TomKaye

Snow, Well did I not show the SR-71 data? Here, I will be a good guy on the clay layer. THERE IS NO REPORT ON THE CLAY LAYER. What you know is what I know. There were additional pics of the trench that showed sand layers, that's it. Tom

Everyone please understand that in order to publish a scientific paper, they require that you not release pertinent data ahead of time. You actually have to sign a statement that this is true. While I would love to chat it up with all the details, specifics of what we found on the money etc have to wait until after its published. My job in publishing it will be to provide enough data that outsiders can reprocess and reevaluate the results independently. This should give everyone lots of (cannon?) fodder. Jerry I don't think I mentioned it to you specifically while we were together, but please do not post details about or findings. By the way Jerry was a BIG help on the trip and certainly knows the area like the back of his hand. He is close friends with H and I think is a reliable source of info on both the area and what H has related in the past. Thanks Tom

We have the exact location for the money find within about 20ft. This will be part of our published data so we are holding it close for now. From what I understand the dredge spill is not very efficient at keeping sand up on the beach. It forms its own river that flows back to the Columbia and takes a bunch of sand with it. Hence half the sand ends back up in the water along the shore and you get the bump you see in the pics. Also remember that Tena was a lot wider beach back then so when Fazio says so many feet up the beach he could have had the old beach in mind. Tom

Fazio's laid out the whole scenario. They used to do dredging and piled it on the beach but they stopped this for environmental concerns surrounding some fish species that lived in the beach shallows. The last beach dump dredge was 1974. They still dredge but the sand is brought other places and sometimes dumped inland. Fazio's have a contract with the government to take dredging sand thats how they got into the business. Tena bar was destroyed because there is no replenishment of sand from dredging like the old days. They would put the pipe way up the beach but I think he was referring to another area on their property not Tena proper. The aerial views don't support that. Tom

Snow, Cross checking is what its all about. Even really noisy data can be helpful if you have enough different data streams to correlate. Since the flight recorder data was used to determine jump zone then we can assume it must have some level of useful quality. Tom

Great job thanks Snow! Georger and everyone else thanks for the historical info! Now I will set the gears in motion looking for a metal tape on a reel. Finding the data would be a big break through. We believe Soderlind revised the drop zone several times so he must have had access to a FDR reading device. Thanks! Tom

My recollection about these things is that they are wire recorders with two wires. They can stand the heat better. Go get 'em Snow! Tom

Ok it was near the top so you get it right away. This is the original photo. There was nothing else on the page or any other comments about it in 1000 pages of documentation. As you can see, its just a hint. Now some of you will insist there is a report, or pics somewhere, or that it was hushed up or some such thing. Before my days in Seattle I might have agreed with you. Now I know that someone from the FBI called up the SR-71 guys and said "Did you find anything?" they said " no, nothing" and that was the end of it. Ok Snow, I have made good with the data. Now the forum can do something for me. There was a black box on 305 and it was used somehow in the data analysis. The FAA has no record of it. Ckret spent a LOT of time looking for it in the files and came up empty. I need an example of the RAW black box data from that era, preferably from a 727. Unless we know what to look for, I think it could be missed. I think its a long piece of paper with squiggly lines but that is a guess. At least it would be good to know how many channels they were recording and what they looked at. Ok, stop fighting with each other and get some work done. Thanks Tom ps the paper on the right was a post it note we used so we could photograph it later.

I just got back home from the trip and see your bitching about the SR 71 comment. Like so many things in this investigation, the information was not complete and there is no big "SR 71 Report" at the FBI. In fact it was only one line that was so insignificant, even Ckret missed it. I believe I photographed it so if you give me some time to get things organized, I will post the original up for you. What we have come to learn about the investigations back then was that if the FBI instigated a request for data, and send out some piece of evidence, they were unlikely to get it back. This is because the people who generated the info have to testify in court so they hang on to the evidence. Tom

Hello All, The two days we spent in the archives was extremely enlightening. Not so much for the data as for the way things work with investigations of this size. None of you have any idea how much manpower and effort was put into this investigation. As an example, the SR71 Blackbird was involved in the search. If you think the FBI didn't try to solve this case you should be shot. The FBI especially at that time, didn't do their own data calculations. They went to experts and asked them, usually more than once. The era also made for huge difficulties in compiling info. Again as an example, there were 4 people listening to the radio chatter between the pilot and the tower. They all took notes. The notes were transcribed in abbreviated form into teletype transmissions. The teletype was again retyped by hand into regular English so you can understand it. Then all 4 transcripts were combined again manually into a final report that they work from. The data you all have is these final reports. There are NO things like tape recordings hidden in a box down here. So if the pilot says "roger" that may have been reported in one of the 4 transcripts but not the rest. Do you put it in or not? This is where Larry was trying to set things straight. There are LOTS of nuances if you read all the files. Even more if you know inside info that affects things politically like the fact H was not the lead agent on the job but got all the publicity. There were no computers, no search engines, heck I dont even think there were secretaries to file it all properly. Everything is by date but that can be meaningless. If Northwest sent back their original analysis from 1971 in 1974, it goes in the 1974 folder. Loosing Larry was the single worst thing that could have happened to this forum. Without his insight into the inner sanctum, you are analyzing a story that is at least three generations in the telling. TK

