DB Cooper

[olemisscub 466]

5 minutes ago, FLYJACK said:

Sounds like you haven't read the book,, the VV listing is in the book and has been independently confirmed. Gunther claimed he contacted the FBI several times in 1972.

Of course I've read the book. Multiple times actually. I own it. It's a terrific read. Gunther was a hell of a talent. As I told Dave, I'm aware of the VV listing being in the book, but it's not as it would have appeared in the paper. My assumption is that it IS in the paper since that could be easily verified by anyone looking to discredit Gunther, but I'd still like to do the due diligence to see it. Who has independently confirmed it? Just curious. 

Gunther named others who were involved with the first "Cooper" contact,,, were they in on the hoax?

Sure. Why not? He names two names. Ed Kuhn, an editor at Playboy, and Mark Penzer, an editor at True Magazine. He admits that Kuhn died in 1980. So we're left with his buddy from True Magazine. Why wouldn't the buddy play along if Max asked him to do so for his new book? It's not like these guys were Woodward and Bernstein. 

But you make a common error. Clara's story is at least partially or perhaps completely fabricated and the "Cooper" contact could still be legit.. Discrediting part or all of Clara's narrative doesn't affect the Cooper contact.

Not sure I'd call that an error, I'd call that logical. Could some be true and some be false? Sure, but what reason do we have to believe any of it? Of the claims made in the book that we can verify and that weren't public record (parachute color, narrative of the hijacking), most have been shown to be false. 

Gunther claimed he called the FBI in 1972.. and wrote a letter to acting director L. Patrick Gray III Sept 20, 1972.. regarding that "Cooper" contact.

We'd see a correspondence in the files reflecting that, IMO. There would be an AIRTEL or something from "Acting Director" to the Seattle Office if that had occurred. You know the files as well as anyone. Anything and everything about NORJAK was reported to the Seattle Office. 

Gray allegedly told Gunther that the FBI wanted nothing to do with Gunther and didn't want to speak to him. Does that sound realistic given what we know from the files? Those guys spent effort following the most ridiculous leads they received. To think that, less than a year after the hijacking, they wouldn't want to speak to a notable author who was claiming that the real Cooper was contacting him just kinda beggars belief. That doesn't sound right from what we know of this investigation. That would possibly have been an enormous lead. 

It isn't clear when Gunther actually started communicating with Himmelsbach.

Perhaps Dave saw something else, but 1982 was the earliest correspondence I saw within his papers. 

So, would Gunther lie about his early contact wth the FBI and Himmelsbach in the book. The FBI could out him instantly. That is a reputational risk beyond a potential obstruction of justice charge if he lied to the FBI. For a writer, reputation is currency.

No way he lies about the FBI in the book, that is too much of a risk.

Why would that be a risk? The FBI claimed it was a hoax anyways. So what difference would it have made whether he lied or not? It's not a crime to lie about the FBI in a book. There are wagonloads full of books claiming the FBI killed JFK or were in on 9/11, etc. There's no risk in claiming you contacted the real FBI when you didn't. In fact, I suspect that might be one reason he contacted Himmelsbach (if it was fictional), because that was a way to give credibility to your claim that you contacted the FBI without actually contacting the FBI. I mean, look at us now, 40 years later, offering up the Himmelsbach contact as evidence that he wasn't faking it. That may have been precisely Gunther's purpose in talking to Ralph. Perhaps he was also hoping that a byproduct of this contact would be Himmy giving him some inside scoop. 

IMO, the rational position is not to be a rejectionist but to be open to possibility that it may have been the real Cooper and what that would mean. To reject it as outright as a hoax based on opinion is not rational. If somebody makes a fact based case that proves it was a hoax then that needs to be evaluated.

I'd say that is my position. I'm leaning toward it being fiction at the moment but am always open to the possibility that it is true in some part. 

 

[FLYJACK 654]

If you have the book would you assume the VV ad isn't real.. the star graphic is added but it is the same as it actually appeared. Why would Gunther publish a fake ad that could be easily checked,, makes no sense.. Regardless, it has been independently found and verified. I have seen a copy of the page. 

