smokin99

Nice touch, Smoke. You make a great older sister. Speaking of which, do you have any advice for lonely old guys diagnosed with Major Depression? Just askin' Advice from sis - notice I didn't use the word older in this context :)....... Don't go whizzin in strange places. Depression is ten times worse in the lockup..... Write some more articles for your website..... Call someone, go out and dance...... Volunteer in a homeless aids shelter.... Wait for spring, it's coming.... And then there's counseling and meds Not much help, huh? btw.....Did you ever visit http://www.parapublishing.com/sites/para/about/about.cfm . The site with the parachute expert, self-publishing guru with free resources on his site who has also worked with the FBI and CIA. but....A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.....Winston Churchill

I'm sure Robert appreciates your support, but I've got to ask...is this truly the only contribution that you are capable of making to this conversation? lol..what am I saying.... it is about as intelligent as some other childish banter we've seen on this thread. But really ...desecrating a corpse?? I'll bet your mom is real proud of that. Get another line. Danielle is actually a kid, and a guy. He suffers from autism and gets emotional sometimes. It's like some of the emails I get from readers. My hope is that they drag in Geestman and the other witnesses for questioning BEFORE they die. That would actually be better. Robert, unlike some on here who shall remain nameless, I actually read posts. I am well aware of posts made by Danielle stating his age, his sex, where his username derives from, and that he has autism and ADD, as well as posts that demonstrate that he is certainly capable of participating in a constructive manner. I have in the past had extremely close tutor type relationships with several autistic teens with ADD, OCD and Tourette's and other assorted DSMs. I preferred to look towards their capabilities rather than their disabilities. I am confident that Danielle is intelligent and capable of contributing more than random posts about pissing on a corpse if he only thinks about his posts before he makes them. Maybe I was too tongue in cheek in my response to him, but Jo tried the mama route and it didn't help much. I tried the cooler older sis thing. Autism and ADD are challenges, especially in social skills, but if he is capable of participating in a forum I would imagine that he is capable of being instructed in appropriate usage of same. So Danielle, I certainly hope that you continue to post and that you remain passionate about learning about things - but perhaps you would enjoy the forum more if your could steer your enthusiasm more towards the case and less towards Bernie. but....A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.....Winston Churchill

I'm sure Robert appreciates your support, but I've got to ask...is this truly the only contribution that you are capable of making to this conversation? lol..what am I saying.... it is about as intelligent as some other childish banter we've seen on this thread. But really ...desecrating a corpse?? I'll bet your mom is real proud of that. Get another line. but....A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.....Winston Churchill

Farflung's take (and poster) regarding Hugh Hefner. lol , I do miss FF. but....A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.....Winston Churchill

me too. but....A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.....Winston Churchill

Robert says: Some of the people investigating the case have been doing it for a lot longer than I have. Others are more well-known. And over the years, they have deluded themselves into the creation of a group I call Cooper Royalty. These are a core group of people, who although they might not share similar opinions on a given suspect, will circle the wagons and support attacks and lies on anyone who threatens the conversation that is not within their accepted circle. They FEAR newcomers. They fear that someone outside that circle of fantasy might be the Johnny-Come-Lately who puts the lie to all their years of work. But what this does is have the effect of squashing any new, real investigation into the case. Cooper Royalty has been spinning the same tired theories, the same attempts to shift reality for years. They are chained to the Cooper Royalty Ferris Wheel, where they claim to encourage new discussion and openess, but in reality are AFRAID of it. Problem is, you can't have it both ways. No one within that group will ever be ready to accept a truth unless that truth falls within the strict, narrow agenda set by Cooper Royalty. In reality, they plod through their 'investigations' as if they have a ball and chain attached to their leg. They are an oxymoron, an aberration within civilian investigation groups. And this hampers their efforts while discouraging the public from participating. This is what I have observed since I first ventured into Cooperland back in 2008.

