snowmman

you're thinking like someone from 2008. need to think like someone from 1971 Records of driver's licenses weren't computerized in OR until like '68 or '69. don't know about WA. so you're thinking about "searching"...well that wasn't going to be the normal mindset at that time (I think) Surely a middle name is... well, pretty obvious? Alternatively, I understand it's fairly common for aliases to use the same initials as the real person. Someone D. C. ... possibly a 2-syllable last name as well. First name... maybe also a 1-syllable abbreviation of a longer name... Don, Dave etc. Should only take about a million man-hours to search through records to find someone who fits Maybe a boeing employee would narrow it down. Ckret - any comments on this line of thinking? I presume somewhere in the vast FBI lore there is work on this.

there was a comment before about how a line can be drawn between any number of variables. You have to reflect on what you recognize as a variable. Variables are not just hard things you can touch like money. Everything that has happened since 1971 and everything that happened in 1971 is evidence that should be accepted. The behavior (and results of that behavior) of everyone, both the investigators and Cooper, since 1971 is evidence. If you don't accept that, it means you're rejecting evidence for no good reason. My point is that the answer is out there. People sometimes shut the answer out, thinking they're going to aggressively find the answer based on their point of view. Have to let the data/evidence talk to you. All of it. Be the scientist watching the rats in the maze.

thanks, Neo :) I think this is interesting. Scott was closest in real age to the age estimated for Cooper. But he never saw Cooper. So we have the age estimates coming from the two stewardesses in their early twenties. Besides them, who else gave confirming age estimate? (I'm not sure who all was constrained to the cockpit)

What is beautiful about the human condition, is that two people can look at one thing and say there is nothing there, or something there. Baseless is always in the eye of the beholder. I may be wrong. But I'm not baseless.

Cooper only did one crime in his life. This one. That was also key to why he didn't get caught. When you're doing lots of crime, you're always having to hook up with guys that will turn on you at the drop of a hat. For the rest of Cooper's life, he never did anything that would make anyone want to turn on him. There was never a reason for someone to think "oh that bastard, he probably did the cooper job and I'll get his a** now" Cooper also realized how amazingly lucky he was that night...when at the time he thought he was smart. When in 1972 you see all the guys copycat'ing and some of them getting shot by the cops/FBI and all getting caught, you straighten out and fly right. [edit] So, then you ask, how did he survive the rest of his life. Well he was rehired the next year. He went back to work in his old industry, potentially the same employer. Got bummed out again, and eventually left though. Having been laid off, is one of the reasons that aided him. There were no guys at work that noticed anything odd when he showed up at work after Thanksgiving. Because he didn't have to show up at work.

hey we think alike. You're narrowing in on my suspect. Assume he belonged to a hiking club in the NW. He's not the profile that he would be more of a climber. Just a hiker. He's reasonably fit, he does hike outdoors. But he's not a rugged outdoorsman. He's not a mountaineer. The dark skin is from the sun during those hikes. He lives in the NW...people in the NW probably get a sense of what I mean. (also think back to the late '60s and early '70s for what that kind of outdoor behavior was like then) He might have actually done some conditioning hikes beforehand. Thinking about the profile, remember I think he was fired in Spring 1971. So he had the summer off...time to hike around, stew about his predicament and how he was going to pay the bills on the house he bought in 1966 and he's got all these young kids now. (i'm oscillating between whether he was married or not) *** cooper has been described as having a darker skin. could he have been wearing any kind of protective coverage? he knew he would be jumping in raw weather and he may have planned a high altitude hike on thanksgiving day. (copper tan: dan cooper? ) or might we expect that the stewardess would have noticed if he had any "cosmetic" layers? ***

I had some thoughts on this. I could imagine a subconcious conflict of wanting to leave your thumbprint on it because you are just so f*ing smart and want to brag, even if just to yourself. You're not going to just pick it out of a phone book (although that would be the smart thing to do) I was wondering about the name being assembled this way: First name from brother or young son. Last name is his middle name. I also had a random thought that maybe Cooper didn't have a driver's license. Otherwise I'm wondering why the FBI didn't get a good screen based on driver's licenses (using eye color/height). I thought driver's license records were computerized in the late 60's in Oregon. don't know about WA. ***has anyone given thought to the name? (i know of course that there could be many reasons for it!) is, for example, "DAN" a common acronym related to flight? if so, it might give a clue as to where he "was coming from". ***

