"Then what is all of this talk about using flight recorder data and transcript conversations between the crew and Northwest Operations and Seattle Center? How were the plots derived? What about the three red plots hanging out in the open in west Portland?"
These would have been used to pinpoint the timing of the jump, which is dramatically marked in black right next to Ariel on the map by the BigBlackPen guy. It's possible they used the other information to come up with the timestamps on the map, but I believe these would have been part of the data readout.
Those hanging plots out to the west are interesting, but they are each exactly 5 minutes west of the fp. Hominid believed the RedPen guy had an issue reading the printout. Here is what he said: "They are each plotted exactly 5 minutes of longitude to the west of the correct positions. This was no doubt a result of the fact that the minute marks are not labelled."
On the sectional, the minute marks aren't labelled and so it would be easy to start on the wrong square. Nothing there to hang a conspiracy on, I assure you.
