georger

Skyjacker at large A Florida widow thinks she has found him BY DOUGLAS PASTERNAK It was the day before Thanksgiving, Nov. 24, 1971. As Northwest Airlines Flight 305, from Portland, Ore., to Seattle, sped along the runway preparing for takeoff, the man in Seat 18C, wearing sunglasses and a dark suit, handed a flight attendant a note. It said he had a bomb and threatened to blow up the Boeing 727 unless he received $200,000 cash and four parachutes when the plane landed. The man in Seat 18C purchased his ticket under the name "Dan Cooper." After receiving his booty at the Seattle-Tacoma Airport, the man released the 36 passengers and two members of the flight crew. He ordered the pilot and remaining crew to fly to Mexico. At 10,000 feet, with winds gusting at 80 knots and a freezing rain pounding the airplane, Dan Cooper–mistakenly identified as D.B. Cooper by a reporter–walked down the rear stairs and parachuted into history. What followed was one of the most extensive and expensive manhunts in the annals of American crime. For five months, federal, state, and local police combed dense hemlock forests north of Portland. D.B. Cooper became an American folk icon–the inspiration for books, rock songs, and even a 1981 movie. Over the past three decades, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has investigated more than 1,000 "serious suspects" along with assorted crackpots and deathbed confessors. Most–but not all–have been ruled out. The case was back in the news just last month when FBI agents investigated a skull discovered nearly 20 years ago along the Columbia River. It turned out to belong to a woman, possibly an American Indian. Today, the D.B. Cooper case remains the world's only unsolved skyjacking. In March 1995, a Florida antique dealer named Duane Weber lay dying of polycystic kidney disease in a Pensacola hospital. He called his wife, Jo, to his bed and whispered: "I'm Dan Cooper." Jo, who had learned in 17 years of marriage not to pry too deeply into Duane's past, had no idea what her secretive husband meant. Frustrated, he blurted out: "Oh, let it die with me!" Duane died 11 days later. Jo sold his van two months after his death. The new owner discovered a wallet hidden in the overhead console. It contained a U.S. Navy "bad conduct discharge" in Duane's name and a Social Security card and prison-release form from the Missouri State Penitentiary, in the name of "John C. Collins." Duane had told Jo that he had served time for burglary under the name John Collins. Still, says Jo, a real-estate agent in Pace, Fla., Duane rarely spoke of his past. "His life started with me, and that was it," she says. The FBI sketch strongly resembles a photo of Duane Weber. In April 1996, Jo discussed Duane's criminal and military past with a friend. She also mentioned that just before he died, Duane had revealed the cause of an old knee injury. "I got it jumping out of a plane," Jo recalls him saying. "Did you ever think he might be D.B. Cooper?" the friend asked. Handwriting match. In May 1996, Jo checked out a library book on D.B. Cooper. "I did not realize D.B. Cooper was known as Dan Cooper," Jo says. The book listed the FBI's description: mid-40s, 6 feet tall, 170 pounds, black hair, a bourbon drinker, a chain smoker. At the time of the hijacking, Duane Weber was 47, 6 feet, 1 inch tall, and weighed around 185 pounds. He had black hair, drank bourbon, and chain-smoked. The similarities between a younger Duane and the FBI's composite drawings struck Jo. "It's about as close a match as you can get," agrees Frank Bender, a criminal forensic reconstructionist who has worked with the FBI for 20 years. Jo never knew Duane to go to the library. Yet in pencil in the book's margins was what looked to her like Duane's handwriting. On one page he had written the name of a town in Washington where a placard from the rear stairs of Flight 305 had landed. "I knew right off the bat that handwriting was his," says Anne Faass, who worked with Duane for five years. Jo called the FBI the night she read the D.B. Cooper book. "They just blew me off," she says. Eventually she began a dialogue with Ralph Himmelsbach, the FBI agent in charge of the case from 1971 until his retirement in 1980. At his urging, the FBI opened a file on Duane Weber in March 1997. They interviewed Jo, as well as one of Duane's former wives and his brother. They compared his fingerprints with the 66 unaccounted-for prints on Flight 305. None matched, although the FBI has no way to know if any of the prints were Cooper's. Himmelsbach finds Jo Weber, who has agreed to take a polygraph test, to be credible. There is no reward money to motivate her. He thinks she simply wants to learn the truth about her spouse. "The facts she has really seem to fit," he says. But the FBI dropped its investigation of Weber in July 1998. More "conclusive evidence" would be needed to continue, they say. Though the facts are few, the circumstantial evidence is compelling. Retired FBI agent Himmelsbach believes the skyjacker must certainly have had a criminal record, military training, and familiarity with the Northwest. U.S. News has confirmed that Duane Weber served in the Army in the early 1940s. He also did time in at least six prisons from 1945 to 1968 for burglary and forgery. One prison was McNeil Island in Steilacoom, Wash.–20 miles from the Seattle-Tacoma airport. The skyjacking was a desperate act by a desperate man. In 1971, Duane Weber's emotional and physical health were failing. He was on the verge of separating from his fifth wife and had been diagnosed with kidney disease; he was not expected to live past 50. Himmelsbach believes the skyjacking may have been a criminal's last hurrah and says Weber is one of the best suspects he has come across. A skeptic at first, Jo Weber now believes her husband of 17 years was D.B. Cooper. "If he is not," she says, "he sure did send me on the wildest ride any widow has ever been on." PIECES OF THE PUZZLE Much of the circumstantial evidence linking Duane L. Weber to skyjacker D.B. Cooper cannot be confirmed. But retired FBI agent Ralph Himmelsbach says: "The number of coincidences...would stretch the imagination." • The dream. In May 1978, a sleep-talking Duane said he left his fingerprints on the "aft stairs." "He woke up dripping sweat," recalls his wife, Jo. Cooper had jumped from the plane's aft stairs. • The vacation. On a 1979 trip to Washington, the Webers stopped west of Interstate 5 across the Columbia River from Portland. Duane walked down to the river by himself. Four months later, a boy digging a fire pit in the area found $5,800 in tattered $20 bills–the only Cooper cash ever uncovered. • The bag. In February 1990 Jo saw a "white wheat" colored bank bag in a cooler in Duane's van. The $200,000 in ransom money was in a white canvas bank bag. • The ticket. In January 1994, going over tax records, Jo found an old plane ticket that said SEA-TAC and Northwest Airlines. She could not find it after Duane died. • The bucket. In the hospital in March 1995, Duane said he forgot where he buried $173,000 in a bucket. Jo and Duane's former employee Anne Faass were both in the room. WEB SITES Who2. Learn more about D.B. Cooper and other famous disappearing acts. Columbian.com offers additional information about D.B. Cooper, plus a quiz that tests your "D.B. I.Q." Seattle Times. Access a profile and a recent story on D.B. Cooper.