Of course it is a logical error. The validity test of Clara's narrative doesn't negate Cooper's identity. This is a fallacy trap everyone seems to fall into.

You made this error before, you assume we have everything that occurred in the case in the FBI files we have and if it isn't in there it never happened,, this is nonsense logic. I agree that it is not verified but not being in the released FBI files isn't proof of anything.

Gunther claimed as fact that he contacted the FBI and Gray in 1972, it wasn't speculation like other (JFK type) books. If the FBI pointed out an obvious lie Gunther was done and the entire book would have been dismissed.. No way he takes that risk. If Himmelsbach read a factual lie in the book he would have mentioned it in those interviews.. 

You are conflating the context of the term hoax here and making another error..  was your DZ account hacked? ... the FBI and Himmelsbach believed the "Cooper/Clara" were the hoaxer, not Gunther. These are two different things. Even Gunther admitted "Cooper" may have been a hoaxer. Many people seem to conflate these different issues.

Did Gunther make up the entire Cooper contact.... or was he contacted by a real person, (legit or a hoaxer)?

The information indicates that he was contacted by somebody claiming to be Cooper... 

If you accept that premise the entire Gunther thing changes. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[FLYJACK 654]

The Cooper letter to Gunther and the Clara letter to Himmelsbach look to be typed and written by the same person...

[CooperNWO305 146]

Olemiss you have a unique perspective as an attorney who has done defense and prosecution. How have you handled your clients when they lie or mislead or hold back info? How do you find the bits of truth? In court I’m assuming once someone lies, then their testimony is all useless? What if they make a mistake?  I’ve met some good liars in my life, and the best are ones who use elements of truth or use half truths. 
 

So for example. Saying the chute was red and yellow may be a lie, a mistake, maybe she was not there. How do we approach it? Same for the Captain Scott deal? As for the seat, I don’t see it in the notes. 
 

I’ll say it again so readers can be reminded. We have three essential scenarios. 1. Gunther made it up. 2. There was a Dan and Clara, but they are not Cooper. 3. There was a Dan and Clara and Dan was Cooper. If 1 is true then it is all a waste of time. If 2 is true, it is still fun to identify them. I’d even be happy and might quit if Smith’s family said “yea that sounds like something Bill would do”. 3. If 3 is true, then great. 
 

I just don’t know how we throw it all out over a few lies or mistakes. Especially seeing Clara was the one doing all the talking. We can’t even agree now on what the crew said or Cooper, etc. I’d guess the chute was not red and yellow, but who knows for sure. One chute was red. 

[FLYJACK 654]

Only the parts of the book that Gunther presented as his experience are claimed to be true. That is why Clara's narrative even if 100% made up does not influence the identity of the person who claimed to be Cooper. Cooper's identity does not rely on Clara's narrative being true or accurate. I assume Clara's narrative was a script.. if she was legit or not.

If however, any of those parts that Gunther claims as his experience are found to be a lie then that is a problem for Gunther..

Which is why Gunther claiming his multiple contacts with the FBI in 1972 would be a risk or faking the VV ad... or naming the others involved in the first contact.. it would be an obvious lie easily exposed.. According to Gunther the FBI believed his Cooper contact was a hoaxer in 1972 well before the Clara contact..

The Gunther book is an amazing mental puzzle to unravel using logic, reason and experience with the possibility that the real Cooper might have contacted Gunther.

 

The stated colour of the parachute is irrelevant.. the media had widely reported it as white early on.

I am not 100% convinced it was white but that is another argument. It could have been white, the FBI believed it was white and the media reported it as white.

