DB Cooper

[CooperNWO305 146]

If someone wants to believe it was all made up, then it might be fun for them to speculate as to why. I have no interest in that.

From day one reading it, there seemed to be more than just a made up story.  Where people go from there is up to them.

[olemisscub 466]

15 minutes ago, FLYJACK said:

Flo noted "thin lips" in Gray interview.

I just took exception with the "fat lip" description.

yet the Count Dracula sketch has a heavy lower lip. Go figure. 

[FLYJACK 654]

1 hour ago, olemisscub said:

yet the Count Dracula sketch has a heavy lower lip. Go figure. 

No it isn't, they are trying to depict a slightly pouty protruding lower lip in the sketches, very tough to do, heavier than the top lip but not heavy or fat.

[olemisscub 466]

4 minutes ago, FLYJACK said:

No it isn't, they are trying to depict a slightly pouty protruding lower lip in the sketches, very tough to do, heavier than the top lip but not heavy or fat.

Real talk here. You're not planning on releasing your Hahneman info only upon your death or something are you? What are you waiting on? I'm open to being convinced it was Hahneman. Let's see it!

[Andrade1812 51]

6 hours ago, Math of Insects said:

I did a targeted search, but the old posts seem largely to be people arguing. I prefer to stay in the "data" realm if I can. Are there particular posts from the past that deconstruct the content of the Cooper letter to Gunther?

Confirmation bias much?

[Math of Insects 96]

15 minutes ago, Andrade1812 said:

Confirmation bias much?

I don't know what you mean. I searched for "Gunther letter Cooper," but the results were almost entirely Jo (I believe?) arguing with others, or others arguing with one another. The general tendency toward argument here actually kept me from posting at all until Arguer 0 stopped posting last year. It's too much static and I'd like to focus on the information itself if possible.

I know and believe there must be more sober discussion about that letter. Do you remember about when it was occurring and how I might search for it?

[Andrade1812 51]

1 minute ago, Math of Insects said:

I don't know what you mean. I searched for "Gunther letter Cooper," but the results were almost entirely Jo (I believe?) arguing with others, or others arguing with one another. The general tendency toward argument here actually kept me from posting at all until Arguer 0 stopped posting last year. It's too much static and I'd like to focus on the information itself if possible.

I know and believe there must be more sober discussion about that letter. Do you remember about when it was occurring and how I might search for it?

It was years and years ago. The same "evidence" was cited: Cooper got the exact title of the article right (which honestly just meant he knew how to use hyphens or had acess to a library) and the color of the parachute was wrong.

 

[Math of Insects 96]

1 minute ago, Andrade1812 said:

It was years and years ago. The same "evidence" was cited: Cooper got the exact title of the article right (which honestly just meant he knew how to use hyphens or had acess to a library) and the color of the parachute was wrong.

 

Right, the red wonder.

OK, thank you.

[Andrade1812 51]

2 minutes ago, Math of Insects said:

Right, the red wonder.

OK, thank you.

Red and Yellow, which is the exact same color scheme fed to Colbert's team, so it was likely just FBI misinformation.

[Math of Insects 96]

14 minutes ago, Andrade1812 said:

Red and Yellow, which is the exact same color scheme fed to Colbert's team, so it was likely just FBI misinformation.

Oh well. I tried a search for "red yellow gunther" (no quotes) and found a single post from 2009, though it doesn't go into anything, just mentions the existence of that bit. I tried "hyphens" (with and without "Gunther" as a limiter) and only got your post from just above.

In fact the three people I'd be most curious to get perspective on this from are present and responsive, and kindly weighing in (you are one), so I'm not that worried about it. I just figured I'd save you old-timers the slog of rehashing anything I could look at myself.

Thanks again.

Edited October 14, 2022 by Math of Insects

[FLYJACK 654]

anybody ever find this,, first big spread on Cooper

LA Times West Magazine March 19, 1972

 

 

[FLYJACK 654]

This is interesting, there was an airplane extortion for $25,000 claiming a bomb would go off if a plane dropped below 10,000 ft. The plane was Seattle bound and the extortion in $20's was paid in Anchorage. The guy got caught in Portland when a bill showed up in a bank. That bill was tracked back to a German mechanic in Portland.. I had researched this case before and know that the rest of the money was not recovered.

but, it is a case of a marked bill being caught by a bank.. within 5 weeks of the ransom and found in Portland while paid in Anchorage..

Edited October 14, 2022 by FLYJACK

[JAGdb 71]

9 hours ago, FLYJACK said:

This is interesting, there was an airplane extortion for $25,000 claiming a bomb would go off if a plane dropped below 10,000 ft. The plane was Seattle bound and the extortion in $20's was paid in Anchorage. The guy got caught in Portland when a bill showed up in a bank. That bill was tracked back to a German mechanic in Portland.. I had researched this case before and know that the rest of the money was not recovered.

but, it is a case of a marked bill being caught by a bank.. within 5 weeks of the ransom and found in Portland while paid in Anchorage..