::::: The new Sarah Palin look to your quest? Isnt it a shame this forum has been trashed.

Any information sent to my PM I will appreciate. You have contended Duane threw a paper bag (money) into the Columbia off a bridge - you were with him on a trip. Please identify the location of the bridge from the maps attached - Thanks, Georger

________________________________________ [edit] Suspects FBI sketch of Cooper, with age progressionAt various points, several people have been suggested as possible candidates for Cooper, although the case remains unsolved. Over the years, the suspect list has exceeded 1,000 people.[40] The FBI believed that Cooper was familiar with the Seattle area, as he was able to recognize Tacoma from the air while the jet was circling over the Puget Sound. He also remarked to flight attendant Mucklow that McChord Air Force Base was approximately 20 minutes from the Seattle-Tacoma Airport. Although the FBI initially believed that Cooper might have been an active or retired member of the United States Air Force, based on his apparent knowledge of jet aerodynamics and skydiving,[17] it later changed this assessment, deciding that no experienced parachutist would have attempted such a risky jump.[6] [edit] John List In 1971, mass-murderer John List was considered a suspect in the Cooper hijacking, which occurred only fifteen days after he had killed his family in Westfield, New Jersey. List's age, facial features, and build were similar to those described for the mysterious skyjacker.[41] FBI agent Ralph Himmelsbach stated that List was a "viable suspect" in the case.[34] Cooper parachuted from the hijacked airliner with $200,000, the same amount List had used up from his mother's bank account in the days before the killing.[42] After his capture and imprisonment in 1989, List strenuously denied being Cooper, and the FBI no longer considered him a suspect.[34] List died in prison custody on March 21, 2008.[43] [edit] Richard McCoy, Jr. Main article: Richard McCoy, Jr. The Salt Lake Tribune's article about the 1972 capture of Richard McCoyOn April 7, 1972, four months after Cooper's hijacking, Richard McCoy, Jr., under the alias "James Johnson," boarded United Airlines Flight 855 during a stopover in Denver, Colorado, and gave the flight steward an envelope labeled "Hijack Instructions," in which he demanded four parachutes and $500,000.[34] He also instructed the pilot to land at San Francisco International Airport and order a refueling truck for the plane.[44] The airplane was a Boeing 727 with aft stairs, which McCoy used in his escape. He was carrying a paper weight grenade and an empty pistol. He left his handwritten message on the plane, along with his fingerprints on a magazine he had been reading, which the FBI later used to establish positive identification. Police began investigating McCoy following a tip from Utah Highway Patrolman Robert Van Ieperen, who was a friend of McCoy's.[45] Apparently, after the Cooper hijacking, McCoy had made a reference that Cooper should have asked for $500,000, instead of $200,000. Van Ieperen thought that was an odd coincidence, so he alerted the FBI. Married and with two young children, McCoy was a Mormon Sunday school teacher studying law enforcement at Brigham Young University. He had a record as a Vietnam veteran and was a former helicopter pilot, and an avid skydiver.[46] On April 9, following the fingerprint and handwriting match, McCoy was arrested for the United 855 hijacking.[44] Coincidentally, McCoy had been on National Guard duty flying one of the helicopters involved in the search for the hijacker. Inside his house FBI agents found a jumpsuit and a duffel bag filled with $499,970 in cash.[46] McCoy claimed innocence, but was convicted and received a 45-year sentence. Once incarcerated, using his access to the prison's dental office, McCoy fashioned a fake handgun out of dental paste. He and a crew of convicts escaped in August 1974 by stealing a garbage truck and crashing it through the prison's main gate. It took three months before the FBI located McCoy in Virginia. McCoy shot at the FBI agents, and agent Nicholas O'Hara fired back with a shotgun, killing him.