georger

The word 'small' is referenced in terms of what can be held in the palm of the hand ... etimologically. Nothing has changed in that regard in usage and semantics since the first languages, probably developed by Homo Erectus in Afrika. And in one ancient language the word for large (gadol) means literally what cannot be held in the palm of a hand... there are several old languages which make that split. These things were probably born of common agreement. A small bag would be a bag that could be held (by size and weight) in the palm of a hand, and everyone would accept that as a common fact. All but Artur Rubenstein and Robert Blevins of course whose hands could reach four octaves on the Afhar Royal Harp. Baruq Adonai!

Ckret Jumps License In sport : : : Apr 2, 2008, 4:44 AM Post #918 of 10319 (1803 views) Registered: Sep 7, 2007 Posts: 522 Re: [skyjack71] If Cooper Lived... [In reply to] Can't Post It was a briefcase, no one that had direct contact with Cooper described anything other than a briefcase and small paper bag.

There's that echo again .... Once upon a time that echo was talking about Dan Cooper comics on Shemya.

Jo, Sorry if you feel bullied by me, but your wildly speculative posts linking every anomaly in Duane's life to Norjack simply invite frank hardball responses. It is absurd to think the FBI planted re-sellable traceable "bait" in with the twenties. Any hijacker with half a brain would see the trap. The FBI did plant tracking beacons in some hijacker's chutes, but that makes sense. If I thought a friend was Cooper and I found an unusual medallion in his belongings would it make sense to think that it was something planted in the loot by the FBI? Of course not. You HAVE said in numerous posts that Duane was Cooper, then you backtrack and say he was DBC or knew him etc. Put him on the plane with solid evidence, don't assume every odd trinket was some secret "plant" by the FBI. Read about "confirmation bias". Orange called it spot on. I still think Sheridan Peterson would have made a hell of a Dan Cooper. Does Georger think Pete's cranial facial features rule him out? The FBI sure didn't. They had to use DNA to eliminate him as a suspect. 377 I thought we came to the conclusion we dont know why (exactly) the FBI processed Sheridan except for his domestic problems involving foreign flight and custody issues, and what if any role the Cooper matter played - except that Sheridan says he was wanted for being Cooper. That's his claim. Last I knew Bruce was going to get the arrest report but that never surfaced. Maybe I missed it? Sheridan has never been prosecuted as being Cooper, in any event. He didnt look much like the physical description and sketches to me, but that's just me.

I have an interesting question to ask - something only the FBI could answer. Did the FBI put "bait" in the money that Cooper would not be able to resist and if he ever sold it it would be traceable? Was something put into that package besides $20.00 bills? . Ckret already answered this - the answer is no.

seconded - agree.

How refreshing - retraction when evidence proves one wrong, rather than coming up with conspiracy theories and wild fanciful stories to try make it fit anyway - makes a nice change around here. Now if we could just get the oval object to pass through the triangular hole? The kids at Pine Elementary are working on it. The topologist Dr. Don Jones at the U of Ok says it is possible. (Logician, David Hausman says 'nope'!) I wish Bergmann was here! Gus would have this solved in 2 hours... these weighty issues always require upper management to solve.

Maybe this case will be solved by thetime I get up tomorrow - that would be wonderful! ZZZZZZZZ

Bingo Georger - That is what I thought it was but I couldn't get it to enlarge like you did. There is a flight? tag on the bag near (underneath) the handle.

[ As far as Christiansen's face-type or whatever not matching the FBI sketches, I would dispute that. I also suggest that usually when they catch someone from one of those sketches, when you see them in person they often don't look much like the sketch. It's probably pretty close, but it certainly isn't a photographic likeness. You need to talk to anyone who knows anatomy... beside yourself that is. I realise this falls on deaf ears.

Here, you be the judge. Looks more like a nav or flight case ... not an ordinary briefcase. Witnesses agreed on briefcase vs other types of containers ... remember Tina described the contents (bomb components).. For Quade's benefit - I used gamma level adjustments (200-90) + a medium cut noise filter in Photoshop. Quade will know what Im talking about...