I've kind of been in the camp that the money could have been passed undetected if:
- Time was allowed to lapse before passing them, i.e. waiting a few years.
- Being careful where to pass it, not in the pacific north west, not in major banks and their branches, not in large sums, possibly in casinos.
- The money was altered.  Some techniques have been discussed about making slight/subtle modifications to SNs.

This is a surface level take by me, other than listening to the Numismatist podcast from Darren's podcast a few years back, I haven't done any hard research.  It's more me being skeptical that bank tellers or other employees would spend any meaningful time cross referencing $20 bill SNs with the list....kind of the "needle in a haystack" problem.

So data like the story in this newspaper article, at surface level, kind of lends credence to the take that the money would have showed up if the hijacker spent it.  But, then again, it doesn't look like the person allowed any time to pass and he decided to spend it in the area that the crime was committed where the awareness and alertness of local banks would have been heightened. 

So, I guess I am still 50/50 on this.

TGIF !

[FLYJACK 654]

1 hour ago, JAGdb said:

I've kind of been in the camp that the money could have been passed undetected if:
- Time was allowed to lapse before passing them, i.e. waiting a few years.
- Being careful where to pass it, not in the pacific north west, not in major banks and their branches, not in large sums, possibly in casinos.
- The money was altered.  Some techniques have been discussed about making slight/subtle modifications to SNs.

This is a surface level take by me, other than listening to the Numismatist podcast from Darren's podcast a few years back, I haven't done any hard research.  It's more me being skeptical that bank tellers or other employees would spend any meaningful time cross referencing $20 bill SNs with the list....kind of the "needle in a haystack" problem.

So data like the story in this newspaper article, at surface level, kind of lends credence to the take that the money would have showed up if the hijacker spent it.  But, then again, it doesn't look like the person allowed any time to pass and he decided to spend it in the area that the crime was committed where the awareness and alertness of local banks would have been heightened. 

So, I guess I am still 50/50 on this.

TGIF !

Yes, it is a single data point..  If I remember the case, not all the money was passed. But, what is interesting is that it wasn't caught on the first transaction by the extortionist...

If bills get initially passed they still circulate over and over for years..

The Cooper bill serial numbers were entered into the NCIC database..

 

 

[Math of Insects 96]

3 hours ago, FLYJACK said:

Yes, it is a single data point..  If I remember the case, not all the money was passed. But, what is interesting is that it wasn't caught on the first transaction by the extortionist...

If bills get initially passed they still circulate over and over for years..

The Cooper bill serial numbers were entered into the NCIC database..

 

 

And this n of 1 is played out across 10,000 bills in the Cooper case. Every person at every stage of every one of those 10,000 bills would have to have ignored or missed the numbers. It's possible, of course, but the math changes significantly across that number of opportunities. 
 

The other variable is that the Alaska guy was caught—meaning, there’s no telling how many of the other bills might eventually have been discovered if he’d gone on spending them.

Edited October 14, 2022 by Math of Insects

[georger 197]

5 hours ago, FLYJACK said:

Yes, it is a single data point..  If I remember the case, not all the money was passed. But, what is interesting is that it wasn't caught on the first transaction by the extortionist...

If bills get initially passed they still circulate over and over for years..

The Cooper bill serial numbers were entered into the NCIC database..

 

 

If bills get initially passed they still circulate over and over for years..

That is a good point seldom made. That changes the odds over time. All it takes is one detection over a long period of time, and time favors some detection sometime by some means .... however the finding of some Cooper money on a river bank in the area may indicate no money was in circulation to be detected. Nature could have consumed most of it. New money analysis data is needed. We know now the Ingram money, for example, was in a warm/hot dry place for at least the first year after the hijacking - based on rubber band chemistry. With the rubber bands being directly exposed to whatever hot/dry environment the money was in. Is the Ingram money representative of all of the Cooper money during the first year? If it is then none of the Cooper money was in circulation for the first year after the hijacking. Its pure speculation until future data provides more information. 

This case has run many years on the old data. Future progress hinges on new-better data, imho.    

Edited October 14, 2022 by georger

[CooperNWO305 146]

38 minutes ago, georger said:

If bills get initially passed they still circulate over and over for years..

