CooperNWO305

Mitchell even suggests a toupee.

Anyone have a dictionary for what the terms mean under complexion? Would swarthy or olive fall under Ruddy or Dark?

If he had picked up August of 71 he would not have seen 305 was a 727, at least from the one I have. But in October he would have.

Georger: I'd be interested to hear what you come up with regarding the insurance company. I've discussed this with some people before, and the general thought is that their money just got thrown away when they went out of business or merged, or whatever happened to them. I just wonder though if someone working there would have seen that money and maybe took it home as a souvenir and it is sitting in a box somewhere. I honestly don't know what the procedure was for that company in terms of destroying evidence like that, but maybe something slipped through the cracks.

When you respond to my post and use a term like gaslight, then you are being aggressive and personal, whether it is shrouded in fancy words or roundabout comments. So responding to my post, to me, with condescension, is personal. You can throw in a term like aggressive and maybe get some attention, but you using fancy words and tactics does not mean you are being "nice" so to say. It is actually passive aggressive. If you want to act high and mighty, then I'm going to call you out. Maybe it is your personality and you don't mean to do it. Doesn't really matter, you do it enough for it to stand out as an issue.

You are only reinforcing my commentary. Planes crash, yes, but the odds are very low. Cooper was not a crashed plane, and saying this is the exact same as Malaysia 370 is just completely off the wall. You are telling us that we have a vested interest in Cooper surviving and if we didn't, then the calculations or observations would be the same. You are stoking doubt, that is gaslighting. Trying to sow doubt by talking in circles and making statements like probability is only or the future. That is complete BS. Complete. There are many examples of where probability can be used to determine how something occurred, or where an item might be, or say where a plane started it's day or a missile was launched from. I've seen the trend on your posts. You like to inject doubt, not conversation. Again, that is a technique people use in this case, and actually online a lot. I can jump into any online conversation and make a few comments that allow me to interject myself, but actually never really take a realistic position. I can't be sure that the FBI had someone with Operations Research experience on the case, but I suspect they had people who knew the field. Do we think they did not use probability when determining the search area? What about using it to determine where to put resources on a case, should it be Cooper or more current terrorists? Probability is used every day, we all do it. Keep on trying to gaslight us.

Interesting point about him possibly being influenced by what happened to McCoy and the money leading to his downfall. One thing I see in this case is discussion about him spending all the money, or most of it, etc. If Cooper was a regular blue collar type guy, then even $10,000 of the $200,000 could go a long way for him. That's a lot easier to hide and a lot easier to spend. He knows he is taking a huge risk by making a big purchase, so that rules out a house, a boat, a car, maybe even rules out a big vacation, fur coat, etc. But, if he plays it safe and just uses the money for dinners out, maybe gas, a bunch of little things, then there is a lot less chance of him standing out as a big spender. I think if we had a Cooper suspect and were able to see his bank account statements, then we might see a trend where he used just a little bit less of his paycheck than usual after the heist. It makes me think of some of my Las Vegas trips where I came back with a lot more cash than I would usually have, even if I did not win much, I still had a lot of cash on me, so rather than use my debit card like I do a lot, I would use that cash for a few weeks, and then get back on the debit card. My bank statements for those periods would indicate a slight change in habits. Probably too late now, but I do think looking at someone's spending habits may have indicated something was a little off. He certainly would not want to spend a bunch of $20s from the 1960s in the late 90s.