It would be easier if you would stop using so many generalities. First, most of the evidence against Christiansen doesn't have a lot to do with the witness descriptions. Sure, he bears a resemblance. My point was you shouldn't lean on eyewitness testimony too heavily unless you can put someone 3-D and alive into a lineup. I think the chances are better that the hijacker fits the description to a degree, but it should not be considered a photograph, as many think it is. Robert Gregory pegged the hijacker at no more than five nine. You have Mitchell saying he may have been wearing a toupee. The stews varied on the height, from maybe five ten to six feet one. All three stews picked different facial combinations from the FBI catalog. Who knows? The truth is probably somewhere in between. In the Northwest, on the day of the hijacking, practically everyone dropped what they were doing and got around the television to watch the ongoing drama unfold. All three major stations cut their regular programming for hours. There may have been other hijackings, but nothing like this...where the plane sits on the ground and everyone knows the guy inside is waiting for money and chutes and everyone knows he's going to try and jump from the jet. It was a phenomenon. Helen Jones and her daughter had no trouble remembering that Kenny and Bernie skipped Thanksgiving dinner for example, and that Bernie's wife was pissed off about the whole thing. And SOME of the people surrounding Kenny DID wonder. Dawn Androsko, for example. She said she and a few of her friends wondered if Kenny could be Cooper, but dismissed this because he was too nice of a guy. It just wasn't possible, they thought. Had Jones or Androsko known that Kenny was a former paratrooper, who knows? They might have called the FBI on him. None of these people had heard of Geoff Gray or his article at the time I first spoke to them. One of the bigger pieces of evidence is simply the lies told by Bernie Geestman. And if you examine those lies, they all relate to either distancing himself from Kenny's finances or any involvement in the hijacking. We could go around about this all day, but why? You don't think Kenny's the guy. Fine. Join the club. It has many members. But there is a division of opinion about it. Some people think the case against him, when coupled with Geestman's lying and a few other things, believe the case is worth a look. Others don't. My opinion is that I suspect he was the hijacker, but I can't say for sure. I did about as much as I could. I do have new information on Kenny, etc but I'm not releasing that publicly until August. None of this info actually proves he was Cooper. It just straightens out a few things, a few points about him. I believe this is an honest attitude about Kenny, as opposed to Jo Weber, who continues to declare Duane Weber as 100% the hijacker with not a shred of evidence to back it up. I think my attitude is realistic, too. All I offer people is what is there and maybe someday someone legit will check it out. By legit I mean law enforcement or recognized members of the media, not Bruce Smith, or any other civilian investigator with an axe to grind. Non-partisan, if you will. That's all I can do. Wrong. The whole problem with Kenny and any other suspect is generalities. You assume too much. I would have no problem with whoever it turned out to be - even if that someone turned out to be Kenny. I'm an equal opportunity skeptic. The problem is you don't just offer what there is - you slant it and skew it so that it fits your guy. Just like everyone else does. I understand that from a egocentric perspective, but I don't when it comes to looking at things from a rational, objective place where you'd just like to know the truth -- whatever it turns out to be. This is what you claim you want, but from all appearances you really only want that when it supports your speculations. My issue is with credibility and presenting an honest appraisal of whoever your guy is. That includes including all the stuff that doesn't fit and not changing or embellishing the stuff that does. Or I guess you can do rewrites ad infinitum. Oh well....whatever I guess. This horse has been flogged well enough. The main point remains that even if they all had notarized, certified, bonafide diaries of every minute of the whole week, there is absolutely nothing that you or anyone else has presented that puts Kenny on the plane with a wig and elevator shoes hoping against hope that he is not recognized as he threatens innocent lives with a bomb for $200,000. but....A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.....Winston Churchill

