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quade

DB Cooper

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Back scatter in the rainy conditions would have affected other more distant stations following 305.



The Doppler velocity filters would eliminate the rain reflections as they are going too slow to meet the frequency shift criteria to pass through as a likely aircraft target. The issue would be signal attenuation with all the rain between the radar transceiver and the target of interest. ATC radar is usually very powerful so that its performance is not materially impaired in normal rainfall.

It just kills me that there was probably a brief Cooper exit echo before his forward velocity decayed below the Doppler cutoff and perhaps nobody even looked for it.

I wonder if it was a strobe that was flashed or landing lights (brighter and visible from most directions if they illuminate moisture ahead if the plane). If you watch flights approaching from the opposite direction at night, away from airports, you often see them flash a landing light "hello" to each other. Used to see it a lot out at sea.

377
2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

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I hope Jerry joins the forum. We need some new blood, fresh perspectives, etc.

Still wonder what happened to the original ATC raw radar tapes. They are routinely preserved after an aviation accident or major incident. Where did they go? Who looked at them?

I have said it before, but we have first hand testimony from jump pilots and controllers that ATC radar of that era could not only see jumpers exiting but in enough detail for accurate counts.

Controllers who have never seen this would bet against it and hence nobody may have thought about looking for a Cooper exit echo.

377



A better question:
Since this feeds directly into the CIA/FBI coverup of Duane's involvement, how come Jo has never pursued this?
It would seem to be stronger evidence of her claims of a coverup.
Jo? why not?

When Duane jumped out, they had him on tape. The tapes are gone. Maybe Jo is part of the coverup too?



Jo? Jo who? Who is Jo Weber?

Nosferatu don't surf!

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Georger,

You might consider changing your chimp avatar, unless you are intending to convey a message consistent with the true nature of the beast. In captivity, they can be violent irrational animals, trusted tranquil anthropomorphic pets that turn into land sharks. Turns out chimps have muscle power that is phenomenally higher than any human. Did you read about the latest attack? Michael Jackson better pick some new pals.

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GPEA_enUS294US294&q=chimp+attacks

377
2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

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Back scatter in the rainy conditions would have affected other more distant stations following 305.



The Doppler velocity filters would eliminate the rain reflections as they are going too slow to meet the frequency shift criteria to pass through as a likely aircraft target. The issue would be signal attenuation with all the rain between the radar transceiver and the target of interest. ATC radar is usually very powerful so that its performance is not materially impaired in normal rainfall.

It just kills me that there was probably a brief Cooper exit echo before his forward velocity decayed below the Doppler cutoff and perhaps nobody even looked for it.

Reply> Huh? Care to translate that ?

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All,

I have been contacted (through the Yahoo group that I run) by Jerry Thomas. You may remember him as the guy mentioned in several articles and TV shows. (Jerry Thomas, a retired Army infantryman, drill sergeant and survival instructor..... etc.) He's the guy who has been searching the Washougal watershed for signs of DB.

He says he has figured out the drop zone. I have encouraged him to post here, so maybe he will (if this thread hasn't scared him off... myself included).

If he chooses not to post here, I'll make contact and see what he has to say. I'm just very pushed for time and would rather "share him" with the group.


More as it develops.

Sluggo_Monster



Thomas is one of the key people Ive always wanted
to talk to - his work is highly respected.
Georger

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Back scatter in the rainy conditions would have affected other more distant stations following 305.



The Doppler velocity filters would eliminate the rain reflections as they are going too slow to meet the frequency shift criteria to pass through as a likely aircraft target. The issue would be signal attenuation with all the rain between the radar transceiver and the target of interest. ATC radar is usually very powerful so that its performance is not materially impaired in normal rainfall.

It just kills me that there was probably a brief Cooper exit echo before his forward velocity decayed below the Doppler cutoff and perhaps nobody even looked for it.

Reply> Huh? Care to translate that ?



Sure, although I bet you know all about it without my explanation. ATC radar wants to see only aircraft. The designers build in filters that exclude echoes from stationary or very slow moving targets, using Doppler shift to calculate speed.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/395288/moving-target-indication-radar

When Cooper exited, his body forward speed was about the same as the plane's hence his echo would be displayed. His forward speed would decay as the jump progressed eventually putting him below the Doppler cutoff and his echo would no longer be displayed. For a few seconds, Cooper's exit echo may have been displayed but unnoticed. That's why I want to know what happened to the tapes.

East coast ATC radar operators in the early 70s could see jumpers exiting 60 miles away. Some controllers could give the jumpship pilots an accurate count of how many jumpers just exited.