[44] In 1991, Bernie Rhodes and former FBI agent Russell Calame coauthored D.B. Cooper: The Real McCoy, in which they claimed that Cooper and McCoy were really the same person, citing similar methods of hijacking and a tie and mother-of-pearl tie clip, left on the plane by Cooper. Neither Rhodes nor Calame were involved in the original Cooper investigation, but Calame was the head of the Utah FBI office that investigated McCoy, and eventually arrested him for the copycat hijacking that occurred in April 1972. The author said that McCoy "never admitted nor denied he was Cooper."[47] And when McCoy was directly asked whether he was Cooper he replied, "I don't want to talk to you about it."[44] The agent who killed McCoy is quoted as supposedly saying, "When I shot Richard McCoy, I shot D. B. Cooper at the same time."[44] The widow of Richard McCoy, Karen Burns McCoy, reached a $120,000 legal settlement with the book's co-authors and its publisher,[44] after claiming they misrepresented her involvement in the hijacking and later events from interviews done with her attorney in the 1970s.[48] [edit] Duane Weber A photo of Duane Weber next to the sketch of CooperIn July 2000, U.S. News & World Report ran an article about a widow in Pace, Florida, named Jo Weber and her claim that her late husband, Duane L. Weber (born 1924 in Ohio), had told her "I'm Dan Cooper" before his death on March 28, 1995.[40] She became suspicious and began checking into his background. Weber had served in the Army during World War II and had later served time in a prison near the Portland airport. Weber recalled that her husband had once had a nightmare where he talked in his sleep about jumping from a plane and said something about leaving his fingerprints on the aft stairs.[49] Jo recalled that shortly before Duane's death, he had revealed to her that an old knee injury of his had been incurred by "jumping out of a plane."[40] Weber also recounts a 1979 vacation the couple took to Seattle, "a sentimental journey," Duane told Jo, with a visit to the Columbia River.[40] She remembers how Duane walked down to the banks of the Columbia by himself just four months before the portion of Cooper's cash was found in the same area. Weber related that she had checked out a book on the Cooper case from the local library and saw notations in it that matched her husband's handwriting. She began corresponding with Himmelsbach, the former chief investigator of the case, who subsequently agreed that much of the circumstantial evidence surrounding Weber fit the hijacker's profile. However, the FBI stopped investigating Weber in July 1998 because of a lack of hard evidence.[40] The FBI compared Weber's prints with those processed from the hijacked plane and found no matches.[49] In October 2007, the FBI stated that a partial DNA sample taken from the tie that Cooper had left on the plane did not belong to Weber.[6] [edit] Kenneth Christiansen The October 29, 2007 issue of New York magazine revealed a new suspect, Kenneth P. Christiansen, identified by Sherlock Investigations. The article noted that Christiansen is a former army paratrooper, a former airline employee, had settled in Washington near the site of the hijacking, was familiar with the local terrain, had purchased property with cash a year after the hijacking, drank bourbon and smoked (as did Cooper during the flight) and resembled the eyewitness sketches of Cooper.[10] However, the FBI ruled out Christiansen because his complexion, height, weight and eye color did not match the descriptions given by the passengers or the crew of Flight 305.[50] [edit] William Gossett On August 4, 2008, Canadian Press reported that a Spokane, Washington, lawyer believes that the ransom money is stored in a Vancouver, British Columbia, safety deposit box under the name of William Gossett, a college instructor from Ogden, Utah, who died in 2003. Lawyer Galen Cook says that Gossett matches the sketches circulated by the FBI. Also, Gossett is alleged to have bragged to his sons about the hijacking and shown them a key to the safety deposit box.[51]

