I moved the discussion to the proper thread...

I'll give some thought to preparing a more elaborate explanation of all this.  And if Shutter is agreeable, maybe we can also move some other things from the DZ site to here.

Go ahead and post whatever you wish. this site falls under "educational, news etc. so, using material from another site should not be a problem. just make sure credit is given with the information provided.

This is a touchy subject (T-bar) since we have a well known flight path, but we have found problems with the path, and the transcripts.

1) Several minutes into the flight the transcripts have a timing issue.
2) The area from Merwin lake to the Columbia have a 2 minute gap.
3) Parts of the transcripts appear to be left out.
4) Timing issue from Battleground to the Canby intersection.

I'm sure there is more, but I just woke up about a half hour ago  (very long hard week)

Now, the things above don't mean the flight path is in the wrong location, but it does present a problem with validation. I back 99's theory, and agree it has some merit, but I'm not ready to move the path without some hard evidence to back it up. finding the original transcripts seems to be the key to unlocking and understanding the path.

The Merwin lake area clearly has a problem, it could be a simple human error, or a complete guess as to it's location on the map. the FBI states the map is "the believed flight path" that's not very positive in my opinion.

(b) the fact of intact bundles at one location,

I'd like to think the bundles were already fused together before the final resting place. others like to believe three loose bundles fell into place...

...I dont see that Cooper has to die in any of these scenarios. All he has to do is lose some of the money from the container bag, if he bailed close enough to Tina Bar to have hydrology transport the money onto the sandbar. Or, if he bailed near Ariel then its almost required that he survived and walked to the area that feeds Tina Bar and lost some of the money near there. I think the odds are that Cooper survived wherever he bailed. But, the condition of the money after nine years and the fact of bundles still grouped together and intact, favors the idea that the money was lost somewhere close enough to Tina Bar that hydrology could move the bundles over time, not too far. Aside from Robert99's reservations about the flight path ' on aeronautical grounds', the rest of 99's thesis rests on the feeling that the money did not travel too far from 1971-1980 to be found where it was found in 1980, and I think there are strong grounds to suspect that 'proximity' is a key factor in Cooper money being found where it was found ... on a sandbar close by....

Thank you, Georger. I find it useful to separate the different issues, ie: the three bundles, Cooper, and the survivability of the getaway.

1. The money: how did it become compacted? How did the Tres Bundolas end up at the discovery site at T-Bar? Were they somewhere else, prior to traveling to T-Bar? Where is the rest of the money - did whatever happened to the Tres Bundolas also happen to the other bundles? Or if not, why not? Can any of these questions be addressed from the evidence we have?

2. What is the relationship between Cooper and the Tres Bundolas? Did they all crater together? Or are they separate entities and have different stories? What do the Tres Bundolas tell us about DB Cooper, if anything?

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...I dont see that Cooper has to die in any of these scenarios. All he has to do is lose some of the money from the container bag, if he bailed close enough to Tina Bar to have hydrology transport the money onto the sandbar. Or, if he bailed near Ariel then its almost required that he survived and walked to the area that feeds Tina Bar and lost some of the money near there. I think the odds are that Cooper survived wherever he bailed. But, the condition of the money after nine years and the fact of bundles still grouped together and intact, favors the idea that the money was lost somewhere close enough to Tina Bar that hydrology could move the bundles over time, not too far. Aside from Robert99's reservations about the flight path ' on aeronautical grounds', the rest of 99's thesis rests on the feeling that the money did not travel too far from 1971-1980 to be found where it was found in 1980, and I think there are strong grounds to suspect that 'proximity' is a key factor in Cooper money being found where it was found ... on a sandbar close by....

Thank you, Georger. I find it useful to separate the different issues, ie: the three bundles, Cooper, and the survivability of the getaway.

1. The money: how did it become compacted? How did the Tres Bundolas end up at the discovery site at T-Bar? Were they somewhere else, prior to traveling to T-Bar? Where is the rest of the money - did whatever happened to the Tres Bundolas also happen to the other bundles? Or if not, why not? Can any of these questions be addressed from the evidence we have?

2. What is the relationship between Cooper and the Tres Bundolas? Did they all crater together? Or are they separate entities and have different stories? What do the Tres Bundolas tell us about DB Cooper, if anything?

1. The money: how did it become compacted?

Who has ever said the bundles were "compacted" ?  I think you are confusing 'fused' with 'compacted'. However if the money was brought up with the dredging spoils it conceivably would have been under tons of earth or some portion thereof.

Tom Kaye was asked if his bills showed any sign of compaction, pressure, impact, etc and Kaye said "no". Moreover, Alan Stone, Kaye's partner, is a material's expert who specialises in deformation, stress, and destruction science. Apparently Kaye was speaking for Alan also. 

As for the rest you can find it all at Dropzone.

If the bills were not stuck together previously, or during the find, how did the PCGS find more serial numbers?

If you were examining single bills how could you tell if they were stuck together, or compressed, or not compressed?

