49 49
quade

DB Cooper

Recommended Posts

4 hours ago, Andrade1812 said:

I was trying to say that the tie was the only connection that *could* be made between Barb and the hijacking since both her stories lack "guilty knowledge" of the events on the plane.

Barb did work scores of jobs as Bobby, and focusing on connecting the tie to her was the avenue I suggested to the Formans.

If the tie could be connected to Barb that would be huge .... I am very impressed by your work with Barb. I never could understand what Smith saw in Dayton - now I see it!  Is Smith aware of the work you have done ?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
(edited)
11 hours ago, olemisscub said:

I think there is a very strong likelihood that she actually got to spend some time with the 302’s. I suspect she bugged Eng enough that he may have relented and let her look at them. Too many things DEEP in the 302’s that she knew about: Dr. Roman, Heisson store, Coffelt being James Earl Ray’s cell mate (which she co-opted and claimed it was actually Duane being the cell mate) and then the time she called me and asked if Duane could have had anything to do with the assassination of Medgar Evers (since my office was the one who prosecuted the assassin). I was flabbergasted. “Where the hell is this lady coming up with this”, I was thinking. Then sure enough a couple of years ago I come across a 302 about Byron DeLa Beckwith, the assassin of Evers. 

When was Jo ever in Seattle to spend time examining FBI 302s? Jo was a realtor. Her primary mission was to 'own' the Cooper story in its entirety including all rights. That is where Duane came in. One witness claims he has her on tape. In the beginning her claim was that Duane 'might be' DB Cooper. Within two years Duane 'was' Cooper. After the first several years her relationship with the FBI became contentious. Her relationships with Vortex people became contentious. She tried to groom Tom Kaye and Larry Carr while ignoring and even deprecating me behind the scene.

I never saw the value others thought they saw in Jo. Jo avoided me. She got hostile with me several times. I still remember one exchange I had with Jo on this forum. Jo was explaining at length how it was Duane who brought DB Cooper up first which included Duane spontaneously taking Jo out on a sight seeing trip when they lived at Virginia Beach. During this random trip driving down a street Duane pointed to a house and slowed and explained: that is where Richard McCoy lived (and was killed). Jo said she didnt know what Duane was talking about. I let this pass without comment and a week or more later I spontaneously asked Jo: 'remember you said Duane showed you where McCoy was killed'?. I asked: 'Who knew McCoy's address?'. Jo quickly replied: 'Oh. I did.'   ... which contradicted her prior version. This example was so typical of Jo. Just change the context and you get different even contradictory answers from Jo . . .

On the other hand I continue to this day amazed about how many people didnt care about Jo's credibility! Jo enjoyed a kind of immunity which applies to this day . . . she had many people convinced she knew something! ^_^

 

Edited by georger
  • Like 3

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Posted on FB.  Putting it here for you guys not on there.

Well, as usual the Vortex has jumped to conclusions, jumped on the bandwagon, and got overly excited about something that for all practical purposes is wrong.  I’m referring to the recent podcast that makes an overly optimistic claim that Barb Dayton was Max Gunther’s Clara/Dan LeClair and used a concept called stylometry to “prove” it. The Vortex leaks like a sieve, and although people like to talk about how they trust each other, there is not much trust, as I had an idea of what was coming, it’s not that hard to figure out.  I’d like to say I expected something better from the Vortex, but I’ve been too de-sensitized by things now.  DNA is about the only thing left worth talking about.

I admit that I waited a little bit to see who would chime in, and I was no disappointed, as the usual suspects made sure to quickly jump on the bandwagon and criticize what they do not know about and are not educated about.  Most of you in the Vortex are not part of this, so don’t take it personally. However, I can say with confidence that most of the people in the group have never heard of stylometry before this week.  I have, I’ve used it.  Even four years ago on the DZ I brought it up.

This is a long post.  Some of it is more staccato than harmony, but I’ll try to clean things up a bit when I write the paper.  Some of these are just bulleted thoughts.  Directions to a file with the Barb and Clara letters are at the end.  Due to some of the complexity of explaining things, I will summarize here and then do a paper with more details.

I want to say that Martin and Darren have always acted in a neutral fashion and this post is meant to be critical of their process and not critical of the individuals. Although, I do have criticism for a number of other individuals.  Darren has been criticized in the past for asking softball questions, and I do think he could have dug deeper into questions on this podcast.  I think Martin and Darren’s hearts are in the right place, as are the Formans. In the end, I think a group of the usual suspects pounced on Martin’s work and attempted to use it to advance their own agenda.

I was hoping that more people would ask some of the basic questions before jumping to conclusions, such as quality of the software program, age of the program, peer review, skill level with current software programs, awareness of available software, recent course work, and continuing education.  Martin and I have talked many times, he is smart and is educated, however I do think this current work needs more peer reviews.  Something of this “magnitude” should have been peer reviewed in advance, and not by a lawyer (Ryan) and a self-proclaimed novelist (Jude).  Jude has clearly demonstrated bias in the past, and I was hoping as a lawyer, Ryan would have asked some harder questions, I know he would have if he was defending a client.

A few people have made some comments questioning this podcast/use of stylometry, and a few have messaged me, but for the most part it seems like people have just taken what they’ve been told and parroted it.  I frankly am not surprised given how people have jumped on the bandwagon on Rackstraw, McCoy, Boeing, RMI, Tektronix, RemCru, Vordahl, and most recently John L’s suspect.  Group think is alive and well in the Vortex. 

Over 4 years ago I mentioned stylometry on the DZ, but I had actually started to research it as early as 2018 and was introduced to the tools that I used as early as 2012.  I’ve used the program to analyze the Cooper Forum posts to see who might be double posting, I was completely underwhelmed by the Signature program and needed to use other methods to identify who I believed to be a couple of people over the years who had double posted or had posted on other sites.