That is a good point seldom made. That changes the odds over time. All it takes is one detection over a long period of time, and time favors some detection sometime by some means .... however the finding of some Cooper money on a river bank in the area may indicate no money was in circulation to be detected. Nature could have consumed most of it. New money analysis data is needed. We know now the Ingram money, for example, was in a warm/hot dry place for at least the first year after the hijacking - based on rubber band chemistry. With the rubber bands being directly exposed to whatever hot/dry environment the money was in. Is the Ingram money representative of all of the Cooper money during the first year? If it is then none of the Cooper money was in circulation for the first year after the hijacking. Its pure speculation until future data provides more information. 

This case has run many years on the old data. Future progress hinges on new-better data, imho.    

It’s been a while since I’ve messed with probabilities. But if you have say 1 Cooper $20 in a group of 100 bills, and you pull out a $20 in say Cleveland, you have a 1 in 100 chance of getting a Cooper bill. Repeat this again next week and you still have a 1 in 100 chance of getting a Cooper bill. Your probability does not change. It would change if you removed a non Cooper bill each time and now were looking for 1 bill in 99. That’s with/without replacement in probability speak.  Also, as Cooper bills are circulating, Cooper bills are being taken out of circulation, and new $20s are being added. Billions of $20s were in circulation. No one has made a logical argument for how the bills would have been found. It would rely on someone checking a $20 that they found, and doing one or two at a time would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. 
 

The FBI should have gathered up 10s of thousands of San Francisco $20s and increased their odds of finding a $20. Looking for a few at a time is really a shot in the dark. 10,000 $20s out of a total of over a billion. Actually a lot more. Odds are very low. None of us would make a bet if the odds were a million to one or even 1000 to one. 
 

The trouble I have is that only 3 percent of the money was found. Very rarely do we discuss this from the opposite angle, which is focusing on the 97%. Where did it go? Tena Bar does not tell us much, it really doesn’t. Does it tell us Cooper left the plane? That he lived? It’s fun to look at, but is that really just because it’s one of our only clues? A memento? 

Edited October 14, 2022 by CooperNWO305

[Math of Insects 96]

38 minutes ago, georger said:

If bills get initially passed they still circulate over and over for years..

That is a good point seldom made. That changes the odds over time. All it takes is one detection over a long period of time, and time favors some detection sometime by some means .... however the finding of some Cooper money on a river bank in the area may indicate no money was in circulation to be detected. Nature could have consumed most of it. New money analysis data is needed. We know now the Ingram money, for example, was in a warm/hot dry place for at least the first year after the hijacking - based on rubber band chemistry. With the rubber bands being directly exposed to whatever hot/dry environment the money was in. Is the Ingram money representative of all of the Cooper money during the first year? If it is then none of the Cooper money was in circulation for the first year after the hijacking. Its pure speculation until future data provides more information. 

This case has run many years on the old data. Future progress hinges on new-better data, imho.    

While Rummy's "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" is true, as time goes on the continued lack of anything new arising, is also a data point in the case, and has to be considered.

[CooperNWO305 146]

If God came and told me the money was never spent, then these would be my guesses. 
 

1. It went into the river with the other money and went out to sea. 

2. Cooper burned it all. 
 

3, and very unlikely. The FBI got it back. Or the bank. Etc.

For it to still be on land would be unlikely. Possible but not probable. Or in someone’s house, same deal. I do wonder if Cooper spent just a little bit. And if I can think of doctoring the bills a little bit, then he could too. I’ve said it many times, all he had to do was change the 1963A to a 1963 and he is free and clear. I also would have been looking for close matches, but back in 1972 they may not have had that tech. 
 

 

[georger 197]

32 minutes ago, CooperNWO305 said:

It’s been a while since I’ve messed with probabilities. But if you have say 1 Cooper $20 in a group of 100 bills, and you pull out a $20 in say Cleveland, you have a 1 in 100 chance of getting a Cooper bill. Repeat this again next week and you still have a 1 in 100 chance of getting a Cooper bill. Your probability does not change. It would change if you removed a non Cooper bill each time and now were looking for 1 bill in 99. That’s with/without replacement in probability speak.  Also, as Cooper bills are circulating, Cooper bills are being taken out of circulation, and new $20s are being added. Billions of $20s were in circulation. No one has made a logical argument for how the bills would have been found. It would rely on someone checking a $20 that they found, and doing one or two at a time would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. 
 

The FBI should have gathered up 10s of thousands of San Francisco $20s and increased their odds of finding a $20. Looking for a few at a time is really a shot in the dark. 10,000 $20s out of a total of over a billion. Actually a lot more. Odds are very low. None of us would make a bet if the odds were a million to one or even 1000 to one. 
 

The trouble I have is that only 3 percent of the money was found. Very rarely do we discuss this from the opposite angle, which is focusing on the 97%. Where did it go? Tena Bar does not tell us much, it really doesn’t. Does it tell us Cooper left the plane? That he lived? It’s fun to look at, but is that really just because it’s one of our only clues? A memento? 