Farflung, you have made the classic airplane trivia mistake. Before Sky King upgraded to a Cessna 310B, his sky mount was a Cessna T 50 Bamboo Bomber, not a Twin Beech. You can redeem yourself by recalling the RIPCORD heroes TV names and their company plane type. I never could get used to limping Festus from Gunsmoke being a skydiver on another channel. And how could you leave out Col. Steve Canyon. the squarest jawed of all the comic strip/book square jaw aviators? 377 Cooper has an interesting jaw line, afaic. It sure isnt Kenny's pouty fat pouch cheek characteristic of his facial/body type. Cooper has a rather strong and prominent facial feature which might strengthen with age vs. Kenny's more amorphous oval ball features which would only expand (and sag) with age. It could be a strong genetic feature familiar in Cooper's case and Im almost willing to bet it is. Cooper a full 6 feet (taller when younger?) vs Kenny's short squat 5'8-9". Only on DZ can you fool Mother Nature ... among candidate promoters and pseudo-sleuth visionaries! There is an option based on performance here that I would be willing to take at this point: ie Assume there is no viable physical description of Cooper and THROW ALL PHYSICAL DATA OUT! Under this stipulation Cooper could look like Albert Einstein or Mother Teresa or Lady Ga Ga or anyone any gender! Barb is back on the table! That would admit any candidate and any discussion because that is what sleuths & experts here want to do and nothing else will satisfy all comers ... because you arent going to do anything else anyway. Was Cooper McGeorge Bundy's uncles' wife? Good luck.

Plenty of fodder for an alias. Richard McCoy used James Johnson. Is there a character with the name James Johnson which inspired McCoy to select such a name? It strikes me as simply a common, yet believable name like Dan Cooper. Cooper was described as average to forgettable. Would he select a name that could be traced to his background? Probably not. The name doesnt become significant until 'it becomes significant', and to become significant something has to lift it out of the realm of being a random probable event. The FBI went straight to a local Dan Cooper - he wasnt the guy! They then looked for a second and a third and a fourth .. from Seattle to Tacoma to Portland. Empty hole. The same for the photo of Kenny with a laundry bag and a dark briefcase. Did Kenny's briefcase match Cooper's briefcase? Few have asked ... a guy walks in with a laundry bag and a briefcase .. that could have been any stuident or professor at a college or university in the whole United States (and the world) so, a high probability occurrence. Youc an build a case for anything based on clustering anecdotes which in themselves have a high probability of occurrence at any given time on planet Earth. Cooper said nothing about his name and was never asked about the name Dan Cooper, through the whole ordeal.