Signature is the name of the program Martin used.  It came out in 2003 and has not been updated since.  That is 21 years ago. People were using flip phones when this came out.  A Temple University article states “There is no evidence of Signature 2.0 coming out, so this is likely not a sustainable platform.”  It is good for a classroom as a concept but not great in practice.

There are actually much better programs out there like R and Python.  Those take skills to learn and actual use to stay relevant.  I’m trained in both of those of programming languages, but more importantly, I have access to peers who teach those programs and some who are PhDs who are much better at it than me.   R and Python are the best for data science and research. I’ve reached out to peers, PhDs, linguists, etc.  Some to get their overall thoughts on these letters, some to discuss using current software and programming like R and Python to analyze the letters.  The early response is that the letters are just too short.

Nicky and the others have thrown out terms like 97% accurate and that controls were used. Fancy terms, but garbage in garbage out, the letter loaded was a corrected version, not the original one with spelling errors.  The letters are too short.  Normally stylometry is used for books and long passages.  If something is 97% accurate, I expect to be able to bet my life on it.  Whenever I hear the term “statistically significant” I think of someone trying to pull the wool over my eyes. Yes, I’ve been schooled in statistics, but statistically significant is not the same as practical significance.  The letters are clearly from different people.

My job title in the Army is “Operations Research and Systems Analyst”, ORSA for short.  A short blurb on this describes the career field well: “ORSA officers use analytic methods and mathematically based procedures to enable leadership decisions in a constantly changing global environment. The ORSAs introduce quantitative analysis to the military decision-making processes by developing and applying probability models, statistical inference, simulations, optimization and economics models.”  The most important thing is that I work everyday with ORSAs software engineers, data analysts, etc.  I have a great network to pull from, even if I can’t do the work myself.

Eric actually asked Nicky, and Nicky clearly admitted that he does not know about Stylometry.  He called it AI, which is not true, it is not AI.  Jude has made his usual fantastic claims on the DZ inserting himself into things he really has no business talking about.  These were the two guys among others who were claiming Gunther made the whole thing up.  Nicky clearly is parroting what he hears and has no concept of the underlying data, themes, software, or application. He constantly changes suspects and stances, and has created a maze for himself that he will never get out of.

I’ve worked with Martin Andrade for many years, and he was one of the first people I talked to in the case. So, I don’t want this to come across as critical of him as a person.  He has integrity.  However, I do think that there is a group out there that enjoys bashing William Smith and my research, and this group seems to overlap with the Anti Eric Ulis group, they are the same people. I call it the anti-EU faction, the best term I’ve heard is The Cabal. That makes me laugh.  I’m glad to be lumped in with Eric, I don’t always agree with him, but he does stand up for what he believes. I was happy to see him ask Nicky the hard questions last night.

I’m open to evaluating letters from William Smith and his wife.  Although I’m sure the family will not provide those, no more than they have been able to provide pictures of Smith from the 1970s.  That is a different item, and I continue to do my research on that.  William Smith continues to be a very viable and interesting person.  Even if Smith is proven to not have written the letters, he still stands alone as a good POI given his background.

So:  What does this mean?  Well, Barb is not Clara. Barb has zero connection to the book. Zero.  And frankly this is a ridiculous claim.  The letters were postmarked New York City, she has no connection there.  One editor was told to take a call at a phone booth in the PanAm Building in NYC, not something Barb would have been able to know about.   I can’t see Max thinking Clara was a completely different person than LeClair and how he would be fooled by a man who became a woman.  Also, why would Barb tell everyone she was Cooper and not tell them she was LeClair and Clara?  The list goes on and on.  So, she read Max Gunther, so did a lot of people.  Of course, LeClair would contact editors in the New York area, he was from the area.  Barb was in the Northwest when this was going down.

Next steps: I am in the process of doing a deeper analysis on the letters to prove they are from different people, but anyone can see just by looking at the letters.  Even using basic Microsoft Word for readability statistics will tell you the letters are different. 

There are two letters in the Gunther book from LeClair, one letter from Clara.  There are three letters in the Forman book from Barb.  I plan to look into all of those.  However, it is clear that Barb is a completely different writer than LeClair and Clara.

Nicky continues to be the spokesperson for the anti-Gunther and anti-Smith group and has focused all his efforts on discounting William Smith.  No one seems to be asking him any questions about this.  That would take integrity to do so. 

This recent news is not groundbreaking as Nicky stated, and it did not break the Vortex, and it is not the best of Darren’s podcasts. Darren has had over 70 podcasts since 2018, there are many ones that are better.

Ryan stated that stylometry has been used in court. I agree, it has.  However, this set would not be used in court based off such short letters.

I’ve heard it compared to the Unabomber manifesto.  That manifesto was 35,000 words, the Clara letter is about 200.  Also, the Unabomber manifesto was read by Ted Kaczynski’s brother (after his wife), and they had a similar sized paper to compare it to.  Those were almost exactly alike.  The Barb/Clara letters are so very different.

Some will say that this is Facebook, and we are just hobbyists.  However, I think this group is different. This is not a group that meets to discuss flat earth, it is legitimate, and it ruins it for all of us when we tolerate trolls, or when we act like a bunch of school children jumping on the latest fad.

If you want to see the letters, go to my site www.dbcooperhijack.com and go to FILES and you’ll see NEW: Clara-Barb Letters.  Enjoy.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I remain skeptical myself about all of this due to the small sample size. There are several of us in the Vortex who I’ve discussed this with recently and we are in agreement regarding the sample size being too small for us to give full support to this theory.

Additionally, I’ve not had the proper chance to publicly discuss my thoughts on this (am planning a YouTube on it), so it’s not fair to say I SHOULD ask harder questions when I haven’t yet publicly said anything in detail about my thoughts on it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
19 minutes ago, CooperNWO305 said:

Posted on FB.  Putting it here for you guys not on there.