All, Don't quote me that it was Rat that H was talking about. I could be wrong. Fazio's don't have a great memory for all this stuff. There were no "oh wow!" revelations in this trip. Be nice to Jerry Thomas, he knows virtually everything H knows and is very familiar with the area. At the moment I think he is the best new source of info. Got to head out, Snow realign the birds now! Tom

Hi All, Well as you have seen we have been busy here. There is a group of (I think) 7 of us working the area here. Went to Tena Bar and the Little and Big Waushugal rivers. Tena is virtually destroyed with 3 feet of sand gone everywhere. The original trees are fallen over and its eroded down to the base sediments. We were able to locate the original money find but in a few more years this would be impossible. The Waushugal rivers were cold and fast running. Mostly rocky bottoms but Jerry Thomas says there are sandy spots further upstream. We released bundles of real cash with reward notes into both Waushugals. Going to dump some more into the Columbia tomorrow. We measured stream and river currents and then used the fishing pole to determine at what speed the river needed to be to move a bundle of cash. There is a particular speed, at least 3 ft/sec. Your right I should have put hundreds on top and bottom! The people I am with are darn smart about the case. The more I am hearing the worse its getting because its calling everything we think we know into question. Like the flight path, no history on where it came from or what was used to make it. The time stamps on the pilot transmissions might not be right. Even the basic story that it took 7 years for the money to get to Tena Bar has an unknown origin. Had dinner with Ralf H tonight. Great guy and good talker. He said he never got to interview guys like Rataczak until he flew over for his retirement. He reiterated that Rat thought they were further east but this was at his retirement. The Waushugal area is now like a suburb. LOTS of houses at least in the lower parts of the river. Snow would have an easy time walking out. People here either don't want to talk about it or have a DB Cooper theory. I have already been contacted by people who's family was directly connected to the hijacking and has evidence they dont want to show to the FBI. So the publicity (which sucked by the way) is helping. Brian is here but he hardly remembers anything. He is a big fan and having a great time. His pick for the original location and ours was very close to the same. The Fazio's have had cattle mutilations since the Cooper Cash and are not happy about it. The photos I was holding were from the Oregonian archives. We were hoping they had unpublished photos of the Tena Bar dig but it turns out they didn't keep them. The one photo was the only closeup we had ever seen of the money stacked up and there were some interesting things about it. So I hope I have answered some of your questions. Tom

Hi All, I am still around and read this forum EVERY day. I have not posted because there has been little new data and you all seem to be chewing on each other. Not much new on our end either actually. Tom

So this means it happens but do people get hurt doing it? Is jumping out of a plane at 200 and deploying head down at 200 similar? TK

To the skydivers out there, From Snows video we now know that a hop and pop out of a 727 is possible. I am assuming that the 727 in the video was likely flying just above stall speed and Coopers jet was going somewhat faster. So the question remains, if this faster speed would put you into the speed threshold were your much more likely to get hurt. To that end I have a question. When you guys go head down, it is my understanding that you can reach almost 200 mph. What happens if you pop the chute in that situation?? I am thinking it must have happened more than once. Thanks Tk

LOL!! That is just too funny especially considering the range of weirdness we have on this forum. TK

Peregrinerose, Thanks for coming back and giving us the right answer! I am glad to stand corrected. I think the general idea that he was in a high stress situation that required all of his faculties holds true. I doubt we are ever going to see the actual prescription so its likely to end here. For me it still puts Duane out of the picture as Cooper. I think the real Dan Cooper didn't need glasses and everything in the testimony indicated he got along fine without them. He could have had goggles hidden somewhere along with the eyeglasses but that exceeds what we know about the situation. Thanks! Tom ps sorry about the he/she mistake!

Snow, All really good points. Especially why would they publicize the "disguised" version? I have to think its problematic to jump with glasses. What do you do, cover them with goggles?? Or do you pull them out and put them on once your under chute? Whuffo wants to know....