This was Skipp's interview and I need to hear from him where one of us went wrong. In any case, this part in the book will have to be changed. Someone screwed up, that's for sure. As I've said previously, it's not about selling books but about THE TRUTH and this link between the comic book and Shemya must be wrong. As the publisher, I take full responsibility for this error. It's been verified that Christiansen DID work for the airline on Shemya at the same time as Cochran, but he stayed there much longer, years in fact. I will also get the exact dates from Porteous if I can. One problem has been that NW had a bad habit of purging their employee files every five years or so. This came to me from Jim Andersen, the historian for NW airlines. " Kenny wrote home in one letter dated August 4, 1946, from Sendai. “I went to church this morning... According to Lyle, Kenny went to college after discharge in 1946. In college (1946? - ???) " In college, he took a job selling magazine subscriptions on the road. He traveled once with a carnival, selling tickets. Then he’d leave for warmer climes: Jamaica, Laguna Beach, L.A., Mexico City. ....." Not sure he finished college . . . ? "After college, Lyle said, his brother went back to the Pacific, this time to Bikini atoll, in the Marshall Islands. The government was testing nuclear bombs there. " Atomic testing on Bikini Atoll involved 20 tests between 1946-1958 beginning with the Operation Crossroads series in the summer of 1946. The March 1, 1954 detonation codenamed Castle Bravo, was the first test of a practical hydrogen bomb. The largest nuclear explosion ever set off by the United States, it was much more powerful than predicted, and created widespread problems. The indigenous population was relocated to Rongerik Atoll, after members of the population being exposed to nuclear fallout. The testing program was reorganised with many civilian operations personnel let go and evacuated. Kenny worked as a telephone operator on Bikini Atoll. It was lonely, though he liked being alone, and it was always beach weather on Bikini. Kenny loved the beach, Lyle said. Then Kenny learned of a job working for the airlines. Northwest, based in Minneapolis, was looking to hire technicians to work on its planes in Shemya, an island in the Aleutians. He started as a mechanic and was rehired in 1956, as a flight attendant. He relocated to southwest Washington and was promoted to purser. The article does not specify when KC left Bikini Atoll and began working for NWA at Shemya. However, it is unlikely he was part of the program after the March 1, 1954 detonation Castle Bravo went bad - again, there was a reorganisation of the whole program with personnel evacuated. It is unlikely KC was on Bikini after 1954. Kenny probably went to work for NWA some time between 1950 - 1954. As for KC and DB being "dead ringers" of each other, they aren't. Not even close. Different facial structures and cranial types. KC falls within the classic oval type - Coopere falls within the triangular type. These results are CONSISTENT with every known Cooper sketch no matter who drew it. See attached - All of this talk in this forum about different sketches of Cooper (with slightly different facial features) fails to capture the greater fact that ALL sketches of Cooper no matter who did them, ALL portray the same basic facial and cranial type, attributed to Cooper. The minor variations in different sketches promoted by people here do nothing to change the basic typological catagory, which Cooper falls into! Until that is changed, nothing changes.

does anyone know how tall Flo and Tina and whoever else made the ids are? Also - I've read somewhere that he never took the shades off (or is that a myth) - so how could they distinguish between, say brown, dark brown, or even hazel? Tina was 5ft 8"; Flo shorter btwn 5-4 and 5-6". The ticket agent was about Cooper's height. The official version is that Cooper did not put on the sunglasses until Flo had read Cooper's note and went forward with the note, returned and Cooper had glasses on which he did not remove until Tina left him around ~8:00pm.

I agree with this. I also disagree with the assertion that it had to be the one where he is in a parachute. I'm sure 377 etc who have helped investigate criminal cases know many instances of aliases inspired by a hero or character with no 'obvious' link to the crime they committed. (in fact some of Duane Weber's aliases would probably be a perfect example here). Simply viewing the character as a 'hero' or 'daredevil' or whatever may have been enough to inspire using it as an alias. All conjecture yes but no more so than most other stuff here. But, if Cochran is not even there on Shemya at the crucial dates ???

Good work, both you and 377. Here's a few useful links (Snow probably has...) http://lambiek.net/magazines/tintin.htm http://www.tegneserieguiden.net/eur/dancooper/dancooper.html http://jfchalifoux.com/references.htm http://www.coolfrenchcomics.com/dancooper.htm partial publication chronology

Snow thinks Blevins and Porteus are scamming, but I don't agree. . The Rev Minister Porteus (says he was a preacher) and Brother Blevins would never do this... as for having visions its anyone's guess...

Whether it means anything is a matter of opinion. I think (the comic) is only important if Kenny was later proven to be the hijacker, otherwise it means little. I disagree completely. The comic book being at an NWA facility stands on its own. It is the first solid link of the comic to anything in the Cooper case, ever - the link to NWA is specific. Likewise the anatomical forensics is specific. An isophototopic comparison of key points in facial-cranial anatomies can be made. The results are interesting in light of the brother's statement that Cooper and Christiansen were "dead ringers" ....