Well, as usual the Vortex has jumped to conclusions, jumped on the bandwagon, and got overly excited about something that for all practical purposes is wrong.  I’m referring to the recent podcast that makes an overly optimistic claim that Barb Dayton was Max Gunther’s Clara/Dan LeClair and used a concept called stylometry to “prove” it. The Vortex leaks like a sieve, and although people like to talk about how they trust each other, there is not much trust, as I had an idea of what was coming, it’s not that hard to figure out.  I’d like to say I expected something better from the Vortex, but I’ve been too de-sensitized by things now.  DNA is about the only thing left worth talking about.

I admit that I waited a little bit to see who would chime in, and I was no disappointed, as the usual suspects made sure to quickly jump on the bandwagon and criticize what they do not know about and are not educated about.  Most of you in the Vortex are not part of this, so don’t take it personally. However, I can say with confidence that most of the people in the group have never heard of stylometry before this week.  I have, I’ve used it.  Even four years ago on the DZ I brought it up.

This is a long post.  Some of it is more staccato than harmony, but I’ll try to clean things up a bit when I write the paper.  Some of these are just bulleted thoughts.  Directions to a file with the Barb and Clara letters are at the end.  Due to some of the complexity of explaining things, I will summarize here and then do a paper with more details.

I want to say that Martin and Darren have always acted in a neutral fashion and this post is meant to be critical of their process and not critical of the individuals. Although, I do have criticism for a number of other individuals.  Darren has been criticized in the past for asking softball questions, and I do think he could have dug deeper into questions on this podcast.  I think Martin and Darren’s hearts are in the right place, as are the Formans. In the end, I think a group of the usual suspects pounced on Martin’s work and attempted to use it to advance their own agenda.

I was hoping that more people would ask some of the basic questions before jumping to conclusions, such as quality of the software program, age of the program, peer review, skill level with current software programs, awareness of available software, recent course work, and continuing education.  Martin and I have talked many times, he is smart and is educated, however I do think this current work needs more peer reviews.  Something of this “magnitude” should have been peer reviewed in advance, and not by a lawyer (Ryan) and a self-proclaimed novelist (Jude).  Jude has clearly demonstrated bias in the past, and I was hoping as a lawyer, Ryan would have asked some harder questions, I know he would have if he was defending a client.

A few people have made some comments questioning this podcast/use of stylometry, and a few have messaged me, but for the most part it seems like people have just taken what they’ve been told and parroted it.  I frankly am not surprised given how people have jumped on the bandwagon on Rackstraw, McCoy, Boeing, RMI, Tektronix, RemCru, Vordahl, and most recently John L’s suspect.  Group think is alive and well in the Vortex. 

Over 4 years ago I mentioned stylometry on the DZ, but I had actually started to research it as early as 2018 and was introduced to the tools that I used as early as 2012.  I’ve used the program to analyze the Cooper Forum posts to see who might be double posting, I was completely underwhelmed by the Signature program and needed to use other methods to identify who I believed to be a couple of people over the years who had double posted or had posted on other sites.

Signature is the name of the program Martin used.  It came out in 2003 and has not been updated since.  That is 21 years ago. People were using flip phones when this came out.  A Temple University article states “There is no evidence of Signature 2.0 coming out, so this is likely not a sustainable platform.”  It is good for a classroom as a concept but not great in practice.

There are actually much better programs out there like R and Python.  Those take skills to learn and actual use to stay relevant.  I’m trained in both of those of programming languages, but more importantly, I have access to peers who teach those programs and some who are PhDs who are much better at it than me.   R and Python are the best for data science and research. I’ve reached out to peers, PhDs, linguists, etc.  Some to get their overall thoughts on these letters, some to discuss using current software and programming like R and Python to analyze the letters.  The early response is that the letters are just too short.

Nicky and the others have thrown out terms like 97% accurate and that controls were used. Fancy terms, but garbage in garbage out, the letter loaded was a corrected version, not the original one with spelling errors.  The letters are too short.  Normally stylometry is used for books and long passages.  If something is 97% accurate, I expect to be able to bet my life on it.  Whenever I hear the term “statistically significant” I think of someone trying to pull the wool over my eyes. Yes, I’ve been schooled in statistics, but statistically significant is not the same as practical significance.  The letters are clearly from different people.

My job title in the Army is “Operations Research and Systems Analyst”, ORSA for short.  A short blurb on this describes the career field well: “ORSA officers use analytic methods and mathematically based procedures to enable leadership decisions in a constantly changing global environment. The ORSAs introduce quantitative analysis to the military decision-making processes by developing and applying probability models, statistical inference, simulations, optimization and economics models.”  The most important thing is that I work everyday with ORSAs software engineers, data analysts, etc.  I have a great network to pull from, even if I can’t do the work myself.

Eric actually asked Nicky, and Nicky clearly admitted that he does not know about Stylometry.  He called it AI, which is not true, it is not AI.  Jude has made his usual fantastic claims on the DZ inserting himself into things he really has no business talking about.  These were the two guys among others who were claiming Gunther made the whole thing up.  Nicky clearly is parroting what he hears and has no concept of the underlying data, themes, software, or application. He constantly changes suspects and stances, and has created a maze for himself that he will never get out of.

I’ve worked with Martin Andrade for many years, and he was one of the first people I talked to in the case. So, I don’t want this to come across as critical of him as a person.  He has integrity.  However, I do think that there is a group out there that enjoys bashing William Smith and my research, and this group seems to overlap with the Anti Eric Ulis group, they are the same people. I call it the anti-EU faction, the best term I’ve heard is The Cabal. That makes me laugh.  I’m glad to be lumped in with Eric, I don’t always agree with him, but he does stand up for what he believes. I was happy to see him ask Nicky the hard questions last night.

I’m open to evaluating letters from William Smith and his wife.  Although I’m sure the family will not provide those, no more than they have been able to provide pictures of Smith from the 1970s.  That is a different item, and I continue to do my research on that.  William Smith continues to be a very viable and interesting person.  Even if Smith is proven to not have written the letters, he still stands alone as a good POI given his background.

