyone in the cockpit at takeoff correct? (This needs verification) So then he's stuck. Maybe Plan B From Outer Space was that he really had to jump, and he had never planned on jumping. His other actions all seem consistent with a real jump never being part of the plan. Just a fake jump so they wouldn't know. See I'm wondering why the police thought about the "run and hide" scenario on landing at Reno, but not as a plan in Seattle. If it's possible on landing, it's possible on takeoff. (unless the pilot nixes your plan). Maybe that's why Cooper argued so much with Scott et. al. on the stairs-at-takeoff problem? He had to finally give in because he realized he maybe was wrong? Edit: this theory precludes some of the "intelligence" aspects of stair deployment knowledge. If he's in Plan B mode, maybe he just lucked out. His prior knowledge may just have been about enough info on plane altitude and speed to make a jump plausible, assuming stairs down at takeoff. So his knowledge could have been limited, then future luck made him seem more knowledgable. Edit: It also solves the problem of how Cooper acquired the rarified knowledge of inflight deployment. He wouldn't have to with this theory, because his plan didn't require the rarified knowledge. Edit: It might make the knapsack request more understandable. If he's not really jumping, dealing with money in a knapsack is easier. In fact, then the primary issue is how to run away with the money on ground. So knapsack request makes sense. If jumping, the primary problem is money control on jet exit, which knapsack doesn't help? (with chute on)

Part of the "mythology" of the Cooper case is a pseudo science story about how rubber bands would have deteriorated away in about a year in the exposed condition at Tena Bar. I think this could be total junk science. First: review the 3 descriptions Brian has been quoted as saying about Bundle Discovery. Mashed together, on top on one another, touching. Basically an almost integrated mass of sorts. Second: look closely at all the bill fragments. For the bundles to be so closely integrated together, yet fragile and fragmented, a lot of decomposition had to happen after bundle arrival at Tena Bar. I think the statements about rubber bands are just bad science. There are 4 main factors, I believe, in rubber band decomposition 1) microbial. This depends on a precise range of moisture. Too dry or Too wet inhibits. Cold also inhibits 2) Cold. rubber bands get brittle in cold 3) UV 4) Ozone We know the rubber bands were covered with sand. I think that would protect against Ozone and UV deterioration. Microbial deterioration may be inhibited by the apparent constant moisture environment. Remember the bundles were "soaked" even though they were far up the bank...30 feet or so? so the sand was wet just under the surface. The river levels change over time, but not overnite? Also, the sand is a low microbe environment. I was reading an article on human body decomposition, and they mentioned how it lasts longer if buried in sand. If the rubber band lifetime was extended, then the same factors would aid in slowing US currency decomposition or discoloration. Edit: I was surprised at the relatively small amount of insect holes in the currency. I'm no expert, but it made me think it favored decomposition in sand burial, rather than soil burial. (more insects in soil) All in all, I think we should reject any supposed scientific analysis that talks about "1 year or less" for the money on Tena Bar. I think the science could support the money being there for many years. I'm also wondering about the science guaranteeing the clay layer is connected to the '74 dredge, but that's another post. I'm willing to say the money may have been there since '74 or '75 though.[email]