A hoaxer researching the case for a convincing narrative would have used that public info...  for credibility. 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 1 by FLYJACK

[CooperNWO305 146]

On 12/29/2023 at 3:30 AM, Nicholas Broughton said:

On 12/26/2023 at 2:21 PM, CooperNWO305 said:

One way Max Gunther’s book has been criticized is that Gunther got a couple of things wrong. One of the main ones is that Clara claimed the Captain came back to talk to Cooper. We know this did not happen, but we do know that Cooper did talk to the cockpit. Clara was clearly a female and talked to Gunther for the first time in 1982, and was relaying the story secondhand. It is not a big leap to think she got a few things wrong, some maybe on purpose, and certainly made up enough to throw people off about her true identity, but keeping enough to keep the story real. 
 

I have four possible hypotheses on who Clara and Dan were. 1. Max made it up. 2. It was Dan Clair and his wife. 3. It was William Smith and his wife. 4. It was Dan and William together. 
 

This little blurb about Detroit, Michigan could possibly be connected to a woman named Valeria who was buried with William and his wife. A non relative buried in the family plot would indicate a close connection. 

 

No connection to the Gunther book whatsoever. Valeria came over on the boat from Poland with WJS’s mother in law, who was 6 at the time. And Valeria was not from Detroit.  She went to NJ and settled in the Polish section of Bloomfield, along with all the other Polish immigrants that came over around the same time.    We are "family"... That is how they were raised.  

Nicky. Can I assume you acknowledge that you got this one wrong? Did you confirm a connection to Michigan for Valeria? What about Thanksgiving 1971, was she there? It’s only 52 years ago, so should not be hard for someone to remember it in detail. 

[olemisscub 466]

8 hours ago, CooperNWO305 said:

Olemiss you have a unique perspective as an attorney who has done defense and prosecution. How have you handled your clients when they lie or mislead or hold back info? How do you find the bits of truth? In court I’m assuming once someone lies, then their testimony is all useless? What if they make a mistake?  I’ve met some good liars in my life, and the best are ones who use elements of truth or use half truths. 
 

So for example. Saying the chute was red and yellow may be a lie, a mistake, maybe she was not there. How do we approach it? Same for the Captain Scott deal? As for the seat, I don’t see it in the notes. 
 

 

I gave a lot of thought to this and ultimately they're different scenarios because the people I prosecuted or defended were actual individuals that I could speak to and who were commenting on an actual fact pattern for which I had evidence. So I'm able to impeach them or cross examine them. Can't do that with Clara. Their whole testimony isn't useless if they get a few things wrong, certainly not. And I wouldn't totally discount Clara for that, but what exactly does she get right in the book that makes it more probable than improbable that her story is true?

I've yet to see anything in the book that was something totally unknown at the time that would make us Cooper nerds go "holy shit! It must be real." I know that many people point to Elsinore, but I believe that is merely coincidental. Let's say you are writing a Cooper book and you've sent your fictional Cooper to LA. Now you have to figure out a way for him to learn about skydiving and jumping from a jet so you can get him to the mental place he needs to be to know how to do the hijack. How is he going to learn about skydiving? Well, from skydivers, of course. The location is just coincidental. The narrative is completely different from the Elsinore Ghost story as well. Ghost is already a skydiver who had possibly already made a few jumps (according to Cameron). Cotton goes to an airshow, is introduced to it by his girlfriend's brother, makes a few jumps, and instead of asking a parachute master about jumping from a jet like the Ghost, he gets his info from an airline pilot. The location is the only connection to Elsinore. That's not enough IMO. I'm not wildly impressed by the industrial chemicals bit either. That's not nothing, but it's not dispositive for me. Sidebar: Jason Langseth sold industrial chemicals for a living at the time of the hijacking. His mom's name was Clara too. 

Jude's book also has a somewhat similar scene. He had to envision a way for his paratrooper to learn to skydive and he ends up at some Canadian airfield learning about it. If Gunther or Jude didn't write a scene where their Cooper learns to skydive/freefall, that would have created a plot hole. 

So no, you don't throw out the baby with the bathwater because Clara gets stuff about the hijacking wrong, but she needs to get some things right as well. These would need to be things that weren't in the public domain at the time. For example, if she had mentioned that he left his tie on board, well, that would be something. 

