arfuller

Man I'm smart. My idea was that the hijacked flight was easily identified from the ground by an accomplice. Cooper was located by the use of flares below the cloud bank, and then walkie talkies. Of course the use of walkie talkies has already been widely discussed by you people. The flares were the supposed dynamite sticks in the briefcase. Guess what! I found an eye wittness. >>Janet recalled that late in the afternoon on Nov. 24, 1971 she had just gotten off work from her job as a billing clerk at Wilhelm Trucking Co. in northwest Portland and was heading to a beauty shop appointment. Suddenly a news bulletin came on her car radio regarding the Cooper hijacking. Janet had her hair done at the salon and didn't give much thought to the news as she drove to her home in nearby Vancouver, Wash. After reaching the house, she and her husband loaded their two children into the family's Datsun to take them to a babysitter so they could go to dinner at the nearby upscale Key Hotel. Janet, who was in the passenger seat, looked up just as the car was backing out of the driveway and saw a light pass overhead. A platform or ladder below a plane caught her eye. "What I saw was flames and thought I saw something on the platform which could have been a person," Janet said. Immediately, the fireball arched away from the platform, split into two and then disappeared in the direction of the Columbia River. Cook believes the fireball Janet saw was Gossett tossing some road flares made to look like a dynamite bomb to judge wind direction to safely guide him to the ground. Cook said his research has shown winds were blowing from the southeast at more than 60 knots in the Portland area around the time of the hijacking. "This kind of wind speed would likely cause a falling flarepack to appear fiery, as reported by Janet," he said. Janet's sighting of the fireball fits with William Gossett's penchant for road flares, said his son, Gregg Gossett. "My father had an obsession with road flares," he said. "He used to light them off for me when I was a kid. There were tons of them around our house growing up."

Thanks for the update. The Money Connection

Didn't "they" tell you? If you back off you have to pay everyone on the thread! But it's only the first time in this lifetime. The Money Connection

Let me see. I said I would have to back off. I said I was wrong. Do I owe you money? The Money Connection

I thought I answered that above. I guess I'll have to back off on this one a bit. I'm sure I've read it, but I couldn't Google it. Here is the closest I found. http://abcnews.go.com/...4258726#.TtwtfWPTpGS >>When asked if this "no match" finding damaged Marla Cooper's credibility, Gutt replied it did not. "We haven't come up with anything that is inconsistent with her story," he said. Marla Cooper also passed an FBI polygraph test about the case.

Another interesting thing I found while Googling was that back when the story broke, Marla said the FBI was about to close the case without finding out the truth when she got in contact with them. So if that's true, then the FBI was about to close the case even before they knew who Marla was. The Money Connection

I guess I'll have to back off on this one a bit. I'm sure I've read it, but I couldn't Google it. Here is the closest I found. http://abcnews.go.com/US/db-cooper-dna-results-match/story?id=14258726#.TtwtfWPTpGS >>When asked if this "no match" finding damaged Marla Cooper's credibility, Gutt replied it did not. "We haven't come up with anything that is inconsistent with her story," he said. Marla Cooper also passed an FBI polygraph test about the case.

smokin99: Point well taken. The Money Connection

So what's your theory on the placard found in the flight path, the money found where it was, and yet no body, parachute or briefcase. Isn't it more likely he would have landed on the ground rather than in the drink? The Money Connection

Like I said, the FBI has confirmed she passed a polygraph. The Money Connection

The FBI seems to put a lot of stock in its tests. As I understand it, the quality of the test depends a lot on the tester. I don't think most people who were lying would do well under 5 and a half hours of FBI questioning whether there was a polygraph or not. A 5.5 hour polygraph would seem to be about 5.5 times better than a one hour polygraph. I don't think I could lie to the FBI for 5.5 hours. Could you? Marla said the polygraph was 5.5 hours although she wasn't hooked up to a machine the whole time. The FBI has confirmed they gave her a polygraph, but I don't know if they've addressed the times. If she's lying about that then they just don't wish to call her on it. That doesn't make a lot sense since they've called her the most credible person they've interviewed in the case. The test was in January. The Money Connection

According to Carla's mother the family got a call from the FBI not long after the hijacking. The FBI didn't have a record of it, but said it wouldn't be unusual that they checked people in the vicinity with the name. The thing about the name is it explains why someone would have an interest in the comic. Why would a Quebec engineer have an interest? I don't speak French, but I bet I could pick up the book and follow the story. They have pictures in them you know. The thing that surprises me about the people here is that they seem to totally dismiss a five and a half hour FBI polygraph. I don't know if I could pass one of those things even if I was telling the truth. The Money Connection

There's your problem. Don't believe anything you see on TV programs or in the movies. I stand corrected. The Money Connection

If your "timeline" says that, you should consider all info in it to be SUSPECT. The message logged at 7:42 indicates the "stew" was already at the cockpit, then "he can't get the stairs down," then "we now have an aft stair lite on." I was going by the National Geographic reenactment. It says at 7:42 Mucklow is ordered into the cockpit. They show the door to the rear is closed. She looks back as she enters the cockpit and thinks she sees him attaching the money to himself. Then at 8:02 a light comes on in the cockpit saying the aft stairwell is open. That's all I know about it. Actually they say the light indicates the stairway is deployed. The Money Connection

