olemisscub

Ich schatze das!

Yes, I really, really don't like that narrative for the hijacking. It's especially nonsensical because the government did NOT want to be paying for airline security. The government wanted it to be the responsibility of the individual airlines to pay for additional security measures. So, saying the deep state was involved is silly to me because they had no incentive. This was a clever bank robbery, that's all. That said, I think there is a very, very real possibility that Cooper was CIA adjacent at some point in his life, likely through Air America. He fits the mold very well of their middle aged renegade pilots who flew in Vietnam. As I said in the show, I came across a news article from 1972 where a guy said the average age of Air America pilots was 43 years old. These guys were mercenaries. They risked their lives for profit. So, Cooper would have been used to this sort of dangerous game. The fact that Air America dropped men and material out of 727's with 15 degree flaps and gear down is almost too coincidental to believe.

Skip is a solid suspect.

Latest Vault release might be the very first Vault release where there was literally nothing of value in it.

In case anyone is interested in watching tonight...

Looked into him. He did have an arrest in 1963 for assaulting a couple of Sheriff's deputies, but nothing else stood out. The main hesitation for me to consider anyone who was an actual recreational skydiver is that Cooper would have brought his own chute if he was one of them. I've not spoken to any skydivers on the topic who would have trusted random chutes given to them. We can see it play out with our two copycats who were actual skydivers, McCoy and Heady. Both of them brought their own chutes with them. Cooper may have had a few freefalls (I suspect he did), but I don't think he was into skydiving enough to own personal gear, otherwise he'd have smuggled it on board like McCoy and Heady did.

He was talking about people who did it recreationally for fun. My ears also perked up as soon as he said but then I realized he was referring to the skydiving fad of "pulling a Cooper". It was a thing for a while to jump out the back of a 727 at skydiving events.

Unless they were asking for some preposterous amount, the hijackers usually got what they asked for. LaPoint asked for a measly 50k and got it Hahneman wanted 303k and got it McNally asked for 502k and got it Heady asked for 200k and got it Francis Goodell asked for 450k and got it Holder and Kerkow asked for 500k and got it The only one who I'm aware of who was short changed (who wasn't asking for millions) was Melvin Fisher He was the copycat who had the money tied to him with stairs lowered but lost his nerve and didn't jump. He asked for 550k and got 200k

I want to say that she joined the convent sometime in the very early 80's, because I believe she worked for NWA for another 9 or 10 years after the hijacking. I think a lot of the Cooper witnesses and participants were somewhat media shy because of what happened in the late 70's with the Coffelt stuff. Flo, Tina, Rat, and others were talking pretty freely to this movie producer from Hollywood who was trying to make some production based on Coffelt's story. There's a 302 where the FBI admonishes all of them and basically says "we can't stop you from talking to whomever you wish, but you need to understand that if you provide anyone with any information that could hurt the investigation in any way, you can be prosecuted." So I think that shut them up for quite a while. Tina was always a very religious and empathetic person. I don't think her going to the convent had anything whatsoever to do with Cooper. My list of suspects is just compiled of names in the FBI Files and names that others have put forward. I'll PM it to you.

Sweet Jesus…

But Cooper wasn't wearing "aviators" and those glasses I posted aren't aviators. I wear aviators myself. They're the only sunglasses I've worn as an adult. These aren't aviators nor was Cooper wearing aviators. Aviators do not have thick plastic frames (Tina, Alice) nor do they have any hint of a horn rim (Alice, Gregory) I defy you to find a photograph from WWII of anyone wearing sunglasses like those I posted.

Chris Cunningham recently found these sunglasses on eBay. These appear to be the closest analog to Cooper's. They are called Solarama's and they were produced in the 60's. I believe he and I bought the only two pairs on eBay. The listing even said they have a green/brown tint to them, which is how several passengers described Cooper's shades as looking like. Bill called them a "honey brown" tint and said that the rims were "very dark." When you search for these types of glasses from that era you rarely see them. Most sunglasses for men back then were expensive Italian type sunglasses, aviators, or the ubiquitous "bluesman" sunglasses. So because there were so few of these "proto-Oakleys" around at the time, these may actually be Cooper's sunglasses.

I desperately seek to never be the "I have access to something you don't" guy, but I've got Benzedrine 100% confirmed straight from Tina's mouth. There's no need to debate the veracity of whether Cooper did or didn't have it. He absolutely did. It'll be in my book. Again, I apologize for being like that as I always try to share my data, but I did think I could at least help save us all from having to speculate about the Bennies.

Generally yes, as long as the person testifying about it is determined by the court to be an expert.

Fair point there. But I'm just saying that this apparent 97% match being tied to a known Cooper bullshitter from that era has me intrigued and questioning my own belief that it was complete fiction.

Yeah, you're right. Just looked it up in the book. They are indeed quite specific about it. Yikes... How did Barb mess that up so badly?

I guess that’s where I’m somewhat intrigued by it. It’s a 97% match to a person who is already a known DB Cooper bullshitter.

The Forman’s wrote the book 20 years after discussing this with Barb. Maybe they are misremembering what Barb said. Perhaps she actually said that she jumped near Woodland and they misremembered it as Woodburn.

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?

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.

This is the only thing worthy of mentioning out of the latest Vault release. It's Hal Williams looking at photos and he discusses Cooper's hair a little bit. He seems to be criticizing the Bing sketch for not having enough hair and for the hair not being curlier. Also says Bing's head is too narrow. And it's too bad that we don't know who the suspect is who is redacted since he says Cooper looked five years older than whomever this suspect is.

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.