I have personally spoken with both FAA and military air traffic controllers who have seen exiting jumpers on their radar screens. It is not urban legend.

377
2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

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Back scatter in the rainy conditions would have affected other more distant stations following 305.



The Doppler velocity filters would eliminate the rain reflections as they are going too slow to meet the frequency shift criteria to pass through as a likely aircraft target. The issue would be signal attenuation with all the rain between the radar transceiver and the target of interest. ATC radar is usually very powerful so that its performance is not materially impaired in normal rainfall.

It just kills me that there was probably a brief Cooper exit echo before his forward velocity decayed below the Doppler cutoff and perhaps nobody even looked for it.

Reply> Huh? Care to translate that ?



Sure, although I bet you know all about it without my explanation. ATC radar wants to see only aircraft. The designers build in filters that exclude echoes from stationary or very slow moving targets, using Doppler shift to calculate speed.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/395288/moving-target-indication-radar

When Cooper exited, his body forward speed was about the same as the plane's hence his echo would be displayed. His forward speed would decay as the jump progressed eventually putting him below the Doppler cutoff and his echo would no longer be displayed. For a few seconds, Cooper's exit echo may have been displayed but unnoticed. That's why I want to know what happened to the tapes.

East coast ATC radar operators in the early 70s could see jumpers exiting 60 miles away. Some controllers could give the jumpship pilots an accurate count of how many jumpers just exited.

I have personally spoken with both FAA and military air traffic controllers who have seen exiting jumpers on their radar screens. It is not urban legend.

377

good reply, understood. Can this old
radar distingish a body from a chute?

I wonder if anyone has ever filed a FOI request for the McChord tapes ? I doubt it.

Presumably the trailing jets didnt get a radar return either?

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good reply, understood.

Can this old
radar distingish a body from a chute?

ANSWER: I don't know, but highly doubt it. The strength of the echo from an object suspended in air is roughly proportional to the density difference between the object and the air. A canopy would be a much weaker target than a body.

I wonder if anyone has ever filed a FOI request for the McChord tapes ? I doubt it.

ANSWER: Don't know. Unlikely they would still be preserved. Also, mag tape degrades over time. Three years ago I found a brand new still in the wrapper cassette tape from about 1975. I tried playing it. It was horribly distorted and had visible oxide separation on the tape face.

Presumably the trailing jets didnt get a radar return either?

ANSWER: those types of jets (F 106 and T 33) did not have radar capable of processing or displaying this type of echo in a usable manner. They have very small aperture nose mounted antennas with poor angular discrimination capability. Airliners have the same setup. These types of radar are fine for spotting storm cells but are not high performance air search radars. There is a reason why the AWACS plane has a BIG radar rotodome on top. You need a big aperture antenna to discriminate small targets.

The now retired US Navy F 14 had a nose mounted radar that could do some impressive air search work, but it was quite different from the simple radars carried by the Cooper chase planes. The Iranians still have F 14s but keep them away from direct air to air combat preferring to use them instead as "mini AWACS" utilizing their still impressive Hughes radars.

377
2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

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good reply, understood.

Can this old
radar distingish a body from a chute?

ANSWER: I don't know, but highly doubt it. The strength of the echo from an object suspended in air is roughly proportional to the density difference between the object and the air. A canopy would be a much weaker target than a body.

I wonder if anyone has ever filed a FOI request for the McChord tapes ? I doubt it.

ANSWER: Don't know. Unlikely they would still be preserved. Also, mag tape degrades over time. Three years ago I found a brand new still in the wrapper cassette tape from about 1975. I tried playing it. It was horribly distorted and had visible oxide separation on the tape face.

Presumably the trailing jets didnt get a radar return either?

ANSWER: those types of jets (F 106 and T 33) did not have radar capable of processing or displaying this type of echo in a usable manner. They have very small aperture nose mounted antennas with poor angular discrimination capability. Airliners have the same setup. These types of radar are fine for spotting storm cells but are not high performance air search radars. There is a reason why the AWACS plane has a BIG radar rotodome on top. You need a big aperture antenna to discriminate small targets.

The now retired US Navy F 14 had a nose mounted radar that could do some impressive air search work, but it was quite different from the simple radars carried by the Cooper chase planes. The Iranians still have F 14s but keep them away from direct air to air combat preferring to use them instead as "mini AWACS" utilizing their still impressive Hughes radars.

377

good. ok.