All, Since its not looking like Peregrine is coming back any time soon I am going to make my final statement on Duane. For months I have been on the fence about Duane. Small details seemed to be pointing in the right direction while others were completely off base. To me this meant there could be grains of truth mixed in with assorted other junk or it was all a shotgun effect where something is bound to hit the mark. The eyeglass details for me has closed the door on the Duane Weber saga. My information tells me he was near-sighted. Not a little, but a LOT near-sighted. This seems to be consistent from the younger to older pictures. This would still allow him to do things like shoot a gun because its actually more accurate to focus on the sights than the target (if you can still see the fuzzy target). To my way of thinking, hijacking that airplane was probably the riskiest moment in Coopers life. It would take a lot to convince me that a guy is going to do that while making the choice to go in basically blind without glasses. He was able to identify Tacoma which I doubt Duane Weber could have done from an airplane without glasses. So Jo while I respect your efforts to find evidence that Duane was Cooper, in my mind a near-sighted guy does not hijack a plane blind. I can now personally discount Duane entirely but of course, I could be wrong, and invite you all to come up with evidence to the contrary. Tom

Ok where do I start with all the comments you all have made. First off Georger is NOT FBI, take it for a fact. I did get into this because of him. He contacted me because we knew of each other through astronomy circles and he knew I could do different types of spectroscopy from stars to dirt. My connection to Seattle and the Burke Museum is complete coincidence. I got affiliated there because a good friend of mine from Chicago got a job there as the head paleo guy. I know a LOT of really smart people. Only a few are on my collaborators page at www.tomkaye.com. Check them out if you want to see the range of things I am involved with. I certainly dont have all the smarts to pull something like this off but I sure as hell know where to go to find the right people. Our investigation will NOT be able to identify Cooper. It will correct miss information and give a clearer story on what potentially happened. I am confident enough to publish the results but as with most high profile research, there will be MANY who argue with our conclusions. That's the way this business works. You can use those arguments to say we blew it, or look at the facts and see if you agree. Some things we can be very confident of. I can tell you with 99% certainty that Ingrams did not fake the burial at Tena Bar. The exact story of how they found it though is wide open for debate. There are many theories on what happened to Cooper that night and how the money got to Tena Bar. If we can knock down a big chunk of them (probably not all) then we have done our job. I never discuss things that are inside our research area here on the forum. If I ask a question or put it out for discussion, its because its bugging me. This also means I am not paying full attention to it like the transcript issue. Our research has little to do with what people said etc. That's what you guys are working on. We are working on verifying or dismissing facts through experimentation and information given or available then. We are trying VERY hard not to use any modern commentary etc. My life is an open book. You will see the picture of me at Quantico on my website. No need to speculate you can always just ask!

Here is an enhanced pic of Duane older than the first. To my eye it doesn't look like his prescription changed much over the years. I think Peregrine will have some really interesting things to say. I can't wait for his response. Since we know Cooper identified Tacoma, he must have had good enough distance vision without glasses. Jo do you know what year this pic is?? Tom

I am sure Peregrine will step in here but in the mean time I will put on my optician's hat and supply some general background. As you age two things in general happen to your eyeballs. First off they stiffen up and you loose "accommodation". This means its harder to change the shape of your eyeball to get the back of it in the right focal plane to see things clearly. Second, the lens of your eye gets scratched etc so the eyeball has a nice repair mechanism that recoats the surface regularly. The side effect is that your lens gets thicker with age. Thicker lenses focus shorter distances so you have a loosing battle between eyeball stiffness and shortening focal length. This is all perfectly natural as I tried to explain to my father numerous times to no avail. Because this is a natural process, disregarding other factors, I bet Peregrine will verify that it does offer some predictive power over the time frames we are talking about. What year was the picture I posted of Duane taken? Thanks Tom

Jo, With all due respect, we have a professional here, Peregrine. Your right we should not be speculating on a picture when a RX is available. We should be speculating on the RX, but you are not making it available. If this is not the place to seek the truth about facts given the wide variety of brainpower available, why are we here? Tom

All, Since Jo can't come up with the info here is mine. Notice the arrows in the attached classic pic. At the angle we are looking through the glasses, the side of Duane's face is refracted IN. This is characteristic of what general prescription he needs. Peregrine should be able to tell us a LOT about Duane's eyes just from this. Take your glasses off if you have them, and hold them up to a straight edge at a similar angle and see which way the line refracts. Mine goes OUT and I can see better far than near (but not great in either). Peregrine?? Tom

Duane's eyesight Yes I am interested to see his prescription also. With the expert on board we should be able to determine something from that. I also have a bit of information about Duane's eyesight, but I will hold it until we see Jo's info first. This should be illuminating. Tom