QuoteDo you NOT read my emails? I tend to fog over and think Im on another planet .... and wish I was.

I expected to get some real feed back from that post and the pics compared to the snowline and firecrew pics, (not Snowmman or Georger's off-handed flippant remarks). I am taking the lack of response to mean "Good God - She's really flipped out now". Any assistance I can get in finding these men (rather their relatives) I will appreciate. It seems I am the only one who sees anything with this and you are tying to be kind by NOT saying anything at all. That's OK, I understand and I am sorry - I am looking for answers where there are NONE. This is where my search ends and the myth continues - there is no ending - like the song he always sang. "You'll Never Know if You Don't Know Now". Any information sent to my PM I will appreciate. You might want to try a Genealogy Forum, of which there are many. This forum was for DB Cooper. Georger

Is this the photo you're talking about? http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/CPS31firecrew.jpg 1969912 to the RESCUE: Yes Yes that is one the photos the other one is entitled Snow Line And you actually expect anyone to see a tattoo saying DUSTY in these photos? How is it you are seeing it? Or more fundamentally, how is it I am even here asking! Here are two dusties. Take your pick

THE PHOTO ARE POSTED IN THE ORIGINAL POST. #4553 BUT HERE THEY ARE AGAIN! As usual it got covered up by posts poking fun rather than let me find someone who really wants to help. I DON'T KNOW HOW TO GET THE PHOTO FROM THAT SITE TO SHOW ON HERE EXCEPT TO DIRECT YOU TO THE SITE. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_Public_Service REPLY> any photo you cant SAVE or COPY and PASTE on a website you can capture with a screen saver - like FastStone Capture at: http://www.faststone.org/ Let me save a lot of time here by simply posting this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borscht_Belt Vie a Heen Zoliich Gayn zum Mein Yiddishe Momme? Ring a bell?