Again, I'm not an expert on the Gunther stuff, so I defer to you guys in case I'm missing something. Don't mistake me having an opinion for it being a strong opinion, haha. My heels aren't dug in one way or the other with Gunther. I'm flexible. 

[FLYJACK 654]

I forgot that the letters to Gunther were postmarked NY...

So, the person claiming to be Cooper was in NY around Feb-April 1972. He knew the phone number of a public phone at the Pan Am building. Gunther claimed he used Dan instead of DB..

When "Cooper" suddenly dropped contact .. Ed Kuhn, Mark Penzer and Gunther all assumed it was a hoax.

 

"Clara" claimed Cooper was not wearing loafers,,, but heavy walking shoes. That was something reported incorrectly.

Edited January 2 by FLYJACK

[georger 197]

7 hours ago, olemisscub said:

I gave a lot of thought to this and ultimately they're different scenarios because the people I prosecuted or defended were actual individuals that I could speak to and who were commenting on an actual fact pattern for which I had evidence. So I'm able to impeach them or cross examine them. Can't do that with Clara. Their whole testimony isn't useless if they get a few things wrong, certainly not. And I wouldn't totally discount Clara for that, but what exactly does she get right in the book that makes it more probable than improbable that her story is true?

I've yet to see anything in the book that was something totally unknown at the time that would make us Cooper nerds go "holy shit! It must be real." I know that many people point to Elsinore, but I believe that is merely coincidental. Let's say you are writing a Cooper book and you've sent your fictional Cooper to LA. Now you have to figure out a way for him to learn about skydiving and jumping from a jet so you can get him to the mental place he needs to be to know how to do the hijack. How is he going to learn about skydiving? Well, from skydivers, of course. The location is just coincidental. The narrative is completely different from the Elsinore Ghost story as well. Ghost is already a skydiver who had possibly already made a few jumps (according to Cameron). Cotton goes to an airshow, is introduced to it by his girlfriend's brother, makes a few jumps, and instead of asking a parachute master about jumping from a jet like the Ghost, he gets his info from an airline pilot. The location is the only connection to Elsinore. That's not enough IMO. I'm not wildly impressed by the industrial chemicals bit either. That's not nothing, but it's not dispositive for me. Sidebar: Jason Langseth sold industrial chemicals for a living at the time of the hijacking. His mom's name was Clara too. 

Jude's book also has a somewhat similar scene. He had to envision a way for his paratrooper to learn to skydive and he ends up at some Canadian airfield learning about it. If Gunther or Jude didn't write a scene where their Cooper learns to skydive/freefall, that would have created a plot hole. 

So no, you don't throw out the baby with the bathwater because Clara gets stuff about the hijacking wrong, but she needs to get some things right as well. These would need to be things that weren't in the public domain at the time. For example, if she had mentioned that he left his tie on board, well, that would be something. 

Again, I'm not an expert on the Gunther stuff, so I defer to you guys in case I'm missing something. Don't mistake me having an opinion for it being a strong opinion, haha. My heels aren't dug in one way or the other with Gunther. I'm flexible. 

I think Gunther IS Clara. An invention. A writer's device. 

Edited January 2 by georger

[FLYJACK 654]

4 hours ago, georger said:

I think Gunther IS Clara. An invention. A writer's device. 

Could be, but would he risk faking a letter and notes to Himmelsbach and the FBI??

Edited January 2 by FLYJACK

[olemisscub 466]

1 hour ago, FLYJACK said:

Could be, but would he risk faking a letter and notes to Himmelsbach and the FBI??

But have no proof he sent anything whatsoever to the actual FBI. If we do find proof of that, I’ll change my tune on all of this. If he actually got a letter from the Acting Director saying they aren’t interested or whatever, then I have to believe he’d have included a picture of that response in the book. As a government document Gunther would have been free to publish that.

You’re far more trusting than I am of an author who wrote books on how to get rich quick and how to get laid. To not think that there is a very real possibility that this is an elaborate piece of performance art by an extremely intelligent and capable author is a mistake. 
 

