New Forum & News Updates

[Bruce A. Smith]

Clyde is simply intoxicated with Gossett and makes the claims of a drunken man. We'll set him straight at Ariel.
It sounded to me like Clyde has a certain audience with a certain belief system and he was pandering to them.  It makes for great radio to say, "I know who D.B.Cooper was, he was a buddy of mine".  Never let the facts get in the way of a good story!

My father lived by those words!

[Shutter]

Some more fun with DB Cooper  try to control yourself Bruce 

[Bruce A. Smith]

Fantastic, Shut. I burst out laughing at the North Korean bit!!!

You Da Man!

[Bruce A. Smith]

Does anyone know the status of the documentaries that were so hot-top-trot a few months ago? Atlas Media and LMNO were two outfits that contacted me, and then I heard zip ever since.

Just wonderin'.

[Shutter]

Here is a neat video. it's around the Columbia Gorge, but you can move around 360 degrees while watching...
In the upper left corner is the control....


YOU must go to You Tube to watch the video. the control doesn't seem to work here. just click where it says You Tube on the video menu..

[Bruce A. Smith]

I spoke with LMNO productions this week and their docu on DB is moving forward. They said they are beginning to contact folks that the want to interview, with filming to begin sometime in September.

[nmiwrecks]

Here is a neat video. it's around the Columbia Gorge, but you can move around 360 degrees while watching...
In the upper left corner is the control....


YOU must go to You Tube to watch the video. the control doesn't seem to work here. just click where it says You Tube on the video menu..

This video makes one appreciate the terrain the Cooper suspect would have had to navigate in his stocking feet.

[Shutter]

The video is taken around the river gorge area. the bridge they cross is the "Bridge Of The Gods" way east of Portland...

I almost forgot I could look up at the name of the bridge since you can move the camera 

[377]

377   You and I have talked about how DB selected the right chute for the job. What you are really talking about is the right container and how it could survive a jet jump better than the sports container (stronger harness designed for pilots to work from jet jumps when the plane is going to crash). Also, Hayden (the real owner of the two back chutes provided to DB) told me he purchased the two chutes at the same time from a surplus place on Marginal Way and the two chutes were exactly alike and only the carriers were different (one was a military version and the other was a sports version). I have mentioned this info from Hayden before but it keeps getting lost in what Cossey told the FBI.
My theory is Cossey was actually part of the Norjak Caper and did one of the Ground Man jobs to pick up DB after the jump. He would have also possibly served to launder the money in the Casino's he frequented. He would have been experienced in using a CB radio to communicate with DB on his way to where he landed. The reason I think Cossey was involved as when I talked with him before he was killed, I had set-up a lunch with him at my yacht club to talk about the case and when at then end of our conversation I asked if he knew  Sheridan Peterson, Cossey sounded like he had just swalled a frog and abruptly said he didd not know Sheridan and he then said he "wanted nothing more to do with me and canceled our lunch date." Cossey had to know Sheridan as they spent many hours at Issaquah Skydiving School when Sheridan brought the new members of the Boeing Skydiving Club there to use for training and as their dropzone. Sheridan could have enlisted Cossey as the right guy to be one of the Ground Men and holder of the loot and possibly the invester of the loot,
Now the rest of the story really gets far fetched. Could Sheridan have got mad at Cossey using up the invested loot in 40 years and came to visit him and talk eyeball to eyeball about what had happend? Then as they were talking in Cossey's garage and Cossey turn his back on Sheridan to walk back into the house, Sheridan is over come with anger and picks up a big red pipe wrench and hits Cossey in the back of his head. Not really meaning to kill him but hurt him? That is my far out remote viewing of how Cossey got killed. Then Sheridan could taken the wallet and large sum of money to make it look like a burglar did it. Would a burglar send the charge card back by dropping them in a mail box? That would have been what Sheridan would have done as he is really a nice guy, gentleman right? The other Ground Man could have been Duane Weber and that is what he told Jo when asked how he would have know where DB came out of the woods. Jo would rather think that Duane was DB and it would have been more impressive. Duane had a lot of radio gear in his car/Jo (typical of a CB or Ham nut) and would have been good at finding DB on the ground.
Anyway just some more thoughts,
Bob Sailshaw

Sailshaw's theory about Sheridan Peterson killing Earl Cossey is wildly speculative and I see no evidence supporting it.