A prior post implied no data could be gathered from the falling aft stair placad (if it was "the one") because it acted like a sail. I was surprised at this claim, since this is a chute site, and we should understand chutes and airfoils and the stability needed for them to maintain their behavior properties. A thin flexible object like that would display chaotic motion falling thru a fluid like water or air. There have been interesting simulations on such chaotic behavior when trying to pinpoint the location of a boat that sinks. What we need to know though is that it's chaotic. it doesn't act like a sail, but instead like a very efficient parachute (with no payload). It has a low terminal velocity. (think streamer recovery on rockets) So it got me thinking if we know the placard is "the one". No one probably thought to look for placards on the plane afterwards, because there was no reason to think it had disappeared at that time. I would really like to know how the placard is normally attached to the 727. I'm thinking it might have been slid behind some plastic, so it could be removed/changed if necessary during maintenance. I'm thinking Cooper removed it for easier reading since he was tall, and left it on a seat nearby. Then I'm thinking it went out the door during the pressure differential caused by the jump exit. If we come up with a predicted terminal velocity for the placard, we should be able to create a drift path based on prevailing winds. yes it would travel farther than the cooper drift path. But it's not a sail. It's not unpredictable behavior. It's not flying to China. oh p.s last nite I dreamt Cooper is Agent Smith (sunglasses/tie/suit) in The Matrix. and Ckret is Neo, also known as Mr. Anderson. Everything we need to know is in the movie "The answer is out there, Neo, and it's looking for you, and it will find you if you want it to. " Neo has to believe he's the One.

Ckret long ago posted this assertion that was unchallenged "The rubber bands would have rotted long before the bundles were found on the beach, meaning there would not have been bundles if the money was in the environment unprotected." The implication is that rubber bands are needed to maintain the integrity of a bundle, as it is deposited onto the beach. I don't think there is any scientific experiment that proves this requirement. It's a guess. I would venture that it's a bad guess. My experience with wet magazines, newspapers, phone books, is that moist thin pieces of paper will maintain alignment integrity as long as they stay wet/saturated. Have you ever tried to separate wet thin papers without destroying them? There's a reason: adhesion. I'm sure there are scientific reasons why thin wet papers stick together. Think of the last time your wallet with cash went in the drink. Could you take the bills out and throw them at your bud's forehead and have them all stick in a bundle? Yes. Just thought of another fer-instance: the Ingrams brought the bundles home while wet. I be they stayed "bundlized" during that process, even though the rubber bands had disappeared. Fire away: Challenge me on this. edit: More evidence of the strength of adhesion. A rubber band will only compress the center of the pack. It extends compression to the rest of the bill, only thru what rigidity the bill has. Most rigidity is lost when wet. SO: THE REASON THERE IS LITTLE DECAY ON THE CENTER OF THE BILLS IS BECAUSE THEY ADHERED TIGHTLY TOGETHER WHILE WET. NOT BECAUSE OF THE RUBBER BAND. IF THE ADHESIVE STRENGTH WAS ENOUGH FOR DIFFERENTIAL DECAY, I PROPOSE IT WAS STRONG ENOUGH TO MAINTAIN THE BUNDLE (AS LONG AS KEPT WET) I think I've slam dunked this. Another mental visualization. When you toss the sunday paper in the river...does it immediately go to individual sheets? no it stays in a big soppy slab o paper.

Hi quade. I will apologize if I'm violating any forum etiquette. Here's my understanding of forum behavior. -we are all adults. -people can always do anything they want -people can say anything they want as long as it's not boring or insulting. Boring is probably the worst offense. -everyone is equal I've been told I should do things. I don't take offense. I decide what to do based on whatever. Everyone does whatever they want. That's keeps it cool. (at least that's how I think). I think I'm good at perceiving when I should shut up. I've not felt that yet. if I'm wrong.... Again, confusing needs with wants. I guess you missed the subtlety of my last post about this point, but Mr. Carr isn't anyone's personal research assistant. At least not on this web site.

re: dye theory. This is interesting if true. One way to interpret that is that the stewardess thought the quality/color depth of the hair was inconsistent with the receding hairline. You'd expect grays/thinner hair for an old person (along with the receding hairline) Another explanation would be premature receding. 35 year old guy with a hair problem. women don't have the balding problem so they'd naturally guess the issue might be something they're familar with...like dye. Good point though. If he goes to the trouble of trying to hide his eyes (sunglasses...no other reason for them in fall NW) then you would think he might try to disguise his hair. Need Ckret to chime in as rumor or not. (I know, I know, it's all going to be in the prior posts ;) ) If he really did have shiny black hair, I'm very confused about "why" they guessed the age as 40-50. The wanted poster doesn't seem to say he had old skin. What are the "old" qualities that drive the age guess? mostly the hairline? no grey hairs.