I was thinking about the "he died in the jump" conversation and how that relates to calculating the probability of that happening and him not being found. Typically those conversations refer to unusual or unlikely incidents as proving that it happened, when the reality is that those obscure or unlikely scenarios hint at it possibly happening, not always happening. So, if I show a few examples of someone no pulling, it does not mean he no pulled, it just means he may have. Same for a body not being found in the woods, and same for a person disappearing all together. The issue comes when taking the probability of all three events happening in sequence. An analogy might be someone saying that if I flip a coin there is a 50% chance it will come up heads, but not telling us that if you flip a coin three times, that the probability of heads coming up three times in a row is not 50%, it is .5*.5*.5 for a probability of .125 or 12.5%. Cooper would have had to no pull, followed by his body not being found, followed by someone not reporting him missing. I had grad course in probability for engineers and scientists (I'm neither one, unless data science is considered), and the field of probability is pretty complex. I had thought at one point that if I could calculate the probability of a poker hand, then I knew enough about probability. I was definitely wrong. I'm no pro in probability, but I do like getting involved with it as a hobby, and have used it a good amount in my job. Now, someone could say that bodies go missing all time. Ok, but do those bodies usually have a parachute rig attached to them, or a parachute flapping in the wind? Same for no pulls, there are no pulls, but how often do those really happen? How about for a guy who has just pulled off a hijacking and is now so close to getting away that all he has to do is pull a rip cord handle? How often does someone go missing and look like the suspect of a worldwide FBI manhunt? For all of these events to have happened together is really like flipping a coin 5 or 10 times and getting heads each time. Possible, but very low probability.

Dudeman. Would the actual chute ever pop out on impact or many years later if parts rusted and the container opened? I’m guessing we don’t have a lot of examples of what happens to a chute many years later. Something else that was brought up a while back about a body in the woods are vultures circling the body.

Some info from USPA on safety and skydiving. Pretty interesting. Certainly not apples to apples for DB Cooper, but maybe apples to oranges (to me apples and oranges have a lot more in common than not). https://uspa.org/Discover/FAQs/Safety

I've definitely used the "no body" means he likely didn't die in the jump. Key word is likely. If he jumped over the Pacific ocean, I would not use the same logic of "no body means he likely survived." Or if we knew for sure he landed in a fast flowing river that flowed into the ocean. However, I expect to find a body in the area that he jumped. If he jumped into Chernobyl, then maybe not, given that there were not people living there or searching there. Note: I use the totality of information here to come to a probability that he survived. If $200k was found at Tena Bar, I might lean more towards death than I do. There are just so many things that point to survival. I could argue that he died, but it is a lot harder. Typically the argument that he died uses outliers and other various ways to spin an argument. There are terms that exist for this, but I'll defer to you Fly on what those are. OleMiss probably knows them too from his experience in law. EDIT: This wiki page kind of gets at what I'm saying. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faulty_generalization To summarize: Cooper likely planned the jump, therefore he wanted to survive. The leap was not forced on him like say a pilot in a B-17 going down in flames over Germany. He uses a device specially designed for survival (parachute). He jumps in survivable conditions over a flat area in November. In a populated area, not a city, but not wilderness either. We have not found a body. We have only found 3% of the money. This is one of the biggest manhunts in history, and still is today. People hike and walk that area all the time. For all the news, no one has come forward with a missing person that truly could be Cooper. If we were on the Facebook group, we'd get a cliche like "Occams Razor" or "The absence of evidence is not evidence." Oh well. The majority of the information indicates he likely survived. If people were to wager a bet and truly be held accountable to that bet, I suspect they would say he lived. So what is happening is that people like to say he died, when in reality they should be saying "maybe he died." I say he "likely lived" not "maybe he lived"

I think you are arguing just to argue and to be a contrarian. That's ok, it is a technique in this case and keep things interesting. You're clearly someone who understands math and logic, so that's what makes me think you are just arguing. To say the statistical element is uncompelling is kind of odd coming from someone who understands the math. If there are millions of successful skydives a year and thousands of combat bailouts in history that were successful, then those statistics are compelling, and should give an indication of what will happen in the future. Of course there will be outliers, and if you are the one guy who dies doing something, then yea it matters to you, and yes there are always exceptions to the rule. You say "things" go missing in the woods all the time and then use one example of the actor who recently went missing. How often do humans go missing in the woods and then are never found? What about ones that are part of a massive manhunt? You also are not mentioning that the jump likely occurred in a flat open area, fairly well populated. I agree with Flyjack, the question is whether or not he pulled, everything flows from that. But even if he didn't pull, there are still a lot of things that have to happen for his body to go completely unseen. You're throwing out exceptions to the rule and then trying to get people to think those exceptions are common. Exceptions happen, but you're acting as if the exceptions will happen or did happen. Possible, but how probable?

