New Forum & News Updates

[Bruce A. Smith]

Book writers and Cooper showmen, seem to be dominating currently in Cooperland .

Several months back people received calls from the Josh Gates company, calling people to get thoughts on a second (Part II) revisit of the Gates/Discovered program on DB Cooper. And not one word was posted about any of this, by anyone! Hmmmmmm. That's interesting ? Gates may have backed off a Part II due to no newsworthy developments of substance, since his last program.

Bruce Smith - have you got anything to add? Anything informative and non-controversial ?   

Josh Gates and his Expedition Unknown folks never contacted me, nor do I know if they contacted anyone else in Cooperville. They may have, but I wasn't privy to that information.

That said, another similar show, "Mysteries Explained," or something like that on the History Channel, which has bought out The Discovery Channel, was very serious about doing a DB Cooper segment on a show about unsolved robberies. The larger TV series was about unsolved mysteries from the true crime realm. The DBC piece was scheduled for a late March, 2020 shoot in Seattle and was canceled due to Covid. I had been scheduled to be interviewed for that piece.

Along those lines, the BBC epic docu on Cooper is still on for broadcast in 2020, as far as I know. Shooting wrapped a year ago, at least. I was interviewed by the Minnow Production team out of London that is crafting this for the BBC - and HBO, I think. They also interviewed LOTS of other folks, such as the Formans, Jo Weber, RMB, et. al. My sense was that they were looking to establish an "Overview" of the case as it currently stands.

Eric has been busy with a Hollywood team, and I only have a summary understanding of that project, but the Western Flight Path is a key. That shoot was for the History Channel and Eric and his team were advertised as being featured speakers at the History Channel's    "HistoryCon" in LA, scheduled for this April. However, that event was canceled due to Covid. I don't know the exact details of the current status of this project.

Now that I'm talking about all of this, I do remember that another History Channel team, maybe Josh's, was interested in the current views of the western flight path, about a year ago. They asked me to participate, but I declined for personal reasons.

That's about it, G.

[Unsurelock]

I wouldn't hold out hope for anything earth-shattering, fact-based or even competent from Minnow. The director they hired, who had done a documentary about Joe Frazier, told me that Frazier "knocked out Ali in Madison Square Garden." The fight was a decision. Look it up anywhere. And this is the director of that film.

I personally will sell anything to a production company, whether it proves anything about Cooper or not. I will give them my best guess for their best offer, and I think Hemingway would have done the same. Guy had to fund his alcoholic galavanting somehow.  I'll give them my take on Oswald and Jack Ruby if they like, or the Loch Ness Monster. They can quote me.

D.B. Cooper is not Holy Ground, and I think it's clear that what you consider to be historical documentation and precedence in this case means absolutely nothing. I don't say that lightly. I have boiled everything down, and I find that the flight path is irrelevant, the landing zone is irrelevant, the bazillion particles on the tie with their bazillion different interpretations are by default also irrelevant, and I am in 100% agreement with Curtis Eng that the money or the parachute are the only things that matter. They are his claim tickets.

So I don't take any of this seriously.  You shouldn't either.  If you're hearing Josh Gates, and you're conjuring Adolph Hitler, you're probably wound too tight on this matter.  So relax.  Let the writers do what they want. You and I are going to die not knowing who Cooper and Jack the Ripper were. And that's okay.

[Shutter]

Robert Blevins and company is something else entirely!

No kidding...he's lying once again by saying he doesn't try to discredit. he's now attacking my political beliefs based on one email from over a year ago. politics have no room in the Cooper case. him and Flyjack say this place is toxic? both throw around law suits and take things out of context. try and discredit. the DZ is basically them two spouting off nonsense.

You will NEVER see me attack someone for there political beliefs. I like things Trump does...does this mean Robert will call me a white supremacist in his next "cooper related" post? this is exactly why I don't allow politics on this forum. there is no room for this type of conduct.

he screamed for years that "we were talking about him" meanwhile, that's 95% of his comments on the DZ. shutter, shutter, Eric, Eric, Bruce, Bruce...they whine like two old ladies at a bingo game.

By the way, I didn't vote for Trump nor did I vote for Hilary which is a carbon copy of Blevins...

Shutter

[Shutter]

We've discussed this!      You know I liked Jeb Bush.  Your governor!      (I should have kept that to myself.....)

Correct, we have discussed things like this outside of the forum where it belongs. for the record. I don't pick my friends, online or offline by who they voted for either!