So:  What does this mean?  Well, Barb is not Clara. Barb has zero connection to the book. Zero.  And frankly this is a ridiculous claim.  The letters were postmarked New York City, she has no connection there.  One editor was told to take a call at a phone booth in the PanAm Building in NYC, not something Barb would have been able to know about.   I can’t see Max thinking Clara was a completely different person than LeClair and how he would be fooled by a man who became a woman.  Also, why would Barb tell everyone she was Cooper and not tell them she was LeClair and Clara?  The list goes on and on.  So, she read Max Gunther, so did a lot of people.  Of course, LeClair would contact editors in the New York area, he was from the area.  Barb was in the Northwest when this was going down.

Next steps: I am in the process of doing a deeper analysis on the letters to prove they are from different people, but anyone can see just by looking at the letters.  Even using basic Microsoft Word for readability statistics will tell you the letters are different. 

There are two letters in the Gunther book from LeClair, one letter from Clara.  There are three letters in the Forman book from Barb.  I plan to look into all of those.  However, it is clear that Barb is a completely different writer than LeClair and Clara.

Nicky continues to be the spokesperson for the anti-Gunther and anti-Smith group and has focused all his efforts on discounting William Smith.  No one seems to be asking him any questions about this.  That would take integrity to do so. 

This recent news is not groundbreaking as Nicky stated, and it did not break the Vortex, and it is not the best of Darren’s podcasts. Darren has had over 70 podcasts since 2018, there are many ones that are better.

Ryan stated that stylometry has been used in court. I agree, it has.  However, this set would not be used in court based off such short letters.

I’ve heard it compared to the Unabomber manifesto.  That manifesto was 35,000 words, the Clara letter is about 200.  Also, the Unabomber manifesto was read by Ted Kaczynski’s brother (after his wife), and they had a similar sized paper to compare it to.  Those were almost exactly alike.  The Barb/Clara letters are so very different.

Some will say that this is Facebook, and we are just hobbyists.  However, I think this group is different. This is not a group that meets to discuss flat earth, it is legitimate, and it ruins it for all of us when we tolerate trolls, or when we act like a bunch of school children jumping on the latest fad.

If you want to see the letters, go to my site www.dbcooperhijack.com and go to FILES and you’ll see NEW: Clara-Barb Letters.  Enjoy.

Couple of questions.

What agenda do you think I have? I don’t have “a guy” I have always been in the dead camp. Anyone alive after 24/11/71 was a no from me and this has never changed.

Why do I have no business talking about this? What more right do you have to be here than anyone else?

When it comes to me being a self-proclaimed novelist il put this to you and as a military man I’m sure you will appreciate it, how about we compare resumes and il flip you for it? 

  • Like 2

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I definitely erred by agreeing to do the podcast before I had a chance to put my findings into writing somewhere. My explanation is simply I haven't had time. As some know, I have a young child that takes most of my free time and since his birth I have tried to move away from the Vortex. I also have a demanding day job. Not having something in writing about this is on me. Mea culpa.

To address the criticisms: There is a sample size issue. These results are probabalistic, and a false positive is always a possibility. I was using the Signature stylometry software that is about 25 years old. I would much prefer to let the DNA sample taken from Clara's letter do the talking.

The Forman's will be supplying me with more writing samples from Barb and I believe there's a way to address the sample size issue. I will also try to find reasonable control samples to test as well. (I did test control samples of other writibg about Cooper, but I'd like find something contemporaneous to 1982 when the Clara letter was written)

 

 

 

 

  • Like 2

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
13 hours ago, georger said:

If the tie could be connected to Barb that would be huge .... I am very impressed by your work with Barb. I never could understand what Smith saw in Dayton - now I see it!  Is Smith aware of the work you have done ?

I haven't talked to Bruce yet, no. I should tho, haven't talked to him recently.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
24 minutes ago, Chaucer said:

Here is a list of free downloadable stylometry programs in case you wish to run the analysis again with a different one:

https://guides.temple.edu/stylometryfordh/programs

Download those Chaucer and let me know what you come up with.  We have one Clara letter that is 200 words, you're better off doing a visual comparison.  Clara could type and spell, it does not look like Barb was too good at it.  But next I'm sure someone will say that Barb dictated to someone.

Have at it.  That is one of the sites I quoted from. It lists three programs, and just because you can download does not mean someone knows how to use these.  One is Signature, which we've already determined is suspect.  The second is JGAAP which has not been updated since 2013.  It takes some training to use Java, but it is not as widely used anymore.  Data scientists have graduated to R and Python and other coding platforms.  The third one mentioned is R Stylo.  Good luck learning that one It takes time. I've taken courses in R, and have used R Stylo.

The Formans are some of the nicest people in the Vortex, and that is probably why people give them leeway on the Barb story.  If someone reads the book, believe me they would not be investing time in Barb for anything.  It's a fun story and gets viewers, that's it.  They want her to be Clara as much as they want her to be Cooper.

Let me know if disagreeing with Barb is making fun of a trans person like you claimed I was doing with women, an autistic guy, and an admin for Facebook when I disagreed with them and called them out.

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, CooperNWO305 said:

Download those Chaucer and let me know what you come up with.  We have one Clara letter that is 200 words, you're better off doing a visual comparison.  Clara could type and spell, it does not look like Barb was too good at it.  But next I'm sure someone will say that Barb dictated to someone.

Have at it.  That is one of the sites I quoted from. It lists three programs, and just because you can download does not mean someone knows how to use these.  One is Signature, which we've already determined is suspect.  The second is JGAAP which has not been updated since 2013.  It takes some training to use Java, but it is not as widely used anymore.  Data scientists have graduated to R and Python and other coding platforms.  The third one mentioned is R Stylo.  Good luck learning that one It takes time. I've taken courses in R, and have used R Stylo.