Robert says: You are making many leaps of faith there. Eyewitnesses, in fact, are more often wrong, or don't agree...especially when under duress. I like to give the example of the Green River Killer. They interviewed Gary Ridgway in the same office where his sketch was on the wall. He frequented a 7-11 where that same sketch was on the front door. No one from either venue ever recognized him from the sketch. I think the evidence is available on Kenny enough that if the FBI was interested, they could check it out. They haven't, and probably won't. Smokin99 says in part: ***'Looking at it from a totally objective point of view I have to agree. Much of the circumstantial "evidence" used to present KC has a suspect has been shown to be just plain wrong and/or non-existent. Now whether this is lying to make a story better or just sloppy research, I'll leave to the "millions" of readers to decide. As for the anecdotes from people that knew Kenny and Bernie - even if you give the story tellers the benefit of the doubt that they can remember what Kenny and Bernie ate for breakfast 40 years ago, all of the stories can be explained in ways that do not require one to make huge leaps of logic in order to make them out to be master criminals. To use the author's own analogy...It's like going to that crack house for vitamins - it could have all happened that way, but I doubt it...' Robert says: You are right. Maybe it never happened that way and Kenny wasn't the guy. But I wasn't asking people to remember what he and Bernie had for breakfast. I was asking them for a LOT, but including what was going on the week/the day of the most famous crime in NW history to that point. For example, most people who were in the Puget Sound area on the day Mt St Helens blew up can tell you where they were and what they were doing...more than thirty years later. The Cooper crime is a good reference for peoples' memories. The breakfast comment was made to emphasize a point. Usually, Robert, a memory marker is made when an event holds a special personal meaning to the person and/or is one of huge catastrophic or national importance. For example, Mt St Helens would fit because it was a catastrophic and a national historical event that affected many. Where you are and what you are doing when you hear that a major public figure is killed or dies. On the other hand, DB Cooper likely wasn't really an "event" for regular folks until time went on and he was equated with being a folk hero. Hijackings were a dime a dozen. I just don't think that DB Cooper would have equated to a memory maker of that level to that many everyday people just going about their daily lives. Just like I doubt if passenger descriptions mean a whole lot - why would they have had a reason to notice just another guy on the plane. But let's just say for the sake of argument that people happened to take note of this hijacking above all of the others because he jumped the plane and it happened on Thanksgiving Eve. I still say that you might have known what you were doing or where you were but I seriously doubt if you could remember specific conversations and specific times, etc. And then there is the fact that these people never ever mentioned this among each other, or wondered out loud - if the folks that they continued to be involved with could actually be responsible for a criminal terrorist act involving not only theft but a potential mass murder? Never even thought about it until they hear about this article in the NYT about ole KC. And then here comes someone that wants to interview them about it? Right. Let's just say it requires a bit of a stretch. There is absolutely no difference in their accounts and the accounts of the family or friends of other candidates that you consider suspect. And then's there this....You can't say on one hand that eyewitness descriptions are bogus with your Green River analogy and then put the entire weight of your story behind eyewitness stories. It's falippin illogical. but....A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.....Winston Churchill

Really? Even I can't say that KC is Cooper for sure, so how do you know? That's strictly your opinion on it, not an actual fact. I appreciate it that you said I wasn't lying. This is better than some other people I could mention. Like a guy who simply makes up whatever he wishes regarding the relationship between me and Skipp Porteous. Article forthcoming on that.

Jo, I wanted to make sure you saw this. I think the picture everyone has in their mind of Tina is only in the context of DB Cooper. Never mind that in the space of 9 or 10 years she also went through a divorce, moved west, was a single gal working for a living flying on overseas flights and such, changed religion -- and who knows what else might have happened in her life. Really - from all the pictures from that night folks can surmise what they want, but in reality Tina just looks exhausted, not particularly traumatized. Maybe she entered the convent because she was just a devoutly religious person who was trying to find her niche in life. Who'da thunk it.... http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1310&dat=19821010&id=O4URAAAAIBAJ&sjid=KOIDAAAAIBAJ&pg=3891,2489465 but....A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.....Winston Churchill

I agree with this. He seemed to be familiar with the flight capabilities and the characteristics of 727's, but not the opening of the airstairs. And I think he had jumped with a parachute at least once previously, since he offhandedly dismissed the instructions Mucklow tried to give him. Update: I got an email and a phone call from Bill Mitchell, and a returned package. Wrong Bill Mitchell. I had three possible addresses for him. Apparently I picked the wrong one. Guy said he wished he WAS the right Mitchell, and apologized that he wasn't. No big deal. At least I got the pictures, etc returned. I will try to figure out which of the remaining two addresses is the right one. It's a common name. This happened a few weeks ago. I know some of you were waiting to hear, I probably should have said something earlier. My bad. Yes. Magazine well. Not slot. I used slot because I thought some people wouldn't know what mag well meant. Training and duties did not differ that much between pursers and stewardesses. "The premier responsibility of any cabin attendant is to insure the safety of passengers during an emergency, and cabin attendants all must possess a thorough knowledge of emergency equipment and procedures on all aircraft." Barring any REAL evidence to the contrary, it is as likely as not that KC had occasion to fly on a 727 with his job or in training and had as much knowledge as Tina about the doors in the cabin of an airplane. Not to mention that it is entirely possible that Tina knew or at least crossed paths with KC since she mostly flew to Japan for the last 5 years or her NWA career -- until she retired in 1981 and joined the convent on Valentine's Day becoming Sister Ann Marie. (approx 1976 - 81) but....A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.....Winston Churchill