[georger]

Book writers and Cooper showmen, seem to be dominating currently in Cooperland .

Several months back people received calls from the Josh Gates company, calling people to get thoughts on a second (Part II) revisit of the Gates/Discovered program on DB Cooper. And not one word was posted about any of this, by anyone! Hmmmmmm. That's interesting ? Gates may have backed off a Part II due to no newsworthy developments of substance, since his last program.

Bruce Smith - have you got anything to add? Anything informative and non-controversial ?   

Josh Gates and his Expedition Unknown folks never contacted me, nor do I know if they contacted anyone else in Cooperville. They may have, but I wasn't privy to that information.

That said, another similar show, "Mysteries Explained," or something like that on the History Channel, which has bought out The Discovery Channel, was very serious about doing a DB Cooper segment on a show about unsolved robberies. The larger TV series was about unsolved mysteries from the true crime realm. The DBC piece was scheduled for a late March, 2020 shoot in Seattle and was canceled due to Covid. I had been scheduled to be interviewed for that piece.

Along those lines, the BBC epic docu on Cooper is still on for broadcast in 2020, as far as I know. Shooting wrapped a year ago, at least. I was interviewed by the Minnow Production team out of London that is crafting this for the BBC - and HBO, I think. They also interviewed LOTS of other folks, such as the Formans, Jo Weber, RMB, et. al. My sense was that they were looking to establish an "Overview" of the case as it currently stands.

Eric has been busy with a Hollywood team, and I only have a summary understanding of that project, but the Western Flight Path is a key. That shoot was for the History Channel and Eric and his team were advertised as being featured speakers at the History Channel's    "HistoryCon" in LA, scheduled for this April. However, that event was canceled due to Covid. I don't know the exact details of the current status of this project.

Now that I'm talking about all of this, I do remember that another History Channel team, maybe Josh's, was interested in the current views of the western flight path, about a year ago. They asked me to participate, but I declined for personal reasons.

That's about it, G.

Thanks for bringing us up to date. 

[georger]

I wouldn't hold out hope for anything earth-shattering, fact-based or even competent from Minnow. The director they hired, who had done a documentary about Joe Frazier, told me that Frazier "knocked out Ali in Madison Square Garden." The fight was a decision. Look it up anywhere. And this is the director of that film.

I personally will sell anything to a production company, whether it proves anything about Cooper or not. I will give them my best guess for their best offer, and I think Hemingway would have done the same. Guy had to fund his alcoholic galavanting somehow.  I'll give them my take on Oswald and Jack Ruby if they like, or the Loch Ness Monster. They can quote me.

D.B. Cooper is not Holy Ground, and I think it's clear that what you consider to be historical documentation and precedence in this case means absolutely nothing. I don't say that lightly. I have boiled everything down, and I find that the flight path is irrelevant, the landing zone is irrelevant, the bazillion particles on the tie with their bazillion different interpretations are by default also irrelevant, and I am in 100% agreement with Curtis Eng that the money or the parachute are the only things that matter. They are his claim tickets.

So I don't take any of this seriously.  You shouldn't either.  If you're hearing Josh Gates, and you're conjuring Adolph Hitler, you're probably wound too tight on this matter.  So relax.  Let the writers do what they want. You and I are going to die not knowing who Cooper and Jack the Ripper were. And that's okay.

Yours is a pragmatic point of view. Other people's testimony is different. 

[georger]

I wouldn't hold out hope for anything earth-shattering, fact-based or even competent from Minnow. The director they hired, who had done a documentary about Joe Frazier, told me that Frazier "knocked out Ali in Madison Square Garden." The fight was a decision. Look it up anywhere. And this is the director of that film.

I personally will sell anything to a production company, whether it proves anything about Cooper or not. I will give them my best guess for their best offer, and I think Hemingway would have done the same. Guy had to fund his alcoholic galavanting somehow.  I'll give them my take on Oswald and Jack Ruby if they like, or the Loch Ness Monster. They can quote me.

D.B. Cooper is not Holy Ground, and I think it's clear that what you consider to be historical documentation and precedence in this case means absolutely nothing. I don't say that lightly. I have boiled everything down, and I find that the flight path is irrelevant, the landing zone is irrelevant, the bazillion particles on the tie with their bazillion different interpretations are by default also irrelevant, and I am in 100% agreement with Curtis Eng that the money or the parachute are the only things that matter. They are his claim tickets.

