georger

There are or were several different Himms. The official or semi official Himms speaking to the media and select individuals, the Himms who had to communicate with and deal with other officials in the Cooper case especially during the excavation, and the private Himms known by his friends and personal associates such as Jerry Thomas ... so everything Himms did and said is a mixed bag. Himms was different people with different messages in those various roles. Himms had to respond differently in all of those roles. I have never talked to an agent who did not back and support Ralph fully ...... right up to the present day. My advice to people who chose to talk about these matters is: you need to stay grounded! Ralph was many different things to many different people at different times. From gardener to FBI agent to husband and partner and friend. On the money issue: why is Carr and his work/posts about how the money was packaged in the old thread, not being mentioned here? Once again I am totally perplexed.

I received a notice tonight - For those who do not know, Chaucer and his family, quoting: Many of you know, but my family suffered a devastating house fire two weeks ago ... No one was injured but we lost all of our pets... please go to Chaucer's Facebook page for further details. I think Chris and his family have a place to stay and are in recovery mode. Let's all wish them the best !

Gates is superficial. Nothing he does is the final word on anything.

Perhaps another conversation with Dorwin Schreuder is in order - searching for clues. I still think something crucial about this money is missing, and we dont have an accurate working model of the beach where this money was found. I think Palmer's '8-24" cross-bedded layer' found just below the upper active money layer Palmer identified, is crucial to interpreting the money find... there were either shards of Cooper money found below the Ingram find layer, or there weren't. And of course those deeper specimens bagged and filmed by a tv crew at TBar as they were found, are now missing ... what else! If there is any lesson to be learned from the DB Cooper Case, it is that 'haste makes waste'. Go BIG or go HOME!

I think the FBI guys were being loose with their language. I take by 'intact' that they meant something very likely band remnants were visible and still in place on the bills. You could tell it was or had been a rubber bands. Their goal was little more than a general description that would fill a news byte on radio and tv. The Lab went further and separated the bills, examined the sediment between the bills, but the bands never comes up in any lab report Ive heard of. I wish Tom had those bands to look at today! God only knows what he might find ... The chemistry and response options of those bands under various conditions is so well known, they might tell a story nobody expects. Those bands might write a travelogue which only raises more questions than anyone can answer!

The FBI should have gone to the Ingram's apartment immediately once it learned of the money, and secured the Cooper money to prevent any further alteration of the EVIDENCE!. Cases are solved on 'evidence' not on giddy press conferences with young lottery winners! The Portland press conference with the Ingrams turned out to be premature and ill advised. The Ingrams lawyered up to get their reward with Richard Tosaw of all people. And any advantage or opportunity to the evidence side of the Cooper case went right out the window ...

… The boy picked up the money and they looked at it and determined that it had once been $20 bills. The money was badly decomposed and was held together with rubber bands which were so old they crumbled away immediately upon handling. They took the money home where they showed it to INGRAMs brother-in-law, who took the rest of the rubber bands off and was going to dry out the money and try to reclaim it. They had no idea at this time where the money had come from. We know that the FBI statement above is only partially true, it is contradictory, and not the whole story. If as Pat Ingram reported, the money came out of the ground in three (or more?) pieces, after which the Ingrams separated their find into twelve groups turned into the FBI, Harold Ingrams brother spent considerable time removing pieces of bands from the money back at the apartment. Miraculously, no pieces of the rubber band survived to be tested in a lab by the FBI to determine their status and exact condition/history. These rubber bands could have been considered the 'rosetta stone' of the money's history! The FBI was apparently clueless to this whole issue going on right under their noses. These Alliance@ rubber bands had a known history, chemistry, formulation, and predictable prognosis based on environmental factors. They were a window into the money's history after Cooper was given the money.

According to Pat Ingram, Harold's brother spent considerable time picking off pieces of decomposed bands stuck to the fibers of the bills. Its too bad they didnt keep those specimens for lab analysis. This description suggests that at some time the money was in a warm-hot environment, causing the bands to enter a gooey melt phrase. When and where could that have been between the time Cooper was given the money and its discovery in 1980. ? The chemistry of the bands is very important. The bands are a window into the money's history.