And one of the bigger problems is that the story about the timing of the communications has changed YET AGAIN. Now they are saying it happened before the transoponder was cut off AND that the communication shutdowns may have occured simultaneously. Thanks for clarifying that. lol...Seriously...who does? There are several possible scenarios - anyone of which could be correct and with what we do think we know changing by the moment, it is anyone's guess at this point. ...Sound familiar? but....A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.....Winston Churchill

Including himself. Actually, I didn't get that he was saying that other explanations were correct or more probable - he was just offering up that though the evidence may be consistent with deliberate acts, it doesn't preclude other explanations as well. Seemed to be a reasonable stance to me. but....A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.....Winston Churchill

With all the details changing and endless speculation, this guy makes the case that everyone could be jumping to a lot of conclusions.... http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/16/opinion/palmer-malaysia-flight-370/index.html?hpt=bosread but....A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.....Winston Churchill

and here's an answer to my hacker question .... hmmmmm.... but....A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.....Winston Churchill

OMG.....another hijacking traced to a 1968 Belgian comic.....this time it's Tintin himself.... Scroll all the way down this Daily Mail page! You just can't make this stuff up. but....A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.....Winston Churchill

They have also said that purposeful maneuvers of the plane could have caused temporary disorientation or blackout or enough confusion to give whoever time to take over. While we are speculating, I have wondered - just wondered - if someone could have sabotaged/ hacked into the airplane's computers. I don't even know if this is possible except in the movies....377? but....A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.....Winston Churchill

Lol...Parrothead, you are wasting your bandwidth and risking carpal tunnel for nothing. Most of the folks with a pet "suspect" cannot admit the truth. If it's got a bill, likes the water, quacks, and is named Daffy, it could still be a chicken if you'd only listen to their list of reasons why it could be - even though they have to circumvent the globe to go from point a to point b. And most will not entertain the suggestion that THIS was more than likely a result of THAT and had absolutely nothing to do with a hijacking. Fraid the G man had this one nailed . All we've got are a bunch of stories and speculation about (mostly) dead people with, so far, nary a bonafide, verifiable claim to be found. ...but where there's life, there's hope. but....A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.....Winston Churchill

There will be plenty of traces if it crashed at sea. They just need to look in the right place. There are also acoustic pingers attached to the flight data and cockpit voice recorders. Most have a battery life of roughly 30 days. You have to have hydrophones to hear them and range is only a few miles at best. http://www.rjeint.com/pdf/DK-100revB.pdf http://www.rjeint.com/beacons.htm 377 One of the BIG questions that I have not seen asked is this: If the plane flew on for hours...why didn't a single person ever try using one of the on-board satellite phones? In Boeing 777's that Malaysia Airlines uses, there is sat phone access in Business Class (it's on their website) and it's probably the same thing in First Class. I don't know if this is restricted to a single phone on a wall in each section, or if it is an in-seat feature for these passengers. Even if the plane was constantly out of cell range, you would think someone would have at least tried to make a sat phone call or IM/email through the onboard wifi. I have also wondered whether this sat-phone system could be disabled from the cockpit. It's just a mystery how a plane could fly along for hours and with today's travelers...hell, half of them are on the laptop checking their email or on their smart phones. Yet...not a single peep, a single email, call, NOTHING. For hours? These planes are connected to the internet. It's just weird. And I think they are doing the right thing by starting to look at the pilot and co-pilot. It's possible that hijackers could have disabled all these systems if they had the proper flight training, but if this flight was diverted it seems like it was done by the pilots themselves. Transponder switched off just minutes after the plane's last communication. Then the ACARS system turned off. No emails, IM's, anything from the economy class passengers that anything was wrong. No sat phone calls from business or First Class, as if all internet or access via the sat phones was disabled, and quickly. Imagine a takeover done by outside hijackers. In this case, you are trying to gain control of nearly 300 people. There will be screaming, panic, some people will start making calls, doing emails, whatever. Instead, stealthy silence from the plane and absolutely NO outside coms. This sounds more like the pilots disabling all outside communications, sat phones and internet access, and then perhaps telling the passengers 'sorry the system has gone down'. Like your cable company does. THEN they divert the flight west. Otherwise, chances are almost certain that someone would have gotten out a message or two before the hijackers can collect phones and gain total control. Remember Flight 93? The coms back then were not as good as now, but people got out calls and messages anyway. I think it's possible this plane was STOLEN, no kidding. Not hijacked exactly, but PIRATED. And done in a rather sneaky and planned fashion. And right now it could be sitting in a hangar in SE Iran, via going over the ocean around the south side of India and then NW to Iran. Either that or something went wrong and it crashed into the Indian Ocean. Slight Edit: A caveat. According to the Malaysian Airlines website, this is the satellite-based com capability offered to First Class and Business passengers. (There is no mention of Economy class having direct internet access) Actually some site did talk about this and I believe the consensus was that in-flight passenger communication is controllable. Malaysian authorities are essentially saying now that this is a passenger or crew hijacking and/or act of piracy piracy -- and two separate communication systems were cut off deliberately 14 mins apart. To me, it would come as no surprise that in-flight phones would be cut off (if they even worked to begin with - have you ever tried one? The last time I paid extra for inflight internet it didn't work. Additionally, the ones that I've seen aren't available generally until a certain altitude and cruising has commenced so that alone makes me think that it is controllable from the cockpit. I also think Flight 93 might have been a little different being primarily over land and periodically over heavily commercialized and populated areas with probably more coverage. But like you, my knowledge is only coming from opinion and what we read and hear from a dozen different sources that change hourly and not from any expertise of the subject matter. but....A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.....Winston Churchill