So I don't take any of this seriously.  You shouldn't either.  If you're hearing Josh Gates, and you're conjuring Adolph Hitler, you're probably wound too tight on this matter.  So relax.  Let the writers do what they want. You and I are going to die not knowing who Cooper and Jack the Ripper were. And that's okay.

I am in 100% agreement with Curtis Eng that the money or the parachute are the only things that matter. They are his claim tickets.

Did Eng or Ng tell you this personally?  Where does this come from?

[Unsurelock]

I am in 100% agreement with Curtis Eng that the money or the parachute are the only things that matter. They are his claim tickets.[/i]

Did Eng or Ng tell you this personally?  Where does this come from?

It's a view expressed in Tom Colbert's Case Closed special. It's told to the two investigators and repeated by Billy Jensen to Colbert at the end. It was either Eng or Montoya, also FBI who said it to them, when they met with them about the case.

[EU]

I believe an accurate characterization of what the FBI is interested in regarding this case is something of material value. Certainly finding more money or the parachutes would qualify. However, I believe there are other things too.

The problem that the FBI has is that it closed the case with a big media splash. Therefore, in order for them to "publicly" re-open the case they have to be 100% certain that they can solve the case. After all, reopening the case only to have it remain unsolved a second time would not look good.

[Robert99]

I believe an accurate characterization of what the FBI is interested in regarding this case is something of material value. Certainly finding more money or the parachutes would qualify. However, I believe there are other things too.

The problem that the FBI has is that it closed the case with a big media splash. Therefore, in order for them to "publicly" re-open the case they have to be 100% certain that they can solve the case. After all, reopening the case only to have it remain unsolved a second time would not look good.

It is also a pretty big assumption to assume that the FBI has any interest at the present time in solving the Cooper case.  They have gone out of their way to prevent progress being made by withholding information that is clearly in the public domain and some other silly actions.  Everything suggests that the FBI is operating in a CYA mode on the Cooper matter and intends to stay that way. 

[georger]

My GUESS is: It takes time for any FBI office to deal with the public. For example dealing with Tosaw etal became a problem for the Portland office in the 80's. Multiply that exponentially by what has been going on in the public and media 2008-2018, and its no wonder Seattle had to close its door to Cooper enthusiasts. Very disruptive and nonproductive in the face of growing demands on the FBI's time in other areas. I noticed that the Colbert approach was long on making legal demands and wild unproven claims, while forensic efforts were completely missing! The suggestion had already been made that the FBI should close the case and turn the case over to the Smithsonian ... as an artifact of history... and let the Smithsonian examine all sides of the debate. My guess is, that is exactly where the Cooper case is headed.

The Cooper case is NOT a national crisis demanding solution for the public safety or welfare. People's hostile claims and demands against the FBI etc are not helpful and may even be counter-productive, imho. A case in point may be the Flight Comms Transcript which first was leaked to the Seattle Post Intelligencer (where a number of people got it first) ... only to be given to Sluggo for public distribution by Agent Carr, months if not two years later! Sluggo and I have discussed this matter. And now we have this demand by another for the socalled Unredacted copy of the PI Transcript ... which may not even exist in the form (and place) the claimant claims it must exist. Efforts to discover if the FAA has such a document, or ever had such a document, which claimant maintains the FAA must have had, is apparently still unresolved after all these years! No proof of anything. In contrast to that, attorney Mark Zaid on the Colbert team got his FOIA request granted and we get regular disbursements of documents from the FBI today, processed almost exclusively by ... FLYJACK at the Dropzone forum!                     

[Shutter]

The FBI was pretty specific...the chute, money or something that would link Cooper directly. no more second hand info or I believe my brother was Cooper..something concrete.

IMO, they got tired of chasing dead ends. it's been a new FBI for over a decade now. real problems that need attention far more than a 40 plus year old hijacking. looking at it from a business stance. it's of no value to them putting people on the case. they shifted it making the case come to them...the case is still open and gives them the clause to deny anything through the FOIA. it shouldn't be like that but it is what it is...

[georger]

The FBI was pretty specific...the chute, money or something that would link Cooper directly. no more second hand info or I believe my brother was Cooper..something concrete.

IMO, they got tired of chasing dead ends. it's been a new FBI for over a decade now. real problems that need attention far more than a 40 plus year old hijacking. looking at it from a business stance. it's of no value to them putting people on the case. they shifted it making the case come to them...the case is still open and gives them the clause to deny anything through the FOIA. it shouldn't be like that but it is what it is...