It was after. I think Mucklow might have caught a glimpse of that when she was entering the cockpit. The Money Connection

That may be, but the timeline I have shows a light going off in the cockpit indicating the stairwell unlocked at 8:02. Mucklow was sent up at 7:42. The crew was afraid that Cooper would jump and the bomb would go off afterwards. The Money Connection

Would the flight path to Reno be drastically different than one to Mexico? When DB said Reno was good, did he have reason to believe it would be very different? Don't forget that he identified landmarks to the stewardess. If he didn't feel they were headed in the right direction he could have changed his demands. He may well have recognized landmarks that he didn't point out. The point is he wanted to go over a specific area, or Canada, Japan, New York or somewhere else would have been just as good. Another thought. He was requiring them to fly at 10,000 ft. There are some high mountains to the east and may have limited the choice of flight paths. Keep in mind that Cooper did NOT specify a flight path. However, the flight path to Reno was basically the same as the flight path to Mexico until the airliner turned toward Reno in northern California (after getting south of a mountain range that presented problems to it at that altitude). But based on other considerations, it appears that Cooper intended to jump just south of Seattle. He wanted to take off with the rear stairs unlocked, which means that he would not have had those problems lowering the stairs. And there is no reason to believe that he wanted to be at 10,000 feet when he jumped. So if Cooper had a choice, he would probably have jumped within a few minutes of leaving Seattle. How do you know that would have put him in the area he wanted? If he wanted to jump really early after taking off would he have waited to send the stewardess forward? The Money Connection

Would the flight path to Reno be drastically different than one to Mexico? When DB said Reno was good, did he have reason to believe it would be very different? Don't forget that he identified landmarks to the stewardess. If he didn't feel they were headed in the right direction he could have changed his demands. He may well have recognized landmarks that he didn't point out. The point is he wanted to go over a specific area, or Canada, Japan, New York or somewhere else would have been just as good. Another thought. He was requiring them to fly at 10,000 ft. There are some high mountains to the east and may have limited the choice of flight paths. The Money Connection

It's time to pat myself on the back, since I don't think anybody else is going to. Back in August I was looking for information to try and figure out if Marla's story might be true. She said her uncles LD and Dewie collaborated to pull off the 71 hijacking. The Vancouver, WA paper ran an article that said a LD Cooper lived there with his wife back in 70 at an address not so far from where the money was found in 80. The Seattle paper reported that a Dewie Cooper had worked for Boeing in the late 60's. Marla had said that her two uncles were living at her grandmother's house in Sisters, OR in 71 while going through their respective divorces. I put two and two together and made my You Tube video. http://youtu.be/qagMRM5hF0I At the recent symposium Marla said that LD had lived in Vancouver before the hijacking, and Dewie had worked on the 727 assembly line. That's according to the Bruce Smith report. So either the facts match, or maybe Marla watched my video. She could have gotten the information from Geoffrey Gray since I had e-mailed both items to him. Actually he was a little less than impressed, but he had a book to promote. I grew up on a farm about 40 miles from Tulsa. Back in the 50's I would sometimes run outside or look out the window when I heard an airplane passing overhead. Our house was on a small hill and we could see pretty far across those OK plains. In the 60's I noticed I could see the lights of the planes landing at the Tulsa airport at night. I'm sure that if I had studied flight shcedules I could have made pretty good guesses about which planes were landing, and maybe even which planes passed overhead. In 71 there was about a sixth of the traffic their is today. I married a girl from Elmont NY, and in certain conditions the approach path for Kennedy went right over their house. It was easy to tell the difference in sound between a 707 and a 727. So here is what I think happened. With a little practice in identifying flights, and camping under the flight vector, it shouldn't have been too hard to recognize an unscheduled flight. Maybe he even had a radio tuned into air traffic control. If the picture of Christiansen with a briefcase, more like a small suitcase is accurate, then there was more than enough room for a walkie talkie, flares and a few wires and things to fool the stewadesses. Actually, Christiansen was a flight attendant and the bag he's carrying looks like the bag flight attendants carry their personal stuff in. I'm almost sure that's what it is. From a good pre-arranged view point the flare could have been spotted below the clouds, giving a good estimate where the landing would be. Of course the accomplices were very familiar with the area. From what I've heard in the past I assumed the area was mostly inaccessible, but when I look at the area between Orchards and Amboy on Google, there appears to be many country roads and farm houses. There would have been a good "feel" about where he landed. The radios should of had a reach of a few miles. Just drive around those country roads until you made contact. Of course there wasn't any guarantee he wouldn't smash into something on the way down. The Money Connection