The news reports say it was found November 1978. Not sure when it was first publicized but the majority of articles I've seen have been from January, 1979. I've seen speculation that the money was planted, but not the placard. Surely whoever planted it would not have chosen the site they did if it was planted. But in Cooper country speculation abounds on just about anything. [:) but....A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.....Winston Churchill

I have a question to ask: When in 1979 was the Placard found? I need an exact date and also the date it was made public. VERY important - when was the Placard found? Was it not speculated it was planted? Was it not speculated the money was planted? The news reports say it was found November 1978. Not sure when it was first publicized but the majority of articles I've seen have been from January, 1979. I've seen speculation that the money was planted, but not the placard. Surely whoever planted it would not have chosen the site they did if it was planted. But in Cooper country speculation abounds on just about anything.

You don't know me at all. Please don't pretend you do. I'm fine. Look...if I REALLY wanted to visit your forum, don't you think I would have kept on being quiet about my identity there? I hadn't the slightest interest in posting anything there of substance. I just wanted to show you I could do it. So I did. It's over. lol......Not really. You can believe it or not, but some of us that participate in both forums suspected that was you. I thought it was rather pathetic behavior so I didn't bother with it in keeping with trying to keep the discussion focused on Cooper and not on personalities. Guess you didn't get the memo. But really Robert, for someone that couldn't care less, your actions speak louder than words. You've been going over there since day one and quoting posts over here. Why play games with folks? If it bothers you that much just don't go there. Easy enough. but....A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.....Winston Churchill

hmmmm...see subject line...

I had a JetEx as a kid. I accidentally touched the casing just after running it. You only do that once. I had a firecracker go off in my hand once. Another thing you only stupidly do once. A most horrible, peculiar type of pain. Way worse than the time my brother shot me in the back of the knee with a bb gun. Or the time he shot the horse in the rump with a slingshot -- with me riding the horse - just to see if it worked like it did in the movies. Yes, I still plot revenge. but....A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.....Winston Churchill

Not sure that this has been posted before, but here's an article talking about the Travel Channel's "America Declassified" Nice read. http://parachutistonline.com/feature/declassified-at-the-dropzone I have several questions for the skydivers out there. How far have you been blown from your dropzone due to wind or other factors? What's the greatest unintended distance from a planned landing that you know of? What influenced the distance in those cases? Would the type of parachute that Dan Cooper was using make him more or less likely to be blown "off-course" by wind/weather? Is there anything that Cooper could do before or after opening his chute (under the conditions as we know them) that would have increased his horizontal distance from a flight path? And I have no idea if horizontal distance is the right terminology so hoping you know what I mean.