I'm looking at the 1971 sketch and wondering why the young stewardesses and Scott (51) thought he was >40 (I'm assuming Scott got a look at Cooper? they all did? The usual things people key off of is weight, hair amount/color/thickness/colors, skin condition, wrinkles, physical conditioning. So say he was kind of out of shape for a young guy, but thin (typical engineer then). Premature balding, so he has a receding hairline. smoker/drink so his skin isn't so great. But the big thing I'm wondering...is the sketch telling us he had a receding hair line. I've seen 30 year old guys that look 50 just because they've got early hair loss. People are usually bad at judging this. People sometimes use vocal patterns for estimating age. They assume someone who speaks with authority deserves that respect, ergo age deference. But it could just be speaking with authority. Be nice to know the answer to "Why you do think he's 40-50" as opposed to just "How old do you think he is" Were there gray hairs? I thought not. That's odd. It would be more typical for 40-50 yr old to have some grey hairs. Maybe they noted some?

Looking at Sluggo's photo: 12112 Lower River Road Google Earth RED.jpg Looking at the width of the beach along the shore in the vicinity of the money location. It is much wider near the money location compared to up and down shore. Or is it solely man made. I would think it must reflect natural river hydraulics. Doesn't this mean the river hydraulics are more prone to deposit sediment in this area, rather than erode? That's interesting then. It might help feeling better about "why this site" for the money drop. I was thinking if we had a budget we'd have a hydraulics engineer write a graphic simulation based on water flow and depth and obstructions (like that little island) and we'd be able to simulate the likely deposit points for debris in the area from 71-80. oh well.

nice, Sluggo. That current huge pile of sand/debris behind the money find site is interesting. Was that all deposited as a result of dredging or ???. The satellite photo must be recent. Do they still use that site for dredge material? I'm wondering if it's a historical dredge material dump site...thinking about my theory of dredge material from the Lewis River confluence being dumped upstream (there)... The amount of material there is huge (today). Do we know what it is?

lowpull: heh! if I ever try a jump you'll be able to tell from the webbing I'm grabbing on the nopull..:) Hey, good question. Was Cooper left or right handed? Was he writing some notes? I thought he wrote some. The stewardesses should have been able to catch which hand he used. And where's the rip on an NB-6? is it easier or harder depending on whether you're right or left handed?

this is from corbis (wanted to complete what was available). Also was wondering about how they looked compared to how they thought Cooper looked, when estimating age. first is Rataczak, then Scott, then Mucklow. Scott is 51. Mucklow is 22. second is schaffner,23 don't have picture of Engineer H.E. Anderson I was wondering about how accurate the young stewardesses could guess the age of older men. I guess pretty good since they saw them on planes up close all the time (hitting on them) third is the sketch released by FBI on 11/27/71 (there have been others since then) It looks to me that Scott and Rataczak are not wearing clip on ties. Although could be mistaken I was wondering how common it was for men in their 40's to 50's to be wearing clip on ties if ties were required for work.

I'm looking at what the 1972 parachute related hijacks suggest to us about likely profile. I'm wondering about the confidence level of the age estimate from 1971. I'd like him to be say 35 in 1971. What data says there's no way he could have been mid-thirties? I've got a couple of reasons, but if I think about when I would have done it, the likelihood of the mind supporting it, drops off after 40 I think (unless you have political or religious motivations or are just nutty) 25-40, I can see someone doing it. (assuming you fit the mental profile). I'm also thinking that a little younger, and you're not worrying about needing a gun to avoid getting physically overpowered. An older person might worry about that. So (Ckret) what about 35 in 1971. thumbs up or down?

Safe's comments on strata got me thinking. The sand and clay on the beach, does not change the same way everywhere along the river. In some areas it goes away, in some areas it gets added. It changes year to year. If over time the shores are relatively constant it means your addition and deletion behaviors over time balance out. Some points of the river might be more prone to accumulation, like the inside of a turn (slower currents) My point is that "some" beach area might have gotten eroded away, exposing the money which then drifted down to the turn in the river and got thrown up on the beach and discovered relatively soon after that. But since we don't know where it got eroded from, it could have been from most anywhere. This sounds stupid, but it means that the dredging operation and the clay layer add no data to the investigation. Since we know the water can throw stuff that far up the beach (evidently from anecdotal comments) then the money could have gotten thrown up there that year, and got cut loose from most anywhere. I think there is nothing on the beach that can be used to reliably date anything. The money just appeared. It probably drifted there that year. Where it was from '71-'80 is just going to be a random guess. Now when it floated on the river, I guess it must have been held together by the bag (or other debris snagged after 1971?) for the 3 bundles to get deposited close together. And when it got to the final resting spot, the bag (or ???) got ripped and blown away by the wind. So yeah, some protective container/stuff travelled with the bills on that float, but then disappeared.