I believe Brian used the term "petrified"

The numbers were hidden in layers of notes and note fragments stuck together for decades, and those numbers now have been reported by PCGS Currency President, Jason Bradford,  to the Seattle-based FBI agent overseeing the case.  In a letter to FBI Special Agent Larry Carr, Bradford wrote: “Earlier this month, members of our team examined two dozen environmentally-damaged $20 denomination Federal Reserve Notes and dozens of fragments submitted to us for certification by Brian Ingram of Mena, Arkansas.  As you know, Mr. Ingram was the then-eight year old boy in 1980 who discovered some of the cash given in 1971 as ransom to a skyjacker known as ‘D. B. Cooper’ or ‘Dan Cooper.’â€�

If the bills were not stuck together previously, or during the find, how did the PCGS find more serial numbers?

If you were examining single bills how could you tell if they were stuck together, or compressed, or not compressed?

I believe Brian used the term "petrified"

Quote

The numbers were hidden in layers of notes and note fragments stuck together for decades, and those numbers now have been reported by PCGS Currency President, Jason Bradford,  to the Seattle-based FBI agent overseeing the case.  In a letter to FBI Special Agent Larry Carr, Bradford wrote: “Earlier this month, members of our team examined two dozen environmentally-damaged $20 denomination Federal Reserve Notes and dozens of fragments submitted to us for certification by Brian Ingram of Mena, Arkansas.  As you know, Mr. Ingram was the then-eight year old boy in 1980 who discovered some of the cash given in 1971 as ransom to a skyjacker known as ‘D. B. Cooper’ or ‘Dan Cooper.’â€�

The term 'cemented' was also used.

I dont know what Smith's problem with this is - all he has to do is READ past posts, however he evidently doesn;t believe past posts by various people, so, perhaps Smith needs to interview the money! Mind meld and remote see to penetrate through the veil of the money find to sort true facts from false facts, which only an agenda with a bias can do!.

Again: Tom and Alan were asked if there were any signs of impact, compression, burning, etc etc etc and the guys said "NO!". Tom even remarked to me how "smooth/undisturbed the surfaces of the bills are".

The money was found in sand. There was sediment in between the bills. The FBI even analysed that sediment. The FBI issued several reports on their analyses (plural).

The best we can say is "the bundles the Ingrams found did not look like they had been hit by a train traveling at Mach-10!"

The one thing we perhaps can say safely is the bundles had spent enough time in Nature that sediment had infiltrated between the bills. Both the Ingrams and the FBI found sediment between the bills. Paper swells when wet and sediment in a flow can work their way into open spaces over time. There is nothing profound about that outside of the fact that process takes time, it requires water, it requires moving sediment particles, and so forth. These sediments work their way into the fibers of the paper and act almost like a glue, when dried. When that happens repeatedly over time ... viola! Things get stuck together. It's called the "Simple Simon Effect"! Now if there had been no sediments found in between clean bills stacked together, then there would be cause for surprise ... and we might be talking about money that was recently planted, but that is not the case with the Cooper found money.
 

[edit] The core issue at stake at Tina Bar is the "age" of the layers where the money was found. Without that basic knowledge it's very difficult to nail down when or how the money arrived. Beyond that it is obvious the whole analysis of the Tina Bar money find has been corrupted by a conflict between personalities.


 
 

35 serial numbers were missed by the FBI. It makes you wonder how much testing they did to the bills.

Quote

After matching serial numbers with the FBI’s previously published list of ransom notes, we were able to carefully separate the submitted notes and fragments that had been affixed together for decades. In some cases, portions of as many as four notes were stuck together due to their apparent long exposure to water and various weather conditions. We also were able to piece together portions of several separate fragments, sort of like a bank note jig-saw puzzle, to make a complete serial number.�

When you look at the bills on the table with the FBI, it looks like they broke off into separate piles. when and where were the bills broken up into individual bills?

This leaves a grand total of $6,500..Now, the insurance company got a large amount of bills. I wonder how many bills are unaccounted for in that portion?

Those piles you see at the news conference were the exact groups the Ingrams had separated and brought in, plus a few extraneous bills not shown four of which the Ingrams held back and had to turn in several days later. That's not my interpretation - that is what the FBI transcript says.

I think separating this mass of paper money was more difficult than is generally assumed. The FBI did some separating - I know that for a fact. But the forensic people felt they had answered the basic questions asked of them, attention turned to finger printing the money which was a primary goal and useless, and they let it go at that. None of that surprises me. They probably thought the basic questions had been answered and so they deferred any greater analysis until later ... which turned out to be never so far as I know. Their analysis wasn't so much flawed as just incomplete (as judged by today's standards). They did look for sediments and anything else between the groups of bills and typed what they found; that by itself is more than a cursory analysis. They knew they were probably missing serial numbers, but they also knew there wasn't a whole lot  more than $5800 in the total group ... and not a whole lot more. The excavation hadn't turned up more bundles anywhere; they probably felt confident there wasn't a lot more to be found at the Tina Bar site. And all of this is taking time and on the budget, 9 years after Cooper had slipped away and the case was cold! Had the excavation found any artifacts or biological materials this excavation would take taken a different turn ... Schreuder has commented about that in depth. It was a 'pay as you go' and they just weren't turning up anything new or exciting to warrant a fuller (more expensive) investigation. That's how I understand it.