IMonday Morning here and I just want to make sure the forum sees and read this post - since there are those who make sure some my important post are quicKly covered up with banter. I need the help of jumpers, attorneys and the very best out there - assist me with this task. I do not need negative remarks. Just open minds to help me with this task. I am sure some of you have skills and means far above my head to find the man in the article - dead or alive. ::::: Jo you forgot to add the photos - would these be the photos? I include the "elephant" I previously spoke about. George

QuoteQuote

I do appreciate the opportunity DZ gave me to investigate this subject with the jumpers and pilots..those holding information only available to the likes of me thru this forum. It has been very informative. ::::: not to mention an audience. You never did tell us your background in vaudville and acting. Wasnt that one of Duane's talents too? Piano? Tell us about your encounter with Greta Garbo. Georger

If you dont know why then 6.1 billion others do! Maybe its time to go to town and see the elephant.

Not to you in specific, but it is a scam. Seemingly well-dressed, articulate, and polite man holding a gas can approaches you at 7pm in a restaurant parking lot... "Sir, I need a buck to buy gas so that I can get to work. My car ran out..." First, I used to live in an area of Tampa. The hookers would hang out near the Publix parking lot. One told me, "Ya gotta get their money BEFORE they spend it on groceries." So, "before you eat in the restaurant" works the same way. Second, he is going to work at 7pm ? Very few "tie" jobs start at 8pm. Last, the "sir" is a nice touch. You want to help the nice guy. Eight different restaurant parking lots so that he has a good rotation for 4 nights of the week. Anyway, I saw the same guy with the same can at Bennigans, Hops, and a Japanese place over the course of two months. ::::: If you see the same guy in the same cloths in the same place for six months running, it adds up to about $42,000 per year, minus can & bottle deposits. They usually work in teams.. The latest addition here is small dogs... sympathy card. I had a guy come up to me once and ask for a buck saying he had lost his food card. I pointed to the building to our left .... the welfare department where you get food cards. "Oh!", he said. "Im from out of town".

::::: What I dont understand at all ... is your willingness or lack of realism in wanting to butt heads with Ckret, or with anyone in authority for that matter. To me, it would seem a very dangerous tactic not to mention unfriendly, and counterproductive. It destroys anything credible you might have to say. I have noticed this in your posts almost for a year before coming here formally. If I was the FBI I would lock the door to you, just on general principles! Months ago I asked Ckret: 'did the FBi try this, try that, et cetera'. I was 100% satisfied with the answers I got, and it all made sense. In one moment you hold the FBI up to being gods who have divine powers, and the next they are dogs with less sense (and morality) than the Devil. Make up your mind? It is highly dysfunctional. Not that any of this even matters! Now I do not know where or from whom I heard it the first time, or the second time, but you need to know I heard this "clerk at the hotel/motel" story a long time ago, years ago! (I have a feeling Sluggo and perhaps even Snowmman heard the story years ago also.) Long before the name Duane Weber was ever in the news! So Jo, how can this be "your story" and "your witness", in as much as the fact is a million other people know the story also - and the FBI did investigate it seriously not just once but several times? You can add to this the simple fact that the FBI and others have 'stories' and "evidence" that you have never even heard of and know nothing about, and never will know anything about! Where in the totality of this reality does 'your clerk' rank? And why are you his Manager? You need some perspective in these matters, Jo. Georger copywritten@1864 ('The year b'fore the war or oer')

If you're going to tell a story, at least be good at it, is what I figure. The telling IS the message.