The Formans are some of the nicest people in the Vortex, and that is probably why people give them leeway on the Barb story.  If someone reads the book, believe me they would not be investing time in Barb for anything.  It's a fun story and gets viewers, that's it.  They want her to be Clara as much as they want her to be Cooper.

Let me know if disagreeing with Barb is making fun of a trans person like you claimed I was doing with women, an autistic guy, and an admin for Facebook when I disagreed with them and called them out.

It is nice to see movement and something new in Cooper research!  Refreshing.....  

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
(edited)
5 hours ago, CooperNWO305 said:

Posted on FB.  Putting it here for you guys not on there.

Well, as usual the Vortex has jumped to conclusions, jumped on the bandwagon, and got overly excited about something that for all practical purposes is wrong.  I’m referring to the recent podcast that makes an overly optimistic claim that Barb Dayton was Max Gunther’s Clara/Dan LeClair and used a concept called stylometry to “prove” it. The Vortex leaks like a sieve, and although people like to talk about how they trust each other, there is not much trust, as I had an idea of what was coming, it’s not that hard to figure out.  I’d like to say I expected something better from the Vortex, but I’ve been too de-sensitized by things now.  DNA is about the only thing left worth talking about.

I admit that I waited a little bit to see who would chime in, and I was no disappointed, as the usual suspects made sure to quickly jump on the bandwagon and criticize what they do not know about and are not educated about.  Most of you in the Vortex are not part of this, so don’t take it personally. However, I can say with confidence that most of the people in the group have never heard of stylometry before this week.  I have, I’ve used it.  Even four years ago on the DZ I brought it up.

This is a long post.  Some of it is more staccato than harmony, but I’ll try to clean things up a bit when I write the paper.  Some of these are just bulleted thoughts.  Directions to a file with the Barb and Clara letters are at the end.  Due to some of the complexity of explaining things, I will summarize here and then do a paper with more details.

I want to say that Martin and Darren have always acted in a neutral fashion and this post is meant to be critical of their process and not critical of the individuals. Although, I do have criticism for a number of other individuals.  Darren has been criticized in the past for asking softball questions, and I do think he could have dug deeper into questions on this podcast.  I think Martin and Darren’s hearts are in the right place, as are the Formans. In the end, I think a group of the usual suspects pounced on Martin’s work and attempted to use it to advance their own agenda.

I was hoping that more people would ask some of the basic questions before jumping to conclusions, such as quality of the software program, age of the program, peer review, skill level with current software programs, awareness of available software, recent course work, and continuing education.  Martin and I have talked many times, he is smart and is educated, however I do think this current work needs more peer reviews.  Something of this “magnitude” should have been peer reviewed in advance, and not by a lawyer (Ryan) and a self-proclaimed novelist (Jude).  Jude has clearly demonstrated bias in the past, and I was hoping as a lawyer, Ryan would have asked some harder questions, I know he would have if he was defending a client.

A few people have made some comments questioning this podcast/use of stylometry, and a few have messaged me, but for the most part it seems like people have just taken what they’ve been told and parroted it.  I frankly am not surprised given how people have jumped on the bandwagon on Rackstraw, McCoy, Boeing, RMI, Tektronix, RemCru, Vordahl, and most recently John L’s suspect.  Group think is alive and well in the Vortex. 

Over 4 years ago I mentioned stylometry on the DZ, but I had actually started to research it as early as 2018 and was introduced to the tools that I used as early as 2012.  I’ve used the program to analyze the Cooper Forum posts to see who might be double posting, I was completely underwhelmed by the Signature program and needed to use other methods to identify who I believed to be a couple of people over the years who had double posted or had posted on other sites.

Signature is the name of the program Martin used.  It came out in 2003 and has not been updated since.  That is 21 years ago. People were using flip phones when this came out.  A Temple University article states “There is no evidence of Signature 2.0 coming out, so this is likely not a sustainable platform.”  It is good for a classroom as a concept but not great in practice.

There are actually much better programs out there like R and Python.  Those take skills to learn and actual use to stay relevant.  I’m trained in both of those of programming languages, but more importantly, I have access to peers who teach those programs and some who are PhDs who are much better at it than me.   R and Python are the best for data science and research. I’ve reached out to peers, PhDs, linguists, etc.  Some to get their overall thoughts on these letters, some to discuss using current software and programming like R and Python to analyze the letters.  The early response is that the letters are just too short.

Nicky and the others have thrown out terms like 97% accurate and that controls were used. Fancy terms, but garbage in garbage out, the letter loaded was a corrected version, not the original one with spelling errors.  The letters are too short.  Normally stylometry is used for books and long passages.  If something is 97% accurate, I expect to be able to bet my life on it.  Whenever I hear the term “statistically significant” I think of someone trying to pull the wool over my eyes. Yes, I’ve been schooled in statistics, but statistically significant is not the same as practical significance.  The letters are clearly from different people.

My job title in the Army is “Operations Research and Systems Analyst”, ORSA for short.  A short blurb on this describes the career field well: “ORSA officers use analytic methods and mathematically based procedures to enable leadership decisions in a constantly changing global environment. The ORSAs introduce quantitative analysis to the military decision-making processes by developing and applying probability models, statistical inference, simulations, optimization and economics models.”  The most important thing is that I work everyday with ORSAs software engineers, data analysts, etc.  I have a great network to pull from, even if I can’t do the work myself.

Eric actually asked Nicky, and Nicky clearly admitted that he does not know about Stylometry.  He called it AI, which is not true, it is not AI.  Jude has made his usual fantastic claims on the DZ inserting himself into things he really has no business talking about.  These were the two guys among others who were claiming Gunther made the whole thing up.  Nicky clearly is parroting what he hears and has no concept of the underlying data, themes, software, or application. He constantly changes suspects and stances, and has created a maze for himself that he will never get out of.