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USAF SAGE radar at McChord stored sequential radar images on 35 mm photo film, but a software feature made it highly likely that any Cooper exit echo was masked by a data block window that surrounded the echo of any plane with an operating transponder. I had email correspondence with several SAGE engineers who gave me the sad news about the data block window.

377
2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

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I thought we discussed the SAGE issues a bunch in the past.

I just did a quick scan of posts, but didn't we say that stuff was stored in memory, and they had to selectively store to tape if they wanted to save stuff.

I thought the thinking was they probably dumped to tape because it was an incident, and there's a good chance that the flight path came from post incident review of the tape.

This was something I posted based on email from a more current SAGE operator. The main point being that post-intercept analysis was something that was standard.

I think also that the radar from McChord would have been near it's limits...i.e. that the transponder signal would have been key for getting 305. Now other radar sites were tied into the system, but it's unclear which. I guess McChord would have gotten feeds from all of them, but they wouldn't have been feeds of extra data??

In any case, the only radar that would make sense for maybe painting Cooper would have been PDX atc radar right?

the email from a more recent SAGE guy:

Edit: Speculating about stored SAGE data and who might have analyzed it for the '72 map:

Source 1:

I don't know how long the old magnetic tapes would've recorded but yes, the tapes were stored for later review and analysis. The four air defense sectors (later three, then two) retained this ability through the transition to the Joint Surveillance System (JSS) during the late 1970s/early 1980s and still have the capability with the new BCS-F set-up, although I'm pretty certain nowadays all recording is done digitally vice on magnetic tape.

One of the primary missions of the 84th Radar Evaluation Squadron (RADES) is post-mission analysis of intercepts, disappearing aircraft, inflight disasters (the STS Columbia's breakup over Texas several years ago), etc.

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Good points Snow. The 35 mm film system in SAGE was not really an archival system but was a kludgey way to get near real time big screen projections like the NORAD scenes in Dr Strangelove.
The film was exposed by a CRT to give sequential screen shots. The shots were chemically developed immediately in an automated continuous process. The resulting 35 mm film strips were then optically projected on a big situation map lagging the real time radar data by less than a minute as I recall.

Wish we knew more about the post hijack radar analysis and to what extent the USAF experts were involved in analysing PDX radar data.

Somewhere, a brief Cooper exit echo likely existed. It is pretty obvious that it was either not seen or not recognized for what it was. The chances of any useful recording surviving today is very low.

Wonder if USAF radar saw the Air America 727 paradrops?

377
2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

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Back when we were looking for SAGE info, I joined this group called "Radomes" which is a web-based Air Defense Radar Veteran's Association. I get a quarterly newsletter.

there's one or two articles about guys who were at Mt. Hebo.

I wonder if I sent the editor a little blurb looking for anyone working at a USAF radar site during the 305 hijack, whether an actual operator from that night might remember something.

they're at http://www.radomes.org

They have a forum also. I have to find my username/password though.

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I was just clicking around their site, and realized I hadn't explored all their data.

they have a "radar museum" section that has SAGE documents and training info?

also detailed docs on each SAGE site, including McChord

http://www.radomes.org/museum/

ID: DC-12 / CC-3
Unit: 25 AD
McChord AFB SAGE, WA
Early Equipment: AN/FSQ-7, AN/FSQ-8
Final Equipment: AN/FSQ-7
Operational date: circa 1958
Inactive date: DC: 04 Aug 83
Notes: 25th AD, Seattle Air-Defense Sector (SeADS).

AN/FSQ-8 at CC-3 ceased operations on 1 April 1966.


A SAGE direction center here controlled the Seattle Defense Sector during the 1960s. A Region Headquarters and a SAGE control center were also located here. The CC deactivated 30 June 1966. The DC deactivated 04 August 1983.

Current Use: - Former CC blockhouse contains the Western Air-Defense Sector (WADS) JSS Sector Operations Control Center (SOCC)


Here are some direct links but you can get here from the radar museum page (the radar museum page is frame based)
Here's a personnel roster with email addresses, and years served.
http://www.radomes.org/cgi-bin/museum/acwshowroster.cgi?site=McChord+AFB+SAGE,+WA

Pictures here:
http://www.radomes.org/museum/thumbs.php?pic=McChordAFBSAGEWA&site=McChord+AFB+SAGE,+WA

some nice photos I've not seen before of the AN/FSQ-7 "Whirlwind II" Intercept Computer on this page (scroll)
http://www.radomes.org/museum/equip/fsq-7.html

There's a picture of a MTU (Mag Tape Unit)
(cute pics. evidently personal color photos)

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All,

I have been contacted (through the Yahoo group that I run) by Jerry Thomas. You may remember him as the guy mentioned in several articles and TV shows. (Jerry Thomas, a retired Army infantryman, drill sergeant and survival instructor..... etc.) He's the guy who has been searching the Washougal watershed for signs of DB.

