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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.

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.

Has anyone independently verified the Village Voice listing from 72? I've looked for a copy extensively in online archives and can't find it. The following is my not-so-well informed opinion about a topic of The Vortex that I've not spent much time investigating on my own. So no need for anyone to get rustled over it and I'm glad to be proven wrong about it since I admittedly haven't really researched it nearly as much as others have, specifically Dave, Marty, and Flyjack. 1. Truth If this book involved the real Cooper and his real girlfriend, then I think it's mostly useless in trying to determine the real Cooper. To protect his source, Gunther would have absolutely had to change certain biographical information. If she was real, Clara should have easily been identified by a number of Clark or Cowlitz County residents given the information that is in the book. Born in Longview. Had an older brother and sister. Father died in 1950. Round face and wore glasses. Attended college in her hometown. It's hard to fathom that being accurate biographical information. As for Cooper. A Canadian born American paratrooper who ran for Rutgers track after the war? That shouldn't be too hard to find. Yet none of these individuals have been found, so clearly those biographical details aren't authentic. This is all assuming that Clara gave Gunther accurate biographical information to begin with. If she was worried about criminal liability, then why would she give Gunther accurate biographical information about herself? So either way, be it Clara changing details to protect herself or Gunther changing details to protect his source, we have to assume that the biographical information contained in the book is a complete non-starter and mostly useless for identification purposes. And with complete respect to my friends who have spent years pursuing this as a lead, isn't the name Dan LeClair a total invention by Gunther? I don't proclaim to be an expert on the book, but Clara never gave Gunther Cooper's name, right? So chasing leads based on that name should also be a complete non-starter. So if we assume that Gunther was contacted by the real person, then the only informative aspects of the book for those of us in The Vortex are with the narrative of what occurred before and after the hijacking. 2. Hoax Don't have too much to say about this except that there is a well respected researcher in The Vortex who believes they may have identified the hoaxer and it's a fascinating theory. It's not my place to go into those details though. I'm sure they'll announce their findings if and when something comes of it. 3. Fiction I'm sure I'll catch heat for my opinion on this, but this is where I'm leaning lately. I believe it's very possible this is performance art. It's nothing new for an artist, be it an author or filmmaker, to portray something as truthful that is fictional. What immediately comes to mind is The Blair Witch Project claiming that it was "found footage". Or even the beginning of Fargo: "The following is based on true events." For those claiming Gunther was taking a professional risk, why would this be a risk if it was actually just made up? This was an individual Additionally, I spent some time recently looking at reviews from 1986 (I found about 15) and despite what many people have claimed over the years on the forums, I found that most of the critics reviews were positive. It appeared to me that the majority of the reviews understood it to be fiction, wrapped in a rouse of truth for artistic effect. None of those who believed it was fiction attacked Gunther's reputation or anything like that, so I don't buy that narrative that he was taking a risk. The only person who claimed this was a risk was Gunther himself during the promotion of the book. To me that just seems like part of the whole "is it real or isn't it?" schtick. To use a wrestling term, Gunther was just engaging in Kayfabe. It's Gunther essentially saying "for real, this TOTALLY isn't made up by me...I mean I'm taking a risk here by believing it, so trust me." In fact, many of the literary critics applauded Gunther for how cleverly he devised it and how expertly written it was. So I don't see any risk if it was just 100% fictional because it appears that most of his peers believe it to be fiction from the get-go. Concerning Gunther/Clara et al, contacting Himmelsbach...It's worth noting that we've so far not found anything in the Vault (unless Flyjack has) that indicates that the actual FBI was contacted by anyone about this. Contacting Himmelsbach, a retired FBI agent, with a falsity would not open anyone up to liability. However, contacting the FBI with a known falsehood could possibly have had criminal consequences. I believe, if this was indeed a work of fiction, that contacting Himmelsbach was done to try and add credibility to the story by hopefully having him comment on it. There may even be evidence of this that we found in Himmy's papers that we went through last year. There was a letter from Gunther's publishing company to Himmy informing him that they were about to begin a publicity campaign for the book and that they were hoping that he would provide a comment to assist in their advertising efforts. I believe this may be the cause of Himmelsbach's particularly negative comments about Gunther and the book that he gave to reporters: I think he felt he was being used as a pawn or a tool by Gunther/the publishing company. Ultimately, I find the whole story to be too "cute" to be realistic. This criminal hijacker is found by a single lady and she nurses him back to health and they fall in love. Really? C'mon. That positively reeks of someone's fictional account: either Gunther's or a hoaxer's. I'm attaching an interesting Seattle Times review. This critic actually spent time looking for lakes and for the doctor and for anyone who might know Clara. SeattleTimes-Nov 21, 1985.pdf

That was AFTER the decision to overhaul it. What originally PROMPTED the decision to overhaul it is the question, not what they did to make the sketch good AFTER their decision was made. Those additional modifications could have just been applied to the Bing sketch. But they lacked confidence in Bing due to their misunderstanding of which sketch Flo was criticizing, so they started over. Bottom line is that if Flo wasn’t the prime mover in getting the new sketch made, then why would her testimony be the polestar feature of all 4 memos that discuss why they are changing it?