I’ve worked with Martin Andrade for many years, and he was one of the first people I talked to in the case. So, I don’t want this to come across as critical of him as a person.  He has integrity.  However, I do think that there is a group out there that enjoys bashing William Smith and my research, and this group seems to overlap with the Anti Eric Ulis group, they are the same people. I call it the anti-EU faction, the best term I’ve heard is The Cabal. That makes me laugh.  I’m glad to be lumped in with Eric, I don’t always agree with him, but he does stand up for what he believes. I was happy to see him ask Nicky the hard questions last night.

I’m open to evaluating letters from William Smith and his wife.  Although I’m sure the family will not provide those, no more than they have been able to provide pictures of Smith from the 1970s.  That is a different item, and I continue to do my research on that.  William Smith continues to be a very viable and interesting person.  Even if Smith is proven to not have written the letters, he still stands alone as a good POI given his background.

So:  What does this mean?  Well, Barb is not Clara. Barb has zero connection to the book. Zero.  And frankly this is a ridiculous claim.  The letters were postmarked New York City, she has no connection there.  One editor was told to take a call at a phone booth in the PanAm Building in NYC, not something Barb would have been able to know about.   I can’t see Max thinking Clara was a completely different person than LeClair and how he would be fooled by a man who became a woman.  Also, why would Barb tell everyone she was Cooper and not tell them she was LeClair and Clara?  The list goes on and on.  So, she read Max Gunther, so did a lot of people.  Of course, LeClair would contact editors in the New York area, he was from the area.  Barb was in the Northwest when this was going down.

Next steps: I am in the process of doing a deeper analysis on the letters to prove they are from different people, but anyone can see just by looking at the letters.  Even using basic Microsoft Word for readability statistics will tell you the letters are different. 

There are two letters in the Gunther book from LeClair, one letter from Clara.  There are three letters in the Forman book from Barb.  I plan to look into all of those.  However, it is clear that Barb is a completely different writer than LeClair and Clara.

Nicky continues to be the spokesperson for the anti-Gunther and anti-Smith group and has focused all his efforts on discounting William Smith.  No one seems to be asking him any questions about this.  That would take integrity to do so. 

This recent news is not groundbreaking as Nicky stated, and it did not break the Vortex, and it is not the best of Darren’s podcasts. Darren has had over 70 podcasts since 2018, there are many ones that are better.

Ryan stated that stylometry has been used in court. I agree, it has.  However, this set would not be used in court based off such short letters.

I’ve heard it compared to the Unabomber manifesto.  That manifesto was 35,000 words, the Clara letter is about 200.  Also, the Unabomber manifesto was read by Ted Kaczynski’s brother (after his wife), and they had a similar sized paper to compare it to.  Those were almost exactly alike.  The Barb/Clara letters are so very different.

Some will say that this is Facebook, and we are just hobbyists.  However, I think this group is different. This is not a group that meets to discuss flat earth, it is legitimate, and it ruins it for all of us when we tolerate trolls, or when we act like a bunch of school children jumping on the latest fad.

If you want to see the letters, go to my site www.dbcooperhijack.com and go to FILES and you’ll see NEW: Clara-Barb Letters.  Enjoy.

Interesting. the Unabomber manifesto was read by Ted Kaczynski’s brother (after his wife), and they had a similar sized paper to compare it to.  Those were almost exactly alike.

The wife of David Kaczynski,  Linda Patrik, had edited some of Ted's early work when they were all together in Chicago. So she was familiar with Ted's unique style and phraseology - in several cases she recalled/found direct matches to syntax and sentences Ted had used in previous editorial essays she had edited for Ted ... David already had his own suspicions and concerns about his brother. Linda nagged David to read the manifesto. Finally he did . . .  the rest is history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kaczynski

Ted exposed himself when he wrote and published his Manifesto. His style was unique and in time a number of people who knew the Kaczynski's were trying to connect the manifesto with a person, including a newspaper editor in Montana who had met Ted and David and was living not to far from Ted ... I think in time a connection to Ted would have been made if not in the Chicago area, then in Montana. Ted was just too active and socially 'productive' not to be noticed and connected sooner or later. David and Linda had always been concerned about Ted getting into trouble . . . moving Ted to the rural area of Montana had been designed to try and keep Ted out of trouble ... ! David was a teacher in Lisbon, Ia for a time. The editor of the Montana news-paper that knew Ted took his degree in Iowa City, Ia and knew people in Lisbon, Ia ... its a  small world sometimes! Sooner or later it was going to catch up with Ted... 

Edited by georger
  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, CooperNWO305 said:

Let me know if disagreeing with Barb is making fun of a trans person like you claimed I was doing with women, an autistic guy, and an admin for Facebook when I disagreed with them and called them out.

???

You talk about the need for a different program besides Signature. I AGREE with you and share some for you and others to use. 

Then you take some kind of passive aggressive dig at me? Why? Haven't we moved on from the days when the Vortex was nothing but agendas and vendettas and petty jabs? 

You see, This is the problem. In your post, you made good points. There ARE questions about sample size. There IS a question about the reliability of older programs vs. new ones. There IS a need for peer review.

Then you go and make it personal and undermine your own argument talking about some ridiculous "Cabal" and taking shots at me for something that I said weeks ago - things that are true by the way.

Look, none of this is personal. Critiquing WJS is not a personal attack on you. Questioning Gunther is not some kind of conspiracy to ruin you. Discussing the idea that Barb was Clara is not some kind of personal affront directed at you. Suggesting such makes you look like a hypocrite who can dish it out but can't take it. You want to be able to "call people out" and "speak the truth", but when people disagree with then it's some conspiracy to discredit your work on WJS? C'mon...not every discussion is an argument. Not every debate is a fight. 

Worse, making this personal clouds your understanding of who is an ally and who isn't. My post was intended to HELP you and create space for further investigation into this, and somehow you thought I was piling on and attacked me for it.

When you see enemies behind every tree, the forest becomes a dark, lonely, scary place. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
7 hours ago, DanCooperHimself said:

Couple of questions.