He says he has figured out the drop zone. I have encouraged him to post here, so maybe he will (if this thread hasn't scared him off... myself included).

If he chooses not to post here, I'll make contact and see what he has to say. I'm just very pushed for time and would rather "share him" with the group.


More as it develops.

Sluggo_Monster




Jerry previously has lived way up in the woods and had no telephone for yrs - he used a friends phone.
That may have changed since I learned he has health probliems starting a few yrs ago.

Jerry is the one who insisted that Washougal could not be on my right - over and over. Yet, with the help of a local "truck driver" I found what I was looking for and the place Duane took me to.

Jerry refused to follow lthe pipelines and powerlines - yet they were crucial. He had a mind set back yrs ago that Cooper landed in a specifc site and was not open at that time to the locations I had asked about and denied they existed.

Since my locations and description of the places Duane took me did exist, but Jerry denied they were there - I lost my faith in him.
In the beginning I thought he could help, but time proved me wrong. It was after I went to WA and found what I was looking for that he bowed out.

Outside of my finding what he claimed did not exist does exist, he is a real nice guy...not sure he is computer literate, but we will see. He is a simple man with simple needs.
Copyright 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 2013, 2014, 2015 by Jo Weber

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Give RADOMES a shout Snow.

I still marvel that SAGE actually functioned. It had the world's largest sized computer, a record that will surely stand. It used thousands of vacuum tubes and consumed megawatts of power. According to the author below, the phone bills to link the sites ran over a million dollars a month.

http://news.aol.com/article/green-comet/347278

377
2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

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What is interesting on the SAGE data flow diagram is the inclusion of USAF height finding radars. Normal ATC radars cannot determine target altitude and rely on altitude encoding transponders on the planes for that info. The McChord height finding radar (which scans up and down vertically) might have tracked a freefalling object and its data might have told us if Cooper opened and at what altitude.

377
2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

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One of the pilots following 305 saw 305 flash its
strobe as Cooper bailed, but could not see a
parachute (maybe there was no parachute to see!).
reply]


GEORGER: I call you out - DOCUMENT that statement. If you CANNOT with the FBI File the it is a Myth or MORE of Georgers' Story.

Copyright 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 2013, 2014, 2015 by Jo Weber

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"I call you out"



I havent heard that term since the sixth grade when it was used to signify that a bully kid wanted to fight me.

I fought him and lost badly, but I got lots of points for not backing down.

Jo is getting feisty again! Hope it means an upturn in health.

377
2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

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One of the pilots following 305 saw 305 flash its
strobe as Cooper bailed, but could not see a
parachute (maybe there was no parachute to see!).
reply]


GEORGER: I call you out - DOCUMENT that statement. If you CANNOT with the FBI File the it is a Myth or MORE of Georgers' Story.



Yawn................................... which part?

[edit] seems I already did the first time. Guess you
have some reading to do.

[edit#2] ... and the second time I talked about it.
You do have reading to do. But, IF you get off your
high horse and ask nicely I might provide it, free of
grief. It's all up to you.

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Give RADOMES a shout Snow.

I still marvel that SAGE actually functioned. It had the world's largest sized computer, a record that will surely stand. It used thousands of vacuum tubes and consumed megawatts of power. According to the author below, the phone bills to link the sites ran over a million dollars a month.

http://news.aol.com/article/green-comet/347278

377



I know people want to deny the nuclear connections I keep identifying but here it is:

trivia from http://www.radomes.org/museum/TriviaQuiz1.html

Name the only nuclear-powered radar site.

The only nuclear-powered radar site was Sundance AFS, WY (TM-201 / Z-201), home to the 731st Radar Squadron, from 1962 to 1968.

Details on the reactor are here:
http://www.radomes.org/museum/documents/SundanceAFSWYarticle2000.html

Note that's "Wyoming". Smokejumper country. And where Flight 305 landed on it's way to Washington that day.