I saw that show too and had a similar reaction. From my experience in law, I can tell you that even honest people make HUGE GIGANTIC FUNDAMENTAL errors in recalling facts. Time erodes memory accuracy and simultaneously attenuates doubt, so people often get distorted memories long after events have occurred but are increasingly sure that they are 100% accurate. I agree on your take on what the agent told Jo. I dont see any acknowledgment or confirmation that the FBI actually did take the register. Ckret says the files do not show anything about it. I do think Ckret is highly motivated to solve the case and if the register info were available, he'd pursue it. 377 377, I think it's simpler than this. Lots of people appear to have yanked Jo's chain over the years. Jo doesn't use much of a truth discrimination filter. She posted an extract of email from the night clerk before. I include it below. It seemed obvious to me, the way it was worded that it was just some other jerk or nut job. When witness email betrays excitement! and exclamation point! and I'm with you! ...then you start to wonder. The reason Jo never publishes everything she has, is because when you see it, it's obviously crackpot stuff. Jo posted on April 2, 2008 11:14 PM xcerpt of Email from Night Clerk Subj: Re: (no subject) Date: 1/17/2008 Dear Jo, I enjoy reading the excerpts from skeptics who were not there to give 'credence' to matters they have no first hand knowledge of. There was a registration card signed by " D B Cooper ". The name on that card was "------------" . I may have been only a 27 year old at that time but I still have a very good memory of that incident because of the 'questioning' that I received by the investigators involved that following evening when I came to work. My mind is as good now as it was then because I have kept it that way. I support you in your quest and have seen nothing as yet to doubt or question your evidence or my belief in that evidence as related to the facts as I know them to be true! (edit) Jo intro'ed the above with the following, claiming she had other stuff she could post. She never posted any more third party stuff. Go for it now Jo! Light 'em if you got 'em! "I hope you guys will find this interesting as I am tired of trying to tell the FBI anything: If you do then I have other information from 3rd parties that I can post." ::::: In addition there are perfectly ordinary events which on a personal level seem extraordinary. John Paulos (statistician) has written a nice book about this called "Innumeracy". Aunt Martha enteres your thoughts. Later that day you find out she was in an auto accident. .... I once wrote a book (which I wont name) in which I related peculiar events which had some special physical dimension involved. (Ball lightening, a plasma, is one such phenominon). All events were true, as best I could know them to be true. I related one event where a child vanished in a bolt of lightening, I mean completely vanished without trace, but her ghostly image was caught in a pane of glass, window she was standing in front of at the time. The girl had a horrible personal history prior to 'her being taken off the cruel world, with her image left as a reminder, and a curse to her abusers'. The event clearly involved a plasma and some of the wierd quantum effects plasmas can produce 'on the external world'. (You see I just charged the whole story by use of the words 'external world')... Well to make a long story short, no pubisher wanted to touch the book. It had physics in it! No science publisher would touch it. It had 'metaphysics' in it. Hotels and desk clerks with evidence about Cooper? Maybe at the Grande Hotel on Mackinack Island but never at some dive in Florida! I mean, in the first case you can actually follow the trail of horeshit. In the latter case, you can't. And everyone knows people get eaten by alligators in Florida. My mother was chased by an alligator and stung by a scorpion in Florida, when she was carrying me. Chapter 2 tomorrow night: Georger copywrite@1437.

yeah, we do have a tendency to look at a few things, say Cooper wasn't a diligent planner, and then try to extend that to the stuff that seems like planning, saying "coincidence". Hard to decide. It's interesting that 305 was probably the last flight to leave PDX for SEA, that would arrive before 5. (I'm assuming the schedule was not much different 11/24/71 then shown on the 8/1/71 timetable) If we say Cooper planned things, then he had a delicate balance to resolve. He probably had to start the hijack before the banks closed? So before 5. Otherwise he would give the FBI a reason to delay things? (saying "banks are closed") Five was just when it was starting to get dark, roughly. If he wanted a twilight/night jump, close to SEA, and not spend a lot of time on the ground or air, then the jump had to be sometime just after 5, at the earliest. If the jump/hijack was planned to be later, he'd either have arrived at SEA too late for the banks, or be in the air (or on the ground) too long after getting money from the banks. Planned to be earlier, and it wouldn't be dark yet. And, assuming he wanted a 727, he had to be on a 727. We don't know the relative frequency of 727's yet, on legs that met the criteria. And he did mention 5 as a time deadline in his demands. So he might have thought about 5 before the hijack started. If he had just come up with the idea during the hijack, he might have said a relative delay? (like "within 2 hours") ??? (edit) And then throw in the oddity that flight 305 didn't meet the above requirements, on 8/1/71, but apparently did on 11/24/71. No Northwest flight did, on 8/1/71? There was a mid-afternoon "dead zone" in the 8/1/71 timetable. ::::: all of the above plus he got very upset when stalled at SEA (refueling). As Sluggo said, normal turn around was 26 min max and less (perhaps only 15 min normally). I think Sluggo made a very good point with that. (Cooper knew the normal turn around time?) I know all about the "well mannered" line some attribute to Cooper (Larry based on Tina) but the transcript is pretty clear to me - Cooper got upset at the stall not once but several times. He was focused on task. You can be sad, even depressed, even dipolar, and still focus on task. ( I re-read the handnotes this morning and they reinforce a person sticking to the task at hand).