And the amazing thing to Tom and me, out of all of the work at TBar nobody bothered to save a box of the sands or take a core sample. WTF were these people thinking? ! That is the same as going to Court without any written documents and no tape recording! Its beyond belief! In other words, no record of anything... and nothing that anyone can test independently in a lab ... Palmer literally told everyone 'I am a professional ... Ive been doing this so long ... nobody dares question my authority/expertise ...' '''we dont need no stinken lab work or samples''' ! Himmelsbach bought right into it. Tom's interpretation of the strata at TBar is probably the correct one. The 8-24" cross bedded layer Palmer documented with photos, directly below the Ingram find money site, probably establishes the date of the Cooper money appearance at Tena Bar. I think Palmer said one thing but meant another! The real issue is semantics. I think Palmer said one thing but meant another and Tom has got the beach/river strata correct. That secures the time frame for the Cooper money and Tom's diatoms ...

Or did Cooper put the 'package' he offered Tina in his coat pocket ... then it winds up on Tena Bar ? Implies he wound up in the river ? I can tell you there were agents exploring Tena Bar who were expecting to find the coat, brief case, etc ? There was a strong sense of the money and Cooper being together ... I want to know what year Tom's diatoms date to.

Publish the quotation you think you have and your source ? Here is the FBI account from the files: "… The boy picked up the money and they looked at it and determined that it had once been $20 bills. The money was badly decomposed and was held together with rubber bands which were so old they crumbled away immediately upon handling. They took the money home where they showed it to INGRAMs brother-in-law, who took the rest of the rubber bands off and was going to dry out the money and try to reclaim it. They had no idea at this time where the money had come from. " You might also read Tom Kaye's work on the money. Quite obviously badly decomposed rubber bands are not holding anything together. Rather, Tom describes the bills as being in a state of 'cemented adhesion', more or less, except that the Ingrams later testified they pulled the money out in three or four pieces. When the Ingrams presented their find to Ralph Himmelsbach the bills were presented as twelve groups of mutually adhering bills, in a sandwich bag. These groups were placed on a table and photographed as received by the press. Here is that photo ... You might want to compare those bills to a part of an old notebook found in the sand on some beach except that paper money is actually cloth and much more durable than pulp paper pages in a notebook.

The exact words describing the bands the Ingrams used published in the FBI document have been published countless times. People would rather guess and make stuff up about this rather than simply citing what the document(s) say .... BTW: all of this speculation about Tina's thoughts and motives etc etc etc, especially in regard to her transaction with Cooper during the money conversation, is a total waste of time and misleading. Agents opened the door to this nonsense when they failed to ask Tina to clarify and explain her statements. There is no evidence that Tina was playing games or working some kind of agenda of her own in any of these transactions with Cooper! Moreover, decades have passed with nobody thinking to ask Tina to clarify points in her interviews! People are self-serving morons!

The interviewer did not think to ask Tina what she meant by "bank type bands" or to explain how the money she saw was packaged. Major omission. This omission has been perpetuated by everyone, and was never corrected by anyone in spite of countless opportunities to correct these omissions! People are idiots! Its as simple as that.

Not me! The Fazios never said anything to me about the money being a plant. Just the opposite! The Fazios have always maintained the money arrived with the last high tide. They said they saw pieces of money spread out at the Ingram find area, just below the high tide line. They concluded the money had washed in ... no plant. The Fazisos observations must be taken *very seriously. The Fazios link the appearance of the money on their beach with a high tide event. The Fazios know their land and the river and how things work on their beach after decades of observation etc! The Fazios did not say 'the money washed in from the river'. The Fazios merely linked the appearance of the money and its morphology in a small area at the find site, with a high tide event and the last 'high tide line'. Tides generally erode beach material and move material on beaches in the direction of river flow.

Nobody thought to ask Tina what he did with the package of bills. Its details like this that confound this case ...

Small point but the statement does not say what Cooper did with the money he offered to Tina. Put it back in the bag? Put it in his coat pocket? If Cooper bailed with that same money in his coat pocket and it later is found at TBar ... ???

The plane eventually became scrap. Nothing left. Nothing exists.

Was there a machine shop or repair area at the airport that Cooper could have picked the tie up in just prior to going to the boarding area where he buys his ticket?

good one ---

Damned good thing none of the tie particles come from the Moon! Ulis would be looking/talking about Astronauts and the like... !

The tie and Cooper had to connect 'somewhere'. The tie particles suggest a unique tie history? For all anyone knows Cooper found the tie at the airport and appropriated it? Is that even possible ?

The father of Gore Vidal was Eugene Luther Vidal - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Luther_Vidal American commercial aviation pioneer, New Deal official, inventor, and athlete. For eight years, from 1929 to 1937, he worked closely with Amelia Earhart in a number of aviation-related enterprises, and was President Franklin Roosevelt's top civil aviation director from 1933 to 1937. .....

Glad you are here -

I PMd you about R99 and his email ... that might help get him here ??? GL.

I emailed R99 to try and get him here...