If you think people were paying a premium for hootch on the island; then you don't understand what many and varied things are delivered by aircrew to remote locations. I just sayin. and the comics and other magazines probably came in in the same manner, by the same route, from the same people, from where, collected by who? Which proves (by the P&B Principle) these magazines were well distributed and everyone was seeing/reading them ... everywhere! Cooper could be anyone. Anywhere. There is no center to the Universe. The center is everywhere. The Cooper case now conforms with General Relativity, which it must. Aint science fun!

If they found the body, they could identify it and either confirm or eliminate the main suspects, including Christiansen, who is dead and buried as far as we know. The question concerned the (The FBI's John Doe warrant) which YOU keep reminding us of for some reason. I think Quade is asking about the viability of a warrant on a man the FBI is saying is dead? He may be pointing out that to simultaneously claim a person is dead and keep a warrant alive, is a little contradictory on the face of it? The only thing that intrigues me about your case is this story about the Dan Cooper comic being present on Shemya: " Rick Cochran, the communications officer on Shemya while Christiansen was stationed there, testified that he saw the famous 'Dan Cooper' comic book by Albert Weinberg in the Day Room there, which shows a man on the cover parachuting out of an airplane." I wonder if this is true? Was the comic there by subscription or was someone bringing it in? I presume you interviewed Cochran because Geof Gray did not include this in his original sketch about Christiansen, and presumably knows nothing about it? But even if true you have not established that Christiansen ever even picked up the comic or knew it was there, or showed interest in it. If the comic was being brought in by somebody, maybe he is Dan Cooper? It does seem odd that this comic book would show up at Shemya Island of all places, in the Aleutians, at a NWA facility no less? You may be after the wrong guy!?

You are right. Not a bit of difference. They haven't found the body yet, though. You didnt answer the question. The question assumes they have found the body.

Is there an echo in here? Is there an echo in here?

Yada yada yada. Have you ever addressed someone's points by actually REFERRING to those points, or do you just spend your time hurling insults? There's nothing wrong with a housecleaning business combined with a publishing business on the side. FYI: Cleaning large homes pays very well, is highly resistent to a bad economy, and I am my own boss. I wouldn't change a thing, and neither will I ever return to being a wage slave. No thanks. What is your secret cleaning fantasy?