I NEVER SAID IT WAS THE ONLY REASON!!! Stop straw manning me. They clearly wanted to do a sketch that showed Cooper being older. But they would NOT have created an entirely new likeness of Cooper except that they EXPLICITLY STATED that they believed there was a disagreement among the witnesses about the sketch. There wasn’t a disagreement. They misinterpreted Flo’s comments and thought she was talking about Bing, THUS they thought there was a disagreement. Without their mistake they’d have likely just aged Bing up and put color to him. Show me a criticism of Comp A that would make the FBI think they needed to trash the sketch and start from scratch. You think Gregory saying the guy needed Nixon hair and rounder cheeks would have been enough for them to disregard the stews all liking the sketch?? No way.

This is so dumb. You think Roy Rose needed a mugshot to properly age a drawing up? No. He did not. KK5-1 was sent to Rose because the FBI thought Flo was saying the Bing sketch needed to look more like that. This isn’t complicated You absolutely know I’m right and are just being belligerent because I discovered something that you did not. Grow up.

I found your criticism to be a petulant joke

Lighten up, Francis

I asked that stewardess that. She said they spent an afternoon during their stewardess training focus on how to handle hijacks. Essentially, they were told to just keep the hijacker happy and keep passengers calm. She said they were taught where to put a bomb on the plane that would cause the least amount of damage. Said they were told to wrap any explosive device in blankets and shove it against a particular place (I've forgotten). She said that later on in the early 80's they did a more extensive training and their teachers were guys from Mossad.

Colorized and aged with a wider nose and pointier chin as per eyewitness suggestions.

Just to get this straight. It's your belief that even if they KNEW that Flo had no major complaints with Bing, they STILL would have sent KK5-1 to Roy Rose instead of just saying "recommend you adjust the sketch to make him look mid 40's"?

Well, regardless of whether they thought she was reliable or not, the Cary sketch was created with KK5-1 as a template because the FBI mistakenly thought she chose KK5-1 in opposition to the Bing sketch.

He's a grown man in his mid-30's. He has personal agency to do whatever he wants. I looked into a suspect with him. Doesn't mean I'm his handler nor that I ever was. I just counted 6 other people whom I'm also currently assisting with their suspects. I'll continue to introduce suspects to the Vortex whom I think deserve to be investigated, same as I did with Braden and Vordahl. Just this past year I've introduced Leigh Seller and also Orville Lyons and James Roman (I spoke publicly at CooperCon about all three). There's another suspect being introduced soon in a book that I've greatly assisted on. If I find a suspect compelling, I'll gladly promote them as warranting further investigation by members of the Vortex.

And I entirely disagree. She was the cause of them overhauling the sketch instead of merely aging him and coloring him. If you genuinely think that your two best witnesses said a sketch "looked 100% like him" and that they liked the sketch "very much", then you don't create a completely new likeness, you merely make adjustments to it. They thought one of their best witnesses hated it, so they decided to start fresh. It's not complicated.

You're misunderstanding the timing. Hopefully this chart clears it up.

omg. Never change, Flyjack. That was a literal checkmate. My conclusion was that they never would have completely overhauled the sketch without them misunderstanding what sketch Flo was referring to. This document is the first time that they decided that a new sketch was needed. They write "a key witness said the sketch sucked" and the very next sentence is "so it is recommended that we make a new sketch". Again, for the millionth time, do you really think they'd have ordered a totally new sketch if they thought that their primary witnesses were in agreement? Absurd. They KEEP highlighting "Flo said the sketch sucked". That's literally in FOUR MEMOS: 5-30-72, 8-4-72, 8-7-72, and 8-23-72. And I'm not elevating Comp A or denigrating Comp B. I think you view everything anyone does in this case as suspicious and with an agenda. My only agenda is to get the history of the investigation right for my book. It should be clear to anyone who is objective that they think Flo is talking about Comp A.

Well this CLEARLY indicates their mistake. This is from May 72 and was written in part by Detlor, so maybe he's to blame for the mix-up, not Farrell. You had some wiggle room to argue about those memos we were previously discussing, but this is inarguable unless you want to be intellectually dishonest. It's very clear that they think Flo is talking about Comp A in this document from May from when they first thought about re-doing the sketch. There's an entire page that follows that one and they don't say a word about him needing to be older or about KK5-1. They straight up thought that Flo said that Comp A sucked. It's undeniable.

Yet he ALSO uses Hancock's statement from Nov 25th and makes no indication that this is a reference to a SEPARATE sketch. It's clear to me that Farrell's constant references to "THE artist's conception", and his use of a Nov 25th statement while seemingly discussing Bing, means that he must have thought there was only ONE batch of sketches (the Comp A's).

well thanks for nothing, Unsolved Mysteries. They could have at least shown this footage.