yeah, I only emailed the website guy. No answer either. Guess I have to look for other ways. Lets's keep bugging him or find others. Iam sure somewhere in this is a hobby historian who would know many details ... I did notice one thing on his site. He mentioned different categories/kinds of timetables. The main one for collectors is the general "system" timetable that has everything. But he pointed out that smaller regional schedules are sometimes also printed. Yes. Regional skeds is a possibility if the flights dont go outside a region, but most do or did? I also was surprised to learn 305 serviced such a wide wide area that day, across regions. I tend to think NWA made the most of its resources, including its people, and cast as wide a net as it could to keep financially viable - that was one common labour complaint. With you would expect some central scheduling office? BTW ticketing agents werent as common in '71 ...eg. you couldnt get airline tickets through AAA! We know 305 was on the 8/1/71 system timetable. So you would think there wouldn't be "extra" information that existed only on a regional timetable. That would be my thought also except if a central office was coordinating everything, or had to approve everything. I would think the "system" timetable, should always be a superset of any smaller things printed. But it's something to keep in the back of our minds. Another interesting thing in the 8/1/71 timetable is that it has some phone numbers and locations for getting tickets..i.e. not thru a travel agent and not at the airport? Made me wonder why Cooper didn't call ahead for getting or reserving the ticket. I cant see that! (laughing) I cant see a hijacker calling ahead. If nothing else it leaves a trace. Plus calling ahead is a female trait! I know you think not, but maybe he did just walk up to the counter and take the next flight. Why not call ahead, or get the ticket ahead of time? The problem I have with that is its too random. It leaves room for things going wrong. He has a bomb! Quick on and Quick off, is how I see Cooper. Get the job done and be gone, asap. But I know my interpretation could be wrong, also.

::::: Snow, you said you would write several collectors. Did anything turn up? I wrote the website owner with a few questions, but never got an answer.. George

you mean "not even", right? good set of posts, georger. Interesting that if all the goals were achieved on the first step out of the plane, and that only problems would be created by pulling the rip, then yeah. Arguably the plan was for simultaneously achieving failure and success...i.e. if the motives involved self-defeating personal behaviors, they would display in the hijack also? Typical "failures" leave traces. Marriage, home, job etc. The possible Cooper failures mentioned so far seem lame (aviation employment loss). Did Cooper's "failures" actually leave traces, and they just weren't noticed because investigators were looking in the wrong place? Or were they traceless failures...things only Cooper would identify. Or were they just common? Things that just were part of society's background noise? ::::: yes I meant he might NOT even bother to pull, or continue to try and pull if things didnt go his way. Literally as Tina said: Sad. By 1971 post-WWII, Cooper would not have been alone. Millions of Americans felt hopeless for a variety of reasons, especially if part of his youth had been siphoned off in war and the military. You see PTSD only became a clinically accepted term during Vietnam. Nobody wanted to hear about it with WWII and Korea vets. Millions of Americans lived with it in denial. Guilt was a common social-economic device & life strategy, and still is in America. I wish I knew more about Tina and Cooper's actual conversations - I probably will never know.