Yes, skydiving deaths occur. I used to read the back of the skydiving magazine at the place I skydived, that's where the recent deaths were reported. As I remember, we were most concerned with bumping into another jumper (not an issue with Cooper) and then concerned with hitting power lines (Cooper may have hit those, but then where is the body?). Point is, skydiving deaths occur for many reasons. The percentage of jumps to deaths is very low. Many of the deaths occur due to an accident in the air, or on the landing. If Cooper got the chute open, then history would lean towards his survival. How many skydivers die from a no pull? How many of those no pulls were due to hitting another jumper, or having a heart attack, etc? Once you dig into the deaths, the percentage of deaths to jumps is very digestible. It also seems that you're suggesting if he didn't pull that there would not be much to find. No body? No parts? No bones? Do the bones disintegrate? What about clothes? The rig, the money bag? You stated "I agree with all that as stated. I don't have a "died in the jump" theory, I'm just saying the raw facts would suggest someone disappeared forever that day or shortly after, and the only reason we resist that conclusion is because it sucks as an end to this story." I disagree that the only reason we resist the conclusion is that it sucks as an end to his story. Most of resist this conclusion due to our interpretation of the information. I personally think people like to say he died simply because that's what they've been reading for years. Sure, he could have died, but I lean towards him living. Plenty of cases go unsolved forever. I find dying in the jump a lot more exciting than he took a flight home and went back to his blue collar job and then died when he was 80.

Robert, I can see your point about the debris moving up 20 feet. However, saying that no debris goes on shore there simply cannot be true. Is this what you are saying? There was a time I wondered about how something would get so far up the bank, and then I saw a picture of flooding at the Fazios. This was after I had visited the Fazios, so I remember being shocked at how high the water had actually gotten.

Well said. When thinking of the case, I have often visualized myself in his shoes. I'm sure others have done it too. For instance, I pictured myself sitting in my house looking at the money and thinking how I would get into circulation without getting caught. So, for the Tina Bar money, I thought, what would I do to get rid of it. My first choice would be to burn it, but if I did not have a backyard or basement, etc., maybe I'd throw it in the river and hope it floated to the ocean. Fly, I think you had posted once about throwing it in a trash heap or something. That would make it possibly disappear. Anyhow, throwing it in the river would not be my first choice, but I guess it would be a choice.

Fly, I agree with your general approach. I wonder sometimes if people just like to argue, or they have too much time on their hands. The bills were found next to a major river, we have all seen the debris from rivers. To say it was planted there, or landed there is really stretching the probability of what is possible. Doesn't mean it is impossible that someone buried it on Tina Bar, or that Cooper landed there, but it is not probable.

Where does chin end and neck begin? We’ve usually talked about the neck, but not usually brought in the chin. Is it under chin where an uppercut would go or front and sides of chin? I’ve put the turkey gobble further down the chin more on neck.

I had kind of stopped thinking of any washdown theory, but then at CC, Tom gave his talk and showed this pic (it is in his video). A card attached to a packet of money traveled 5 miles in 18 months (the money was gone, maybe taken, maybe fell off). I don't see the plane flying this far East, but will all the tributaries around there, I guess it's possible for a bundle to make it down a river (maybe in a trench coat). A separate bundle open to the elements would not likely have stayed in tact, and for the whole bag to land in a tributary and make it to Tina Bar would be unusual. There really are so many ways that money could have gotten to Tina Bar. It's just such a small portion of the money. I tend to think the bills were rubber banded to keep them together, but if there was some way to get conclusive proof that they were not rubber banded, then that would be real interesting. Although Himmelsbach has said some things that don't fit with the 302's (dirty rotten crook, bad language, -7 degrees, etc.), I have trouble discounting everything he says or what Tosaw said.

Do we know what type of dredging was done on the Columbia post-hijack? Was it suction dredging or bucket/backhoe dredging. I have not ruled out the dredging theory, especially if buckets were used vs suction. Both were common. It is less likely that the money went through a suction dredger, but possible given the shards. A while back on one of the boards, someone with dredging experience had mentioned seeing all sorts of material survive a suction dredge. I think the general assumption has always been that suction was used.