[CooperNWO305 146]

13 hours ago, olemisscub said:

I gave a lot of thought to this and ultimately they're different scenarios because the people I prosecuted or defended were actual individuals that I could speak to and who were commenting on an actual fact pattern for which I had evidence. So I'm able to impeach them or cross examine them. Can't do that with Clara. Their whole testimony isn't useless if they get a few things wrong, certainly not. And I wouldn't totally discount Clara for that, but what exactly does she get right in the book that makes it more probable than improbable that her story is true?

I've yet to see anything in the book that was something totally unknown at the time that would make us Cooper nerds go "holy shit! It must be real." I know that many people point to Elsinore, but I believe that is merely coincidental. Let's say you are writing a Cooper book and you've sent your fictional Cooper to LA. Now you have to figure out a way for him to learn about skydiving and jumping from a jet so you can get him to the mental place he needs to be to know how to do the hijack. How is he going to learn about skydiving? Well, from skydivers, of course. The location is just coincidental. The narrative is completely different from the Elsinore Ghost story as well. Ghost is already a skydiver who had possibly already made a few jumps (according to Cameron). Cotton goes to an airshow, is introduced to it by his girlfriend's brother, makes a few jumps, and instead of asking a parachute master about jumping from a jet like the Ghost, he gets his info from an airline pilot. The location is the only connection to Elsinore. That's not enough IMO. I'm not wildly impressed by the industrial chemicals bit either. That's not nothing, but it's not dispositive for me. Sidebar: Jason Langseth sold industrial chemicals for a living at the time of the hijacking. His mom's name was Clara too. 

Jude's book also has a somewhat similar scene. He had to envision a way for his paratrooper to learn to skydive and he ends up at some Canadian airfield learning about it. If Gunther or Jude didn't write a scene where their Cooper learns to skydive/freefall, that would have created a plot hole. 

So no, you don't throw out the baby with the bathwater because Clara gets stuff about the hijacking wrong, but she needs to get some things right as well. These would need to be things that weren't in the public domain at the time. For example, if she had mentioned that he left his tie on board, well, that would be something. 

Again, I'm not an expert on the Gunther stuff, so I defer to you guys in case I'm missing something. Don't mistake me having an opinion for it being a strong opinion, haha. My heels aren't dug in one way or the other with Gunther. I'm flexible. 

Cotton went to an airfield to see skydivers, an air show is different. Air shows are typically mainly airplanes, and maybe a Golden Knights type team. 
 

I’ve considered that Gunther went to LA on one of his trips and talked to some folks or even had access to some files. It’s very coincidental, but not 100% for sure Cooper was there. There are discrepancies, but the entry in the book is a lot like Elsinore. 
 

I was more interested in what you do with people/clients etc who lie. When does their testimony become useless? From all I’ve seen the past few weeks on Gunther, it seems like a small group of folks think he lied. On Discord there is a very identical post about Gunther’s get rich ideas, so I assume you and the poster agree or are even sharing notes. Nothing wrong with that. What confuses me is that I thought you said you believed it was Barb, then you mention someone well respected who may have their own candidate. I’ve heard Vordhal was Clara, Barb, Weber, someone from flight ops. Maybe more. It seems like people are waffling and are non-committal. 
 

I still think people like to discredit Gunther. It still seems like a huge effort on his part. 
 

Do you have a stance? He lied? Made up some? The hoaxer is Barb?

One major issue I have is that if there was a hoaxer, you have to explain the NYC connection. 

[FLYJACK 654]

1 hour ago, olemisscub said:

But have no proof he sent anything whatsoever to the actual FBI. If we do find proof of that, I’ll change my tune on all of this. If he actually got a letter from the Acting Director saying they aren’t interested or whatever, then I have to believe he’d have included a picture of that response in the book. As a government document Gunther would have been free to publish that.

You’re far more trusting than I am of an author who wrote books on how to get rich quick and how to get laid. To not think that there is a very real possibility that this is an elaborate piece of performance art by an extremely intelligent and capable author is a mistake. 
 