The issue is: what is there. Where is the card catalog for the Cooper case files? Has anybody bothered to ask or look for that ... in all these years? Did Tom or Gray ask to see it at Seattle? Would Seattle even have such a document(s) ?

For example, there is not one item of proof that an "unredacted copy of the flight comms" even exists. Or who has it. Or who has ever seen it. Anything to "document its existence" somewhere! Proof it exists at all! 

The public has spoken with a ton of agents since 1971 - has anyone ever been told by anyone associated with the Cooper case that an "unredacted copy of the flight comms" exists and they saw or read it, in the FBI, FAA, at NWA, or in any federal agency ?

I asked NWA's Bruce Kitt if he had ever seen or heard of such a document - he just laughed! He said, "If you ever see it send me a copy!" NWA Historian Bruce Kitt has been looking for it and any confirmation of such a document - forever! Bruce voiced the idea 'there may be a few notes, but not a document as such' ?

Because if that document doesn't exist and never existed, as claimed by the Arizona guys, then THAT requires some explanation, and a revision in the history of this critical part of the DB Cooper case. A pragmatic view of the case requires that. This basic issue has become like chasing cats, some of which may be imaginary.     

[georger]

Flight Comms history of releases -

For whatever its worth, the origin of the Seattle PI flight comms Transcript was discussed at some length back in May of 2011, on Dropzone. It was established that the first release of the socalled PI Transcript was thru an FBI FOIA site (now extinct), and when that link closed down a download for the file was moved to the Seattle Post Intelligencer (now extinct) where I got the file ... before Sluggo even had a DB Cooper website. Carr then moved the file to Sluggo's website and the PI link remaiend but was eventually taken down. R99 and I etal had a discussion about redacted vs unredacted airplane conversations and how that could have happened and where those conversation would have been recorded, if at all! R99 was helpful in that discussion - I can post his remarks. Important - R99 established that he thought conversations could have taken place which were never included in any official flight comms transcript. (I should post those remarks by R99 maybe later tonight).

With the PI Transcript now available solely through Sluggo, Carr then released a socalled "NWA Transcript", on Sluggo's website. We compared the new NWA Transcript with the PI Transcript. R99 made remarks...

I will post the actual record from 2011 and before tonight when time permits.

PI Transcript - released at FBI site via FOIA release date uncertain.
PI Transcript - available thru Seattle PI with FOIA website taken down.
PI Transcript - available through Sluggo's website, PI site taken down.
NWA Transcript - released by Carr thru Sluggo date uncertain ...

Unredacted PI Transcript -  no proof it ever existed. Was not included in NWA Transcript release by Carr.  ?  Total mystery. See prior remarks about such a document by R99 in May 2011. 

[Robert99]

The FBI was pretty specific...the chute, money or something that would link Cooper directly. no more second hand info or I believe my brother was Cooper..something concrete.

IMO, they got tired of chasing dead ends. it's been a new FBI for over a decade now. real problems that need attention far more than a 40 plus year old hijacking. looking at it from a business stance. it's of no value to them putting people on the case. they shifted it making the case come to them...the case is still open and gives them the clause to deny anything through the FOIA. it shouldn't be like that but it is what it is...

The issue is: what is there. Where is the card catalog for the Cooper case files? Has anybody bothered to ask or look for that ... in all these years? Did Tom or Gray ask to see it at Seattle? Would Seattle even have such a document(s) ?

For example, there is not one item of proof that an "unredacted copy of the flight comms" even exists. Or who has it. Or who has ever seen it. Anything to "document its existence" somewhere! Proof it exists at all! 

The public has spoken with a ton of agents since 1971 - has anyone ever been told by anyone associated with the Cooper case that an "unredacted copy of the flight comms" exists and they saw or read it, in the FBI, FAA, at NWA, or in any federal agency ?

I asked NWA's Bruce Kitt if he had ever seen or heard of such a document - he just laughed! He said, "If you ever see it send me a copy!" NWA Historian Bruce Kitt has been looking for it and any confirmation of such a document - forever! Bruce voiced the idea 'there may be a few notes, but not a document as such' ?

Because if that document doesn't exist and never existed, as claimed by the Arizona guys, then THAT requires some explanation, and a revision in the history of this critical part of the DB