[Edit: Ignore. ckret discounts the money in coat as myth] This has been mentioned before, but I wanted to put a point on it in the context of the discussion on money being protected by bag. Supposedly he put some money in the pockets of his coat. Probably just a couple of bundles. So the money exited the plane in two containers. The money bag, and his coat. His coat was probably being worn underneath the harness. You can imagine that the money in the coat was most closely strapped to his body. But the rest of the money in the bag tied around his waist (supposed attach method). ...I don't know if the harness was put on before or after the money bag tie on. I could imagine it's a tight fit? so that the money bag is probably over the harness? so maybe the money in his jacket is more protected over time, if stuff is rotting away on the ground if he cratered. In any case, any theory about the money found on the Columbia, should allow for the money being from either the jacket or the money bag. It's equally likely. No data to suggest either is more likely. In fact since it's a smaller amount, it could be more likely that it was the bundles from his jacket?. The jacket being lighter and probably unfolding after sufficient rot/decay might actually float on the river much better than a money bag with more of the money, and travel a long way? So he craters somewhere. Eventually jacket comes off, floats a long way and then ends up on the shore. Or he tossed the jacket on landing and forgot there was money in it. He would probably be pretty distressed on landing and just wanting to ditch the gear and get out of there.

that would be cool. It would be really cool for someone to dig today and get a photo. I have no idea what it might be like today. the clay layer might be gone. Heck there might be more money

interesting 377. But kelp is really really long. Did the kelp get mangled into pieces smaller than 6" long? probably not...i.e. not all the pieces coming out were

Hi safe. Okay 18" of sand over the clay layer. Deduction is that it came from 6 years of 3"/year sand after the dredge. For that deduction to hold, we should be willing to go to the money location today, and dig and find the same clay layer. There should be 28 years * 3"/year = 84" of sand there over the clay layer Obviously there won't be. The sand comes and goes sometimes it adds, sometimes it erodes. It'd be good if someone went and did the dig and told us. Then we'd have some more data to play with. But: my point...the 18" can't be translated to any number of years? Right? theoretically for all we know 18" could come and go every year at that location. It's at the inside of a turn in the river. The water will slow down there and drop sediment right? I dunno. *** QuoteI can't speak to the mechanics of the dredge. I only know they did a dredge in 74 and that the layer in the sand was found. In the photo you can see him with his finger where the layer is (and the layer is clearly visible). There's a good 18 inches of regular sand that had accumulated over 6 years on top of it. ***

My chipper/shredder has about 32 steel flails arranged around an axle. I'm not sure of the rpm. We've hypothesized that a bladed dredge would "shred" wet stacks of money. I'm thinking if I remove the grate from the shredder, that the stack of bills might pass thru, getting pushed by the flails, some percentage of the time...and not get shredded. This would be a good youtube experiment. Does it shred? I dunno. I have a lot of experience dropping wood and stuff in there..Something that's flexible, about the size of a stack of bills, maybe covered with some sand for protection, could go right thru. Anyone who says they know, well I dunno why you would.

The money was found soaking wet. A bundle would stick together, as if it was held by something, until you dried it out. It could create an illusion, especially to a kid. We need Ckret to get us the transcripts of all rubber band testimony. There's just more data we need. It would be amazing to go off on a convoluted theory, all based on rubber bands that we don't have evidence of. It'd be worse than the magic bullet theory. :)

safe: one thing strikes me. shouldn't we have be able to see something as a result of the rubber bands on the bills...i.e. if they were holding the stacks together, than they would act as a slight protector to the paper underneath...more than the exposed paper. Also, if they were holding the stack together the paper under them would compress differently? water expansion effect would differ? causing dents or something in the edges. I'm just guessing out loud. Also, the chemicals in the rubber might interact with the paper, especially during decomposition. I don't know if there are missing bills in the photo, or if they were restacked after drying...but I'm struck by how there's no evidence to analyze that shows rubber bands existed. It seems to be just testimony. I'm not sure of boy or boy plus parents or what. *** Any ideas on the decomp? Moisture levels, containment/no containment? How much of this decomp do you think happened while on the beach? Personally, I think the brittleness would happen on the beach and maybe some decomp (while under sand), but that a bulk of this decomp happened elsewhere... but that's my opinion. ***