An interesting tidbit I picked up at CC was that In Search Of with Leonard Nimoy aired in December of 1979, and the money is found just a few months later. Might be a coincidence, might not. If you were holding onto that money and saw that show, you might be thinking hard about getting rid of it. I would have burned it personally. So many out of the ordinary things have to happen for the money to have landed at Tina Bar or be buried there. Regardless, it is only 3% of the actual money, and Tina Bar is right on a major river, and Cooper likely landed 10-15 miles away. It's fun to speculate, but there is still $197k out there. There are many options on how the $ got into the Columbia. I'm still not ruling out that it washed down from another section of river, or that it fell out of the plane after Cooper jumped (if he lost it on the stairs). It does seem odd to me that he took money out and handed it to the stews, then supposedly took it back. I'd suspect the money became separated from the original $200k as a packet of $6k and then somewhere along the line got thrown in the river. Could have been by Cooper, Tina, someone else. I don't need the diatoms to tell me that the money did not land in the river that night.

Could Tina have walked off the plane with any money? A young woman in a stressful moment may have said things, done things, etc. that she wishes she hadn't. The FBI would not have had much sympathy for any mistakes, no matter how much of a hero she was. Lying to the FBI is a huge deal, so it could be as simple as her older sister and brother in law telling her that something small was really not that small. Certainly if the money bag was found along with a body and it was tied shut, but was missing $6000, then there might be an issue. It could be nothing. However, if you told me that Flo or Alice were hiding something, I'd be surprised. If you told me it was Tina, then I might pause for a second.

Comments on a couple of the posts. Tina may have known Cooper before the hijacking (unlikely, but I guess possible. He did get the back seat). I'd say that if she is hiding something, it is more likely that she was manipulated by Cooper, or just thought he was a nice guy, maybe she made a bad spur of the moment decision and did something, maybe small, but still something she had to lie about). Fly you mentioned her family doing a search, I'd be curious to hear what that was about. Flo did say in Skyjack that Tina seemed to be hiding something. My opinion is that Tina was put on a pedestal and that in my mind she knows more than she said. Flo and Unsolved Mysteries: Those TV show producers are pros at editing and showing you what they want. I always got the sense that they wanted to push that new sketch, which looks like a drawing from a 2nd grader. I'd like to see the entire conversation. What I did get out of it is that Flo was adamant about remembering his eyes and eyebrows. She has dark brown eyes and I have to imagine someone who sees brown eyes everyday in the mirror knows what brown eyes look like. Are we for 100% certain that no one else saw him with his glasses off on the plane? Dennis Lysne and Hal Williams must have seen him with glasses off, and people walking to the plane. If the cabin was dark (supposedly) then how does he put the chute on and tie the money bag? He must have been real good at it to do it with his sunglasses on. I think he took them off at times. The Lyle thing. Fly how does this CIA thing fit into Lyle's report about a guy visiting Elsinore? Also, those pics from Nicky are interesting in that they seem to show guys with full parachute rigs doing parachute training, but not actually jumping out of a plane. That has been one of my theories, that Cooper could have been trained in the basics, but never actually jumped, or only jumped once or twice.

Hopefully it comes back. Having multiple forums to discuss the case helps keep the discussion equitable.

Interesting angle. I agree with the placement of the tack in the lower third, at least that’s where I wore one. Also, a tack seems to have more options for customization as in a logo, etc. Mine would not point directly to me, but would be pretty specific to a certain function. So yea, a pilot’s tie could be possible. Cooper may very well have removed the tie tack if it could identify the owner or at least narrow down the field. Pilots and plane crew are constantly on the road and staying at hotels. Any of us who have traveled a lot know how common it is to leave things behind. There is nothing that says Cooper didn’t find that tie. I still think he may have left the tie on the plane on purpose, as a symbol or because he didn’t care. Edit. Looking on eBay for old tie tacks, I see a lot of military, railroad, and airline. I think a lot of corporations probably had their own.

From what EU wrote, Tom did not mention a burn. Tom says it may have been from the pin moving around. I tend to agree with you on the bar vs the pin. I don’t know why you would wear a bar and a pin at the same time. Looks like maybe a pin was removed and replaced with a bar. Lots of possibilities with the tie, so many roads to go down. I think the tie on the plane was the one Cooper wore, but other than that there is room for debate on all of it. I do think a clip on fits Cooper more than say a fancy regular tie from a high end store.