Tena Bar does not tell us much, it really doesn’t.

It could have if soil and water samples had been kept and examined.

In addition, Cooper's exact LZ has never been identified and examined.

Edited October 14, 2022 by georger

[CooperNWO305 146]

18 hours ago, georger said:

Tena Bar does not tell us much, it really doesn’t.

It could have if soil and water samples had been kept and examined.

In addition, Cooper's exact LZ has never been identified and examined.

True. But the DZ is not likely Tena Bar and not likely near the river. Heck, that $ may have left the plane at a different time than Cooper or left with someone else. 
 

Tena Bar does help us at least say that this incident occurred and I guess it does show that he likely jumped then and not near Reno. 

[FLYJACK 654]

45 minutes ago, CooperNWO305 said:

True. But the DZ is not likely Tena Bar and not likely near the river. Heck, that $ may have left the plane at a different time than Cooper or left with someone else. 
 

Tena Bar does help us at least say that this incident occurred and I guess it does show that he likely jumped then and not near Reno. 

The very thing that has frustrated the Cooper investigation for 50+ years also attracts people to this mystery.. That is, we have very few 100% facts, try listing them. This case is the ultimate bayesian example. We take a few facts, some conflicting and lots of inferential info and try to reconstruct the crime, it is a fascinating intellectual challenge where we as individuals utilize our own unique experiences, history, education, logic and reason. 

The Cooper case is the ultimate intellectual puzzle challenge.. a test of our own minds..

The problem is there may not be a 100% provable conclusion.. without forensics..  so, we do the best we can with what we have and that includes consistently re-examining the evidence and exploring new theories that fit within the information we have.

It is like having a 10,000 piece picture puzzle with 300 confirmed pieces and only 1,000 more pieces that may or may not even belong to that puzzle.. We try to put enough pieces together to establish the full picture... lots of pieces fit that may not even belong..

 

[Math of Insects 96]

On 10/13/2022 at 6:58 PM, FLYJACK said:

anybody ever find this,, first big spread on Cooper

LA Times West Magazine March 19, 1972

 

 

If there is an archive for this, I don't appear to have access to it through the university.

Ditto the Village Voice for that period.

 

2 hours ago, FLYJACK said:

The problem is there may not be a 100% provable conclusion.. without forensics..  so, we do the best we can with what we have and that includes consistently re-examining the evidence and exploring new theories that fit within the information we have.

It is like having a 10,000 piece picture puzzle with 300 confirmed pieces and only 1,000 more pieces that may or may not even belong to that puzzle.. We try to put enough pieces together to establish the full picture... lots of pieces fit that may not even belong..

 

It's not the most popular opinion, but the longer time goes on without a single bit of additional real evidence presenting itself, that fact becomes a data point in itself.

As someone said, if your dog goes missing in the woods, and 9 years later its collar turns up, and he's never seen again, you pretty much know what happened to your dog. You don't KNOW, but you know.

Edited October 15, 2022 by Math of Insects

[georger 197]

6 hours ago, FLYJACK said:

The very thing that has frustrated the Cooper investigation for 50+ years also attracts people to this mystery.. That is, we have very few 100% facts, try listing them. This case is the ultimate bayesian example. We take a few facts, some conflicting and lots of inferential info and try to reconstruct the crime, it is a fascinating intellectual challenge where we as individuals utilize our own unique experiences, history, education, logic and reason. 

The Cooper case is the ultimate intellectual puzzle challenge.. a test of our own minds..

The problem is there may not be a 100% provable conclusion.. without forensics..  so, we do the best we can with what we have and that includes consistently re-examining the evidence and exploring new theories that fit within the information we have.

It is like having a 10,000 piece picture puzzle with 300 confirmed pieces and only 1,000 more pieces that may or may not even belong to that puzzle.. We try to put enough pieces together to establish the full picture... lots of pieces fit that may not even belong..

 

Cooper was ahead from the start - he had all of the critical facts in his favor and the FBI and law enforcement could not catch up. Apparently they never will.

Edited October 15, 2022 by georger

[Jay Ritchie 3]

On 10/11/2022 at 9:42 PM, Math of Insects said:

In that very long middle paragraph--the one that gushes over Gunther and speaks informedly about his work, including correctly identifying the date and exact title and punctuation of a 9-year-old magazine article, down to correctly placing the comma within in the quotation marks. But he can't spell "extraordinary" correctly?

Can anyone on this board correctly relay the title, year, and author of a magazine article they read a decade ago, without Googling?

I am finding this far-fetched.

Many thanks - I can see it now! Would be interesting to see a copy of the women's magazine. There would be a big difference between Cooper reading an article by Gunther which was mentioned on the front page with him happening to open the right section.