Actually, it probably wasn't a flashlight. Remember those sticks that looked like dynamite in the briefcase? They were probably flares. It was rough terrain, but LD was very familiar with the area, having lived there and just a few miles from where the money was found. I'm sure his experience as a surveyor came in handy. So by identifying the unscheduled flight and looking for the flares he had a good idea where LD was. That part is a piece of cake. The hard part is landing safely and connecting up. That's where the walkie talkies would have been critical, and landing in a place that the brother could somehow access in a timely manner. The Money Connection

You are correct. They have been discussed to death before. What is low about an airplane flying at 10,000 feet? And 194 Knots True Airspeed is not necessairly slow. Undoubtedly there were other airliners arriving and departing Portland International that were lower and slower than the hijacked airplane. Also, as has been discussed for the past couple of years at least, there was a broken cloud layer at 3500 feet (which constituted the ceiling) and a complete overcast at 5000 feet. This puts Janet and Marla in the same category. I don't think the cloud layers would have stopped the sound, and what does that have to do with Marla? The cloud layers don't change an FBI polygraph. She only knows what she heard. She wasn't a participant in the plot. If you know about when flights depart and arrive then you may well be able to find the plane you're looking for. Surely they would have checked the flight schedules. The 9/11 guys did didn't they? Maybe he had a concealed flashlight to shine on the way down. That might have helped after he got below the clouds. The hijacked airliner was not on a scheduled flight between Seattle and Reno. And since it was not visible from the ground (and vice-versa) no one would know what it was unless they were tuned into the Seattle ATC channels. Based on 377's post, Marla apparently knew where to do a "library research" before talking to the FBI. And if Marla had somehow convinced herself that what she was saying was absolutely true, she would not have had any trouble with the lie detector test. When Cooper jumped, he probably didn't know his location to within a 20 or 30 mile radius. And a flash light wouldn't do him any good until he was about 100 feet from the ground. The point is that if you knew the scheduled flights, then you would recognize an unscheduled flight. Maybe they had actually been to the area and recognized the scheduled flights in doing their research. The point of a flashlight is that somebody with good binoculars might be able to spot it from the ground on a dark night. Just search the area where you heard the unscheduled flight. LD had worked as a surveyor and a surveying engineer. He was a Korean war vet. His brother had worked for Boeing. His niece passed a 5 and a half hour polygraph. The Money Connection

You are correct. They have been discussed to death before. What is low about an airplane flying at 10,000 feet? And 194 Knots True Airspeed is not necessairly slow. Undoubtedly there were other airliners arriving and departing Portland International that were lower and slower than the hijacked airplane. Also, as has been discussed for the past couple of years at least, there was a broken cloud layer at 3500 feet (which constituted the ceiling) and a complete overcast at 5000 feet. This puts Janet and Marla in the same category. I don't think the cloud layers would have stopped the sound, and what does that have to do with Marla? The cloud layers don't change an FBI polygraph. She only knows what she heard. She wasn't a participant in the plot. If you know about when flights depart and arrive then you may well be able to find the plane you're looking for. Surely they would have checked the flight schedules. The 9/11 guys did didn't they? Maybe he had a concealed flashlight to shine on the way down. That might have helped after he got below the clouds. The Money Connection

Here's another theory to add to the million already existing. DB was headed to Mexico. That turned out to be Reno. Is there something about flight paths that these two routes might share? Cooper is said to have identified some landmarks to the stewardess. If you know about what speed you're going, when you pass a landmark and you have a watch, then you might be able to make a good guesstimate about when you'll be over a dropzone. Where was the radio? How good of a look did they get at the bomb? Would the antennae prevent it from being in the brief case? Was the antennae detachable and possibly hidden under DB's clothes? The plane was flying low and slow with the flaps down. I'm sure it would have been a lot louder to somebody on the ground than your normal commercial flight. Could that have helped somebody on the ground locate the plane? I'm sure these things have been discussed before, but I'm not going to read back through thousands of posts to try and find them. The Money Connection

I don't know how LD is related to the case. I guess the FBI thinks Marla's testimony is true. I don't know why. Maybe the five and a half hour polygraph test they gave her could be related to that. Why would the FBI think its interview or polygraph test could be worth anything in a criminal investigation? I dunno. Doesn't make sense does it? If the fingerprints match should that be considered valid evidence? The Money Connection

Marla has stated that Dewey and LD had both gone through recent divorces and were living at her grandmother's in late 71. How long does it take for an 8 year old to get the impression that uncle was obsessed with a comic book? "The Columbia was dredged off Tena Bar in 1974. After Ingram found the money six years later, a geologist examined the site and said the bills were found on top of the dredge material, meaning they must have gotten there after 1974." According to Marla the uncles argued about the hijacking and LD stayed away after the holidays a year later. The brothers became very worried about being caught and believed the FBI was after them. That would explain why some of the money was buried later, near a spot where LD had lived. It was to try and clear the trail. Remember that the 727 placard was found in the area where the FBI thought Cooper jumped. The money was found years after the hijacking in an area where people fish. The conclusion is that it couldn't have got there naturally. My video. http://youtu.be/qagMRM5hF0I The Money Connection