However, I do agree with Sailshaw on one crucial point. I DO think Peterson and Cossey knew each other. You'd have to have been part of the skydiving community back then to know how small it was and how people using the same DZ knew just about everyone else who did, especially at the upper levels (expert D class licensees). Also Cossey was a national championship competitor and a rigger, someone every expert skydiver in the area would likely know. Peterson was a renegade jumper (banned from USPA for home made wing suit jumps) which would have gained him some notoriety. These weren't two rookies who could fade into the background in the NW jumping scene and be unnoticed. Just my opinion. I have no evidence that they knew each other.

377

[georger]

377   You and I have talked about how DB selected the right chute for the job. What you are really talking about is the right container and how it could survive a jet jump better than the sports container (stronger harness designed for pilots to work from jet jumps when the plane is going to crash). Also, Hayden (the real owner of the two back chutes provided to DB) told me he purchased the two chutes at the same time from a surplus place on Marginal Way and the two chutes were exactly alike and only the carriers were different (one was a military version and the other was a sports version). I have mentioned this info from Hayden before but it keeps getting lost in what Cossey told the FBI.
My theory is Cossey was actually part of the Norjak Caper and did one of the Ground Man jobs to pick up DB after the jump. He would have also possibly served to launder the money in the Casino's he frequented. He would have been experienced in using a CB radio to communicate with DB on his way to where he landed. The reason I think Cossey was involved as when I talked with him before he was killed, I had set-up a lunch with him at my yacht club to talk about the case and when at then end of our conversation I asked if he knew  Sheridan Peterson, Cossey sounded like he had just swalled a frog and abruptly said he didd not know Sheridan and he then said he "wanted nothing more to do with me and canceled our lunch date." Cossey had to know Sheridan as they spent many hours at Issaquah Skydiving School when Sheridan brought the new members of the Boeing Skydiving Club there to use for training and as their dropzone. Sheridan could have enlisted Cossey as the right guy to be one of the Ground Men and holder of the loot and possibly the invester of the loot,
Now the rest of the story really gets far fetched. Could Sheridan have got mad at Cossey using up the invested loot in 40 years and came to visit him and talk eyeball to eyeball about what had happend? Then as they were talking in Cossey's garage and Cossey turn his back on Sheridan to walk back into the house, Sheridan is over come with anger and picks up a big red pipe wrench and hits Cossey in the back of his head. Not really meaning to kill him but hurt him? That is my far out remote viewing of how Cossey got killed. Then Sheridan could taken the wallet and large sum of money to make it look like a burglar did it. Would a burglar send the charge card back by dropping them in a mail box? That would have been what Sheridan would have done as he is really a nice guy, gentleman right? The other Ground Man could have been Duane Weber and that is what he told Jo when asked how he would have know where DB came out of the woods. Jo would rather think that Duane was DB and it would have been more impressive. Duane had a lot of radio gear in his car/Jo (typical of a CB or Ham nut) and would have been good at finding DB on the ground.
Anyway just some more thoughts,
Bob Sailshaw

Sailshaw's theory about Sheridan Peterson killing Earl Cossey is wildly speculative and I see no evidence supporting it.

However, I do agree with Sailshaw on one crucial point. I DO think Peterson and Cossey knew each other. You'd have to have been part of the skydiving community back then to know how small it was and how people using the same DZ knew just about everyone else who did, especially at the upper levels (expert D class licensees). Also Cossey was a national championship competitor and a rigger, someone every expert skydiver in the area would likely know. Peterson was a renegade jumper (banned from USPA for home made wing suit jumps) which would have gained him some notoriety. These weren't two rookies who could fade into the background in the NW jumping scene and be unnoticed. Just my opinion. I have no evidence that they knew each other.

377

It's not out of reason the FBI would have asked Cossey about Peterson. (and maybe conversely?). Somebody may have told Cossey Peterson was (being) considered - Cossey may have had some opinions about that. As you say, at these upper levels of 'awareness', everybody knows everyone and little goes unmentioned over time?

 

[Bruce A. Smith]

The reverse is also intriguing: if the FBI didn't ask Cossey about Sheridan Peterson, then why not? Geoffrey Gray has shown us that the FBI embraced Coss early on, and included him in substantive discussion on who could have been the jumper, levels of expertise, etc.

[Shutter]

I put a little twist on some of the older Cooper newscasts. I tried to make them a little better than the old conventional way 

[Shutter]

[Shutter]

[Bruce A. Smith]

Delightful, as always.