You are speculating to reach a universal conclusion that you cannot know. Sometimes that is fine, but for Gunther the stakes are too high to do that.

I am open to the possibility that he was actually contacted by somebody claiming to be Cooper.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[olemisscub 466]

2 hours ago, CooperNWO305 said:

 

I was more interested in what you do with people/clients etc who lie. When does their testimony become useless? From all I’ve seen the past few weeks on Gunther, it seems like a small group of folks think he lied. On Discord there is a very identical post about Gunther’s get rich ideas, so I assume you and the poster agree or are even sharing notes. Nothing wrong with that. What confuses me is that I thought you said you believed it was Barb, then you mention someone well respected who may have their own candidate. I’ve heard Vordhal was Clara, Barb, Weber, someone from flight ops. Maybe more. It seems like people are waffling and are non-committal. 
 

I still think people like to discredit Gunther. It still seems like a huge effort on his part. 

Do you have a stance? He lied? Made up some? The hoaxer is Barb?

One major issue I have is that if there was a hoaxer, you have to explain the NYC connection. 

I haven't looked at the discord in ages. I assume whomever you are speaking about probably watched Jude's video because he goes into Gunther's pretty varied catalog of books. Gunther seemed capable of writing about any topic he set his mind to, which is why I'm very suspicious that he was pulling one over on all of us.

Vordahl as Clara! HA! Now that's funny. Barb is indeed being investigated as a possible hoaxer and there are some plausible connections, but that's not for me to divulge. I haven't looked too much into it anyways. 

My current stance is that it smells like performance art. I think saying he "lied" is an unnecessary pejorative, at least as far as my view of him. It'd be like saying Andy Kauffman was "lying" or that the Coen Brothers were "lying" about Fargo. Artistic license is the way I'd phrase it. That seemed to be the majority opinion in the reviews I've read from the time period. It was sort of a "wink-wink" thing i.e. "we see what you're up to and it's quite clever".

As for my legal cases, you can usually tell when someone is full of shit pretty quickly. Just an intuition I guess. But you said, there are some damn good liars out there. Most of my clients don't lie to me because they know I have the evidence. I have had a few who I totally believed UNTIL I got the surveillance footage showing them doing what they said they weren't doing! Lying is a skill I suppose. Also, motivation matters as well. If the person has no motivation to lie and gets a fact or two wrong, well, maybe that can be forgiven. Like say if it's just a random witness to something. Take Robert Gregory in the Cooper case. Is his testimony useless because he says Cooper sat in the window seat and says that a dark headed stew sat with him the majority of the time? No, I think not.

On the other hand, we have an evidentiary rule that's called The Fruit of the Poisonous Tree. This usually applies to law enforcement and their investigation. If they screw up one thing, then by default you have to assume that the rest of it is screwed up or susceptible to being screwed up. So it's really a case by case basis of when someone's testimony should be deemed useless. 

With the Gunther book it's difficult because we don't know anything about Cooper before or after the hijacking, so everything that "Clara" says outside of the actual hijacking is unfalsifiable. Yet she fails on the very few things in the book that we CAN check. She said he had a reservation as opposed to just buying his ticket, she has him seated in row 15, Capt Scott coming back to check the bomb, he asks the pilots their location before jumping, etc. And yes, I know that she wasn't there for the hijacking, but she wasn't there for his life before she met him either, and she appears to have supplied a ton of details about that stuff. So why should that be trusted? I don't know, she just seems like a literary device to me, as Georger said. It's like the way Melville uses Ishmael in Moby Dick or something. 

But again, just my two cents. 

[olemisscub 466]

Finally we have some new stuff of substance in the Vault. We now know who was the "first" real suspect was, at least insofar as the first to be given a dedicated file. Subject File No.1 was Joseph Henry Johnston. So he was technically the first and Uncle LD was the last, being #1062. 

