olemisscub

Two air pirates

https://www.oregonlive.com/history/2023/11/db-cooper-identity-remains-enduring-mystery-but-release-of-investigative-files-builds-case-for-fbi-effort.html

My brain tells me that it was there since 72 just due to the realistic scenarios that I can imagine in my head for how it got there, but my eyes tell me that it was 1-2 years.

“D.B. Cooper is a celebrity unspoiled by reality.” Outstanding quote from Professor John Wigger’s new book about McNally’s skyjacking. The Hijacking of American Flight 119: How D.B. Cooper Inspired a Skyjacking Craze and the FBI's Battle to Stop It https://a.co/d/9sscbBQ

Not published yet. Waiting on a few FOIA’s to come in. I’ve got a Cooper case big dog writing the forward for me. They really liked the samples I sent them.

It’s my understanding from a hydrologist that objects don’t cross rivers. They’ll stay on the same side.

You say this a lot, and maybe this a disconnect because you’re a Canadian, but lying to the FBI is felony. Americans know this. This isn’t something an established individual with everything to lose like Cameron would do on a lark. He caused an incredible amount of manhours to be spent on this “lie”. It would have essentially be obstruction of Justice to purposely distract the FBI like that. They’d have locked his ass up if they ever found out. We disagree I suppose, but I think this event occurred. It just wasn’t Cooper.

Just so you can forever banish this thought from your mind :-) • ⁠Mccoy’s photos were shown to all 10 eyewitnesses to Cooper and all 10 said it wasn't the same guy who hijacked their plane. • ⁠McCoy had blue eyes • ⁠McCoy didn't smoke (no one fake smokes). He ate candy during his hijacking due to his nerves...not smoking. • ⁠McCoy was believed to have gone to his class at BYU on the MORNING of the hijacking. • ⁠McCoy knew about Cooper so well because he wrote a term paper on Cooper in the spring of 72 (he was a criminal justice major) • ⁠McCoy constantly talked to friends about how he could do a skyjacking better than Cooper. • FBI are confident they have Cooper’s palm print. McCoy’s was compared and was no match. • ⁠Cooper spoke intelligentially and clearly with no accent. McCoy had a birth defect that gave him a lisp and he was from the south and possessed a southern accent. He had a high pitched voice. He was also a bit of a hillbilly. His voice was so odd that the pilots told the FBI that they thought he was disguising his voice. Turns out that was his actual voice. • ⁠McCoy was an absolute nervous wreck during his hijacking and even left his ransom note in the airport terminal where he had been sitting and accidentally locked himself inside the bathroom and had to be let out by a stewardess. • ⁠McCoy wore a disguise. Cooper (evidentially did not) • ⁠Their MO's were different: Cooper used a fake bomb whereas McCoy used a pistol and fake grenade. • ⁠Cooper kept the passengers in the dark. McCoy did not. it goes on and on and on.

You keep bringing up sketch A with me. I began this entire thing by saying that I do not believe the ghost is Cooper. Two things can be true here. This wasn’t Cooper yet he could still be telling his own truth of an incident that occurred to him. It’s the same thing with these other tips like script writer. We don’t have to believe that was Cooper to believe that the event happened.

Walking back or providing further context? You're reading that differently than I am. I understand how you're reading it. You think he made the whole thing up, so this is him trying to wiggle out of it. However, if you don't think he made it up, an alternate reading would be that he's actually trying to further assist their efforts. At that point, agents Romanoff and Pond had 433 cards in their possession of jumpers who fit their parameters. But this December 9th phone call from Cameron, which you are saying is him "walking back" his statement, could be seen as doubling down. By narrowing down when he thinks the encounter occurred, he told them that they could use that info to go check the flight records of all the jumps made during that time. They did this and it gave them a much more manageable 31 names. Again, I need you to explain to me how this story would actually benefit the guy when #1, he was already at the top of the food chain and didn't need any additional press, and #2 he was already in hot water for being a snitch. The most reasonable explanation is that this event likely occurred, the guy wasn't actually asking the questions for nefarious reasons, Cameron embellished the story a bit, and that it had nothing to do with Cooper. Also, the incident about the theft you are referring to was actually a possible charge of receiving stolen property. A Navy officer offered to trade Cameron some survival gear for some parachute gear. Cameron accepted. It turned out that the survival gear was originally reported stolen by the US Navy. However, upon investigation the Navy reported that the items were actually things that the Navy officer could have obtained for free, he just technically didn't ask for permission this time. So not only were the items not actually stolen, but Cameron had no idea that they were stolen. The whole thing was dropped rather quickly.