"The nuclear reactor was named PM-1, which stands for "Portable, Medium-power, First one the Air Force owned." It was prefabricated in units by the Martin-Marietta Corp. for an estimated cost of $3.5 million and flown to Ellsworth Air Force Base. From there, the units were trucked to the site on Warren Peak and assembled. The reactor was fueled with about 20 pounds of uranium-235, which would power the plant for two years. This 20 pounds of uranium had energy equivalent to 4.5 million barrels of oil and provided 1,000 kilowatts of electricity and 7 million BTU's of heat per hour. The core of the reactor was about the size of a 55-gallon drum. Inside were 741 stainless steel tubes, each containing about 1.5 ounces of uranium. The core was inside an open tank filled with water for shielding. When operating, neutrons escaping from the core bombarded the shielding water, creating a purple glow."

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Commercial fishermen claim that a small satellite nuke reactor was lost somewhere near the Channel Islands off Santa Barbara CA when a Vandenberg AFB rocket launch went awry. They say it was never found. They joke about finding it a trawl net someday, taking it home and going off the grid.

Any truth to the rumor of a lost USAF spacecraft reactor?

377
2018 marks half a century as a skydiver. Trained by the late Perry Stevens D-51 in 1968.

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Commercial fishermen claim that a small satellite nuke reactor was lost somewhere near the Channel Islands off Santa Barbara CA when a Vandenberg AFB rocket launch went awry. They say it was never found. They joke about finding it a trawl net someday, taking it home and going off the grid.

Any truth to the rumor of a lost USAF spacecraft reactor?

377



Well you know about the CIA sponsored attempt to plant a nuke-powered receiver on top of Nanda Devi (himalaya) right?
It was supposed to be able to help detect nuclear testing in China.
They had problems (weather). Stashed the nuke. When they came back the next year to install it, it was gone. Assumption it got knocked down into the glaciers.

It's been written about here and there over the years. The information has been murky. But it's true.

"The CIA’s Himalayan operation comprised eight separate expeditions and must have cost tens of millions of dollars in helicopter support, supplies and logistics alone. The devices ran up a bill of millions. The climbers were paid $1,000 per month ($6,200 in modern USD). It was a 1960s US mountaineering dream team and included Tom Frost, who to this day holds true to his oath of silence, Lute Jerstad, who suffered a heart attack and died in 1998 while trekking in Nepal, Jim McCarthy, who has retired to Jackson, Wyoming, and Dr. Robert Schaller, who is semi-retired. Barry Bishop, the first American to climb Everest, inspired these spy expeditions."

a good summary here:
http://www.indianexpress.com/oldstory.php?storyid=22804

But always remember, there are smart intelligent people involved in all these nuke programs. By fiat.

There are some photos that show an unnamed person that looks a lot like Duane, on Nanda Devi, holding the device in 1965.

A little known fact I found from that site in india...there were other nuke listening devices...

"By 1969, the Indians and the Americans had installed two nuclear devices trained at China, one at Leh, and the other in the Arunachal mountains. In 1970 and 1971, the Leh sensors picked up signals of Chinese medium-range ballistic missile tests, but the real triumph came in 1973, when the sensor plucked data of the Dong Feng 5 tests from the sky. Ironically, the feat coincided with vast improvements in satellite technology. The mountaintop devices had gone the way of the dinosaur."

You see, the people who worry about nuke proliferation the most, are those who proliferate!

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The Standard Examiner in Utah, had an article interviewing Galen Cook Nov 2, 2008

Good article cause it has more pictures of Gossett than I've seen before.

http://apa.olivesoftware.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=U1NFLzIwMDgvMTEvMDIjQXIwMDEwNw==&Mode=Gif&Locale=english-skin-custom

Click on the "continuation" link at the top to get the rest of the article.

Here's something interesting on the Page 4A part.
The writer says:

"The FBI contends Cooper landed near Battle Ground, Wash. about seven miles north of the Columbia River, but didn't survive the jump because the paracute he used couldn't be steered and his clothing and footwear weren't suitable for a rough landing"

That's interesting because I've never heard someone say the FBI thought Battle Ground was the DZ.

There's a picture of Galen Cook there too.

An earlier article in the same paper in July 2008 shows the son.
http://activepaper.olivesoftware.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=U1NFLzIwMDgvMDcvMjcjQXIwMDEwMg==&Mode=Gif&Locale=english-skin-custom

I think they're all a bunch of hucksters, they just don't know it.
Kind of like the finance ndustry. Most believe they're not hucksters. :)

If we knew were Gossetts body was, we might be able to prove with he was affected by radiation poisoning during the years he worked secretly at a portable nuclear plant (PM-4). This has been covered up.

Although, I, snowmman, have uncovered the details using such diverse elements as: fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope, and nice red uniforms.

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