Well, first my 'career' isn't trying to discover the identity of DB Cooper, and it's not a movie, just a one-hour television program for the History Channel that examines the *possible* case against Christiansen. I run a professional housecleaning business (http://www.freewebs.com/bghousecleaning) serving upscale customers in the Puget Sound area, and nights and weekends I serve as managing editor for Adventure Books of Seattle. I edit other writers' books on the side to pick up extra money. That's been my life for about the last ten years. This DB Cooper stuff is a recent addition that came with so many penalties that I will be glad when it is over. I am practically run into the ground as it is, and after the History Channel folks leave town I am taking a vacation into the high country for a few days. The FBI already has the book and access to all the information we've gathered so far on Christiansen. Can I stand here and assure you that Kenny was DB Cooper? No way. Do I believe he needs to be investigated further? Yes. Do I think the FBI has been fully cooperative with the public in trying to solve the case? Not really. I've sent them two requests asking them to confirm whether their 'John Doe' warrant covers only the hijacker and not any accomplices. Reading it from their website, it looks like it is restricted to the hijacker only, but they refuse to answer. Do I think the FBI's DNA comparisons are valid? Not sure, but I highly doubt it because of possible contamination by multiple people who handled the tie over the years. They can't REALLY be sure the sample they are using for comparison to eliminate suspects is actually from the hijacker. On a side note, Skipp Porteous and Lyle Christiansen arranged for Lyle's DNA to be submitted to the FBI a long time ago. The FBI has not eliminated Kenny on this basis, but again, the sample is suspect and no, I don't trust it. Neither do I trust the FBI and Earl Cossey's claim that the parachute found in Amboy isn't Cooper's. I already said why, but I will repeat it: Silk is biodegradable and Ralph Himmelsbach, although he likes Cossey, also says Cossey's been wrong before. That's a direct quote from his telephone interview with Skipp Porteous. Two really strange things emerged from our interviews with the people who were closest to Christiansen, none of whom had ever been approached before about Christiansen or the hijacking. First, they had a lot to say about the hijacking and began pointing fingers at each other almost immediately, and freely offering up what they knew that pointed to Kenny as the hijacker. They did this without being prompted, which I found extremely weird. Second, when one of them realized after he saw the book that HE was being implicated as a possible accomplice ('Mike Watson'), he tried to take back everything he said, and then called up his sister ('Dawn J') and told her to do the same thing. Then when the History Channel execs confronted them with their previous statements, they did a complete one-eighty again. Watson said he now believed Kenny was the hijacker, and admitted being the go-between for the cash loan to his sister a few months after the hijacking. Dawn J also admitted that yes, she had told me that Kenny owned a toupee but that she never saw him wear it again after the hijacking. So many people. TOO many lies. So much finger-pointing, huge unexplained expenditures, allegations of found money on Kenny's property, a trip over Thanksgiving that was draped in mystery and lies, yada yada yada. It just goes on and on with these folks. Mike Watson is the worst. He tried to tell me that Kenny got the money to loan his sister the 5K and the 16.5k for his house in Bonney Lake by selling off the logs on some property Kenny owned near Pipeline Road in Sumner. Another lie. We found out those logs were sold off many years AFTER the hijacking, not before as he claimed. When you catch folks in so many lies, you ask yourself what would motivate them to lie. History Channel believes it's because they have something to hide. Who the heck knows? Maybe THEY can find the truth. This was the reason I asked the FBI about their 'John Doe' warrant. I told Skipp and the History Channel that if the warrant covered only the hijacker, that any accomplices would be free to reveal any truths they knew without fear of prosecution. Up in Twisp, 'Katy Watson' voiced her concerns about this and has told me she is afraid of the FBI. However, she's also the only person I interviewed who has never lied to me so I generally trust what she says. We recently mailed her a prepaid cell-phone so the History Channel can interview her that way for the program. Skipp Porteous is supposed to get a New York lawyer to verify this warrant thing one way or another, and he's supposed to get it done quickly. I hope he does, because it might encourage some of these witnesses to stop lying and come to Jesus once and for all. It's been alleged that $2,000 in twenties MAY have been found just out back of Christiansen's old house in 1999 when a new owner sold off the logs there to a local logging company. Three weeks ago, Skipp Porteous finally discovered the name of the actual owner of that house in 1999, and he is trying to contact her to verify whether this incident really happened. I have no idea whether this story is true or not. I only have the word (so far) of Dan Rattenbury, the current owner of the house who converted it to a print shop. Since he's a pretty solid guy and a long-term resident of Bonney Lake, I included it in the book, but there is also a disclaimer that this allegation has yet to be proven. That is Skipp's job, and I have no doubt he will be able to contact the former owner. If she says it never happened, then it is a rumor. If it DID happen, it is only a piece of circumstantial evidence anyway. I have come to the point in all of this where I no longer care about selling DB Cooper books. Heck, it isn't even our biggest seller. It's THIRD. 'Pilot Down, Presumed Dead' (illustrated edition) by Marjorie Phleger and 'Big Bang' by A.J. Desmond do much better. We've got six other titles ready to rock, and an upcoming five-volume historical epic we have to do next year, plus an inspirational tale of a young Tacoma lady who made one of the biggest personal comebacks you've ever seen. Those things are much more important to me than this friggin' case. I asked a cop once in an interview (not about the Cooper case) what was the worst thing about the job. He said: That was a surprise, since I thought he would say something like the possibility of being killed on the job, etc. After all these Christiansen/Cooper interviews, I'm beginning to understand why he said that. It's not about the book with me anymore. I would settle for the truth, if that's even possible to discover. Then I am moving on from all this. To the person who looked up Kenny's lineage: I see you got it right this time...on all counts. Good work there. I still don't see what it has to do with the case, but good work anyway.