I have a chapter in my book on the Elsinore Ghost, and while I don't believe that Cooper was the ghost, I don't think Cameron was lying. He was a do-gooder. He had been an LAPD officer in the 1950s and spent 15 years as an officer in the military. The FBI had previously vetted him in the mid-60's and he was cleared to be an informant. In Jan 72, he was ousted as the National Director of the USPA by a 17-2 vote of their Board of Directors. He had found himself in hot water after making accusations that the U.S. Parachute Team were involved in illegal narcotics and were all drug users. The Board also voted to strip him of his ranking as an international skydiving judge. Doesn't seem like the type of individual who would go commit a felony by lying to the FBI. I strongly disagree with your assertion that he was trying to promote his publication because he wouldn't have even been allowed to publicize it. The FBI would have directed him not to disseminate it lest it compromise the investigation into the tip. And again, how could him making up the story have benefited him? He was already the National Director of the USPA and the biggest swinging dick in the entire skydiving community. If anything, providing the tip would have hurt his stock. Skydiving in that era was full of outlaws. Doing something that brought a bunch of feds around to your DZ would have been massively frowned upon, especially for someone about to be ousted by the community for snitching. I've tried like hell to find the early 72 issues of Sky Diver magazine to see if he actually promoted this story. There are no scanned versions online and the only ones for sale are part of a huge collection being sold as a lot. So there are no individual copies out there for purchase or viewing. I don't think he was lying about the encounter, but I would not be surprised if he embellished the story a bit. The skeptic in me has alarm bells going off during the the Raleigh cigarettes part. That's just way too on the nose to be totally authentic.

Owen McKenna, the Seattle PD homicide detective who drove the money to the airport (and whose unmarked car, a Dodge Dart, was used by Al Lee to drive to the plane) was in a shootout five years later.

I wouldn't dispute that. He had been discussing his delusions about Honduras for quite some time. A ransom hijacking would certainly be a quick way to make some money for his efforts. It's the parajacking part that I'm dubious about.

Correct. Detlor told this to me personally. If you think Hahneman is Cooper, then he cannot be a copycat, obviously. If you have actual evidence that he was planning a parajacking before NORJAK, then I'm all ears.

Heady said it was Cooper inspired. LaPoint had DB Cooper articles hanging on his walls. McNally said it was Cooper. We know about McCoy. The rest of those nitwits listed, the bulk of which were outright mentally disturbed, weren’t coming up with the concept on their own.

I’m willing to keep an open mind but this reeks of the “I know something you don’t know” that you did with Hahneman for years. Either put what you have out there or don’t bring it up. It’s a bit obnoxious to do that to people.

If you had evidence that he was planning a ransom hijacking with an escape via parachute before Cini, then no, he would not be a copycat.

I’ve yet to see any evidence of that.

Since I'm writing a book on the topic, it's something I had to define very early on. My definition was a ransom hijacking where the method of escape was going to be to jump out. Asking for parachutes as part of a ransom wasn't enough. The intent to jump needed to be there. I personally think 11 days was enough time. I'm not married to the idea that Cooper was a copycat, but I don't think any element of the crime would have required extensive planning. I just think the odds are greater that Cooper derived the idea from Cini than the odds that this was parallel thinking. The copycats who meet my criteria are: - Dan Cooper - Everett Holt - Billy Hurst - Richard LaPoint - Merlyn St. George - McCoy - Stanley Speck - Henrique Martins - Brazil - Lomas - Ecuador - Hahneman - Heady - Mac - Francis Goodell - Michael Green and Lulseged Tesfa - Melvin Fisher - Miloslav Hrabinec - Australia This is going off memory so there may be a few I've missed. There were several others who did demand parachutes, but my research shows they never were intending to actually use the parachutes to escape, so they don't qualify. These include the two Bulgarian hijackers shot and killed in San Francisco in July 72, Roger Holder and Cathy Kerkow, and also the three hijackers who got drunk and threatened to crash the plane into Oak Ridge Nuclear Facility.

First copycat attempt after Cooper was against a NWO plane in Chicago. Everett Holt. That was exactly one month later. The first parajacker to get out the door after Cooper was LaPoint. That was less than 2 months later. Not such a long time.

I swear to god I can’t tell if you are engaging in some sort of performance art or if you are genuinely this divorced from reality.

Ehhh, ya that teletype complicates things. Could just be that this how they got his attention. Doesn’t indicate that’s how he responded.

How do we know that was done via interphone? I’m thinking of Rat’s reenactment in the HBO doc. Obviously there would be noise on PA or interphone, but obviously there would be much more on PA IMG_9895.mov

I’ll be damned. That’s really interesting.

Hmmm, I'd be interested to see an additional source for that. It could be that the agent who wrote that was just using faulty nomenclature. Before I started investigating this case, I'm not precisely sure what I would have called the communication system inside a commercial jetliner if I had to write about it. Probably also just call it a PA system. In that same paragraph the agent is writing that Cooper addressed "the cabin", which is obviously incorrect as well. I'm going to guess this is just an agent who is confused about the nomenclature of the scene he's trying to represent. Additionally, during this conversation the cockpit are the ones who called Cooper. He would have just picked up the phone and answered it. He'd have no need or reason to be pushing any additional buttons.