agreed. I'm just going off of the comment Cooper made, that Ckret posted on Jan 12, 2008 at 1:02 PM: Ckret said: I don't know how it got into the press that Cooper had something against the airlines. Tina asked him at one point why did he hijack the flight and Cooper replied, "I don't have a grudge against the airline, I just have a grudge." Orange1: I have to research it more. I read one editorial that said that..don't really know if exactly true...will look some more...That stuff caught my eye when it was mentioned. (I had forgotten about it). I was intrigued by the 1971 date (since we're all about 1971 here! :) and looked for some more stuff (which I posted). Yes economists now seem to agree it was flawed. I had posted before suggestions about economic/employment issues maybe affecting Cooper..maybe political, maybe right/conservative even. What's interesting to me, is that recent events make it a little easier to "feel like '71" in that regard. Makes me reflect on biases and how I think about possibilities. It's weird how many things "could" be interesting. Even something as weird as the Veteran's Day thing. Remember I'm thinking one possibility is that Cooper was slightly a nutcase. (edit) no disrepect to vets. We mused about Cooper having military experience. Only reason I mentioned it. ::::: I think you have to invoke Sluggo's 'cultural goggles' to even think about this, ie the psychology of the period, which might be difficult for presnt-day people to do. (Gen Xrs and all that). In Cooper's case the crime is very specific and targeted. I seriously doubt he would have tried this with any other airline any place else. I know Ckret will not agree. It comes down to C's psychology which makes targeting an opportunity very important. Of all the crimes on Earth at the time, hijacking an airline was special .... or you were acertified nutcase. Cooper's actions were very specific, in the maine. (His randomness occurs within the general plan, not in the plan itself.) This is the kind of guy who might even bother to pull the parachute. That fits Duane Weber's psychology about like OJ's glove fit at the trial! Cooper COULD NOT HAVE BEEN Duane Weber.

Snow, all your "was that his grudge"... takes as an a priori assumption that Cooper HAD a grudge. ::::: oh he had a grudge, not a-priori but prima- facea by virtue of the action itself. A grudge against himself if nothing else and that is enough. Some people have deep self hate, have been raised to self-blame and loath themselves for failing. That is a very typical 1950's post WWII, post Depression era archetype in white middle class households. Wooops! Without meaning to Ive divulged something about Cooper. One poster on this forum displays the same symptomology admirably. That is still theory and not proven - or not proven as motive for the hijacking anyway - I still fail to see how hijacking a private airline insured by a private insurer does anything about a grudge against the government. ::::: The object of the grudge does not have to be external, only internal. Very likely in Cooper's case it was a whole string of failures and grudges, which again is very typical for the era. You tell me you hijacking an aeroplane and parachuting into hostile conditions exercises a grudge against any external object? "Hey mom. Make me a cake or I'll shoot myself!", ? It may work with addle brained mothers who are part of the dependence cycle, but I assure you it doesnt work with a company, corporation, airline, or government. Those are systems, not people. So, in Cooper's this case it is not a exercise to get payback for a grudge, but an exorcism for himself! (Unless he knew someone specific in the case and his actions would affect some one or two individuals and change their lives, specifically.) More likely this was all internal. A fight with himself. All of which makes it infinitely harder to find the guy, because he's a loner to begin with! What was it Tina said: He was "SAD". Tina pretty much nailed Cooper. Georger copywroted@1666

:|.||: ever notice Jo copywrites everything she says here!? She must be writing a book, or even a sepher!? In addition, Chinese aithorities may be reading this forum.

We have a desk clerk in a hotel who thinks Duane was in Portland the night before (said desk clerk now in China .... ::::: probably deported to Tibet where he spent time as a desk clear for the Prince in Katmandu, but was fired and became porter at Camp 3 on Everest... You could ask climbers if they remember him. LTOWKIMANUC I think was his name.

It is not possible, really and truly. Next idea? Next idea is astronomical. We have the following: "The weather: Ceiling of 5,000 feet, broken clouds at 3,500, scattered clouds at 1,500. Winds of 12 to 14 knots, light rain showers." (Ckret) What were the astronomical conditions that night. Star charts Sky1-4 attached show that Cooper had a gibeous Moon that night at 78.6% illumination. The Moon had risen at 15:41H local time and would set at 04:03. Its highest elevation that night was +42.9 degrees altitude above the local horizon at Portland (S-SSW). So if Cooper had any breaks in the clouds that night he had moonlight to operate with. Prominent in the SSE at 8:13pm pst was Jupiter, brightest non lunar object that night, about midway up in the in the sky off the SSEastern horizon. Also toward south above the horizon were Aquarius with Pegasus the flying horse (The Great Square) above Aquarius. (See charts attached). In the East we have the Pleiades just risen with Orion soon to rise below the Seven Sisters. Note* all sky images set for Portland 11-24-71 20:13pm pst. Georger 377