This caught my eye as well

[FLYJACK 654]

56 minutes ago, olemisscub said:

Finally we have some new stuff of substance in the Vault. We now know who was the "first" real suspect was, at least insofar as the first to be given a dedicated file. Subject File No.1 was Joseph Henry Johnston. So he was technically the first and Uncle LD was the last, being #1062. 

This caught my eye as well

Old file previously release, been discussed.. 

[olemisscub 466]

4 minutes ago, FLYJACK said:

Old file previously release, been discussed.. 

I must have completely missed that or maybe my brain is just too full of these files that it kicks old irrelevant files out of my memory.

[FLYJACK 654]

8 minutes ago, olemisscub said:

I must have completely missed that or maybe my brain is just too full of these files that it kicks old irrelevant files out of my memory.

It was fairly early in the files,,,

They claimed no "beepers" in the chutes... but who knows

Those 1971 era transmitters did "Beep" for about 24 hours..

The other thing is that there were two Aluminum plants.. 

The Reynolds plant was not West of Vancouver... that was the ALCOA plant. Reynolds was near Troutdale.

When I brought this up years ago nobody seemed interested.
 

[Andrade1812 51]

45 minutes ago, FLYJACK said:

It was fairly early in the files,,,

They claimed no "beepers" in the chutes... but who knows

Those 1971 era transmitters did "Beep" for about 24 hours..

The other thing is that there were two Aluminum plants.. 

The Reynolds plant was not West of Vancouver... that was the ALCOA plant. Reynolds was near Troutdale.

When I brought this up years ago nobody seemed interested.
 

I thought the issue was resolved as not Cooper related?

[FLYJACK 654]

1 minute ago, Andrade1812 said:

I thought the issue was resolved as not Cooper related?

Not resolved..  just left like most Cooper issues.. unknown

 

[olemisscub 466]

8 minutes ago, FLYJACK said:

It was fairly early in the files,,,

They claimed no "beepers" in the chutes... but who knows

Those 1971 era transmitters did "Beep" for about 24 hours..

The other thing is that there were two Aluminum plants.. 

The Reynolds plant was not West of Vancouver... that was the ALCOA plant. Reynolds was near Troutdale.

When I brought this up years ago nobody seemed interested.
 

I generally tend to not give much credence to people claiming that transmitters or anything like that that were used. None of his actions indicate that he was planning on a rendezvous with an accomplice. He is the most similar to Mac as far as the DZ of the copycats went. He was 100% winging it IMO, same as Mac. LaPoint was that way as well. 

[FLYJACK 654]

1 minute ago, olemisscub said:

I generally tend to not give much credence to people claiming that transmitters or anything like that that were used. None of his actions indicate that he was planning on a rendezvous with an accomplice. He is the most similar to Mac as far as the DZ of the copycats went. He was 100% winging it IMO, same as Mac. LaPoint was that way as well. 

No, not Cooper's transmitter, a transmitter planted by the FBI in a chute..  

The only reference was somebody claiming no transmitters were placed in the chutes as far as they knew.. or something like that. 

[Andrade1812 51]

3 minutes ago, FLYJACK said:

No, not Cooper's transmitter, a transmitter planted by the FBI in a chute..  

The only reference was somebody claiming no transmitters were placed in the chutes as far as they knew.. or something like that. 

So it's possible someone placed an emergency beacon in Cooper's chute before giving it to him? and that person never came forward?

[olemisscub 466]

2 minutes ago, FLYJACK said:

No, not Cooper's transmitter, a transmitter planted by the FBI in a chute..  

The only reference was somebody claiming no transmitters were placed in the chutes as far as they knew.. or something like that. 

Ok I wasn’t thinking about it being the FBI’s transmitter. I see how one could read it that way. 

[FLYJACK 654]

17 minutes ago, Andrade1812 said:

So it's possible someone placed an emergency beacon in Cooper's chute before giving it to him? and that person never came forward?

This is the only mention of transmitters in the chutes,,  I found that the FBI was using them around that time...  but obviously no confirmation that they were used for Norjak. The file about picking up a signal was very early on in the FBI dump,, FBI Part 11 p 332/3