What agenda do you think I have? I don’t have “a guy” I have always been in the dead camp. Anyone alive after 24/11/71 was a no from me and this has never changed.

Why do I have no business talking about this? What more right do you have to be here than anyone else?

When it comes to me being a self-proclaimed novelist il put this to you and as a military man I’m sure you will appreciate it, how about we compare resumes and il flip you for it? 

I'll answer.  You're deflecting from the question by making it seem that because you don't have a suspect that it means you don't have an agenda.  Nice try.  You do have an agenda and you've had one for a while.  Didn't you do a video that essentially claimed Gunther made up the whole thing, yet now you quickly come back saying that Barb was Clara, and instead of focusing on that, you made sure to tell us that her being Clara disqualifies Smith. You failed.

Unless you can show me some background in stylometry or programming, I still say you have no business talking about it.  Did you do the analysis on the plagarism? What program was used? As usual, you insert yourself unnecesarily.  You jumped the gun and now you and others have egg on their face.  You used Marty's good heart and tried to take advantage of it along with others.  You're using emotion here, trying to make it look like you're being bullied.  You're not, I never said you don't have a right to be here. So that's two for two where you have used a different question than the one I asked.

Three for three.  When did I ever say I am a novelist?  I'll save you the coin flip, I'm not.  I said you are a self proclaimed novelist.  Ernest Hemingway is a novelist, John Steinbeck is a novelist, Stephen King, etc.  You are clearly different.

You've made it clear that you don't like me, you've told a number of people that.  That makes you biased.  You've targeted my research on Gunther and Smith and have now come out looking foolish.  No need to reply, I thought I had you on mute anyhow.

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
(edited)
15 minutes ago, Chaucer said:

???

You talk about the need for a different program besides Signature. I AGREE with you and share some for you and others to use. 

Then you take some kind of passive aggressive dig at me? Why? Haven't we moved on from the days when the Vortex was nothing but agendas and vendettas and petty jabs? 

You see, This is the problem. In your post, you made good points. There ARE questions about sample size. There IS a question about the reliability of older programs vs. new ones. There IS a need for peer review.

Then you go and make it personal and undermine your own argument talking about some ridiculous "Cabal" and taking shots at me for something that I said weeks ago - things that are true by the way.

Look, none of this is personal. Critiquing WJS is not a personal attack on you. Questioning Gunther is not some kind of conspiracy to ruin you. Discussing the idea that Barb was Clara is not some kind of personal affront directed at you. Suggesting such makes you look like a hypocrite who can dish it out but can't take it. You want to be able to "call people out" and "speak the truth", but when people disagree with then it's some conspiracy to discredit your work on WJS? C'mon...not every discussion is an argument. Not every debate is a fight. 

Worse, making this personal clouds your understanding of who is an ally and who isn't. My post was intended to HELP you and create space for further investigation into this, and somehow you thought I was piling on and attacked me for it.

When you see enemies behind every tree, the forest becomes a dark, lonely, scary place. 

Chaucer: I've been waiting for you to gaslight, and you did.  That's your MO.  I know how you argue.  You are trained in logic, and I find that approach from you to be pretty legit, but not gaslighting. Get a new line, you are using classic gaslighting to make it look like I'm crazy.  You've done this with Fly too.

I did not find the post helpful.  Why would you suggest an article on stylometry to me that I quoted in my post on stylometry?  I just got done telling you that I've researched it, and you can insinuate from my post that I did some current searches too.  I just told everyone what programs to use.  Nice try.  Whether you meant it or not, it comes across as you thinking there is a simple way to do this.  There isn't.  But I think you should try.  

Edited by CooperNWO305

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
9 minutes ago, CooperNWO305 said:

I'll answer.  You're deflecting from the question by making it seem that because you don't have a suspect that it means you don't have an agenda.  Nice try.  You do have an agenda and you've had one for a while.  Didn't you do a video that essentially claimed Gunther made up the whole thing, yet now you quickly come back saying that Barb was Clara, and instead of focusing on that, you made sure to tell us that her being Clara disqualifies Smith. You failed.

Unless you can show me some background in stylometry or programming, I still say you have no business talking about it.  Did you do the analysis on the plagarism? What program was used? As usual, you insert yourself unnecesarily.  You jumped the gun and now you and others have egg on their face.  You used Marty's good heart and tried to take advantage of it along with others.  You're using emotion here, trying to make it look like you're being bullied.  You're not, I never said you don't have a right to be here. So that's two for two where you have used a different question than the one I asked.

Three for three.  When did I ever say I am a novelist?  I'll save you the coin flip, I'm not.  I said you are a self proclaimed novelist.  Ernest Hemingway is a novelist, John Steinbeck is a novelist, Stephen King, etc.  You are clearly different.

You've made it clear that you don't like me, you've told a number of people that.  That makes you biased.  You've targeted my research on Gunther and Smith and have now come out looking foolish.  No need to reply, I thought I had you on mute anyhow.

 

Well, that’s not true Dave. I’ve actually said lots of times that you’re a good guy and you’re duly thanked in the back of my book about DB Cooper. 

I don’t have an agenda because frankly I’m too busy. I’ve moved on to my next book. What agenda could I possibly have? It’s not like I’m short of publicity, social media followers, a mailing list, subscribers, readers, or media appearances even before coming into the Vortex. 
 

Never did I say Gunther made the book up, you didn’t watch the video - in fact I gave him high praise and always have. Il quote you “anything over 55m is a non-starter”. 
 

We use stylometry frequently in our business - we have our own app (The EndeeSphere App), and I’ve bought/sold numerous apps over the years so yes I have a good knowledge of programming, coding, editing software, plagiarism detection and more. I used the same software license for all my books, social content, and advertising materials. 
 

Id love to talk to you man. You’ve really got the wrong end of the stick here. I’m not anti-Gunther, anti-WJS, anti-Fudeman, I’m pro-discussion and debate. I’ve never gotten personal or been unnecessarily cruel toward you. 
 

I don’t sit at night thinking of ways to ruin Dave Fudeman or crap on your research. I have much more pressing matters and see this as a hobby/discussion among friends. There is no anti-Dave faction, there is no conspiracy, I have nothing to gain from sharing my opinions on Cooper matters. 
 

I never claimed to be on Hemingway’s level either - he couldn’t lace my boots :) 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
(edited)

Some followup on Kaczynski. In Ted's cabin at Lincoln MT was the typewriter he used to type a number of messages including his 'manifesto'. At the same time, a person or persons unknown was being sought for committing a series of Federal crimes in the Lincoln MT area, going back years. Vandalism to rail lines, vandalism to trains (moving and parked), vandalism to State and National Park equipment, poisoning of park ranger's dogs and animals, and on and on and on. Ted was already under suspicion from a number of angles; he had been arrested on several occasions with cases dismissed for lack of evidence. Ted was under observation. The minute Ted's cabin was entered for any reason and its contents inspected, a link to the Unabomber case was all but assured. All of this independent of the FBI's Unabomber case.   

Edited by georger
  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
(edited)
3 hours ago, CooperNWO305 said:

Comparison of word use between the Clara and Barb letters. 

 

That is a good visual - but in my book that item alone does not hold a candle to Marty's overall contributions to the Vortex.

For me, I don't require a spreadsheet or any fancy programs to "know" that Barb's not Cooper. Mentally I can do the math on that candidate and it doesn't add up to our guy.

I find it fun to ask myself often WWCT of all this?

 

 

 

 

Edited by Cola
  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
(edited)
18 minutes ago, Cola said:

That's a good visual - nice exercise.

Although, I don't require a spreadsheet or any fancy programs to "know" that Barb's not Cooper. Mentally I can do the math on that one and it doesn't add up to our guy.

 

As a thought exercise ask yourself  - WWCT of all this?

 

 

 

The question really isn't "Is Barb Dayton DB Cooper?"  I think we can all agree that is very highly unlikely. Rather, the question at hand is "Did Barb Dayton write the Clara letters to Max Gunther?" 

That is a much more likely possibility based on Marty Andrade's analysis. However, that analysis - and even Marty would agree - should not be taken at face value. More investigation and analysis needs to be done to really put this to bed, but initially the results seem very encouraging. 

Edited by Chaucer

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I also wouldn't be surprised if it were true, and also think the sample size is probably too small to get thrilled about. It also wouldn't surprise me if it WEREN'T true; after all, that's a very specific longshot, and I'd personally want to see the writing compared to other LETTERS of the time, related to the skyjacking--maybe the "confession" letters sent to the papers, for example. 

I also think the most likely option is thatCooper died in the event, and I also would not be surprised at all if Gunther made up every single word of the book, including the letters.

However, one way or another, one thing is indisputable: regardless of all of that, "DB Cooper" cannot have been involved in the Gunther book, because there are errors that the actual skyjacker would be the first and best to know better than. 

So if the book is false (regardless of whether Gunther was duped or crafty), there is no connection to nice old Mr. S, other than a picture that looks like he might have been imagined to look later in life. And if the book is NOT false, the question arises: where is the Smith character in it?

Clara = Barb or not, there's just no path that leads to any legitimacy around WJS.

(Spoiler alert: he's not.)

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
51 minutes ago, Chaucer said:

The question really isn't "Is Barb Dayton DB Cooper?"  I think we can all agree that is very highly unlikely. Rather, the question at hand is "Did Barb Dayton write the Clara letters to Max Gunther?" 

That is a much more likely possibility based on Marty Andrade's analysis. However, that analysis - and even Marty would agree - should not be taken at face value. More investigation and analysis needs to be done to really put this to bed, but initially the results seem very encouraging. 

I'm personally not into Gunther, Clara and all of that, but even in the tangential stuff I still believe there is good to come from it. 

Maybe the ultimate benefit of Gunther's work is that it has brought stylometry to the attention of the Vortex and that unlocks something further. Maybe Gunther's book is that first step or a step of a butterfly effect that brings this case to conclusion. who knows. 

I try to keep my energy and time on the case material and not go deep on candidates or tangential works.  

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, Cola said:

That is a good visual - but in my book that item alone does not hold a candle to Marty's overall contributions to the Vortex.

For me, I don't require a spreadsheet or any fancy programs to "know" that Barb's not Cooper. Mentally I can do the math on that candidate and it doesn't add up to our guy.

I find it fun to ask myself often WWCT of all this?

 

 

 

 

It sounds like there might be some confusion. As much as we all disagree about things in the Vortex, I don’t think any of us believe Barb was Cooper. There may be one or two outside the Formans. This all has to do with whether or not she is Clara. 
 

For all the people who were convinced that Max made the whole thing up, they sure did change their minds quickly. 

  • Like 2

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, CooperNWO305 said:


For all the people who were convinced that Max made the whole thing up, they sure did change their minds quickly. 

Not me! I'm still leaning toward complete fiction. 

I do have a question though. This is what makes me scratch my head the hardest when it comes to Gunther researchers, with you and Marty being the top two. Gunther says Clara never gave him Cooper's real name. Gunther wrote that he just calls him "Dan LeClair" because he has French-Canadian background. So why did you guys seek out connections based on a name that the author admits is fictional? Even if Clara DID give Gunther the real name of Cooper, there's no way Gunther would have just thrown the real name out there nor does it seem like he'd supply a name that was close to Cooper's real name. So shouldn't Dan LeClair/Dan Clare, etc., be a complete non-starter. 

So to research anything concerning Dan LeClair must mean that you think two things: 1. Clara actually gave Gunther Cooper's real name (why in the hell would she do that?), and 2. Gunther decided to publish the real name or something extraordinarily similar to it (and why the hell would he do that?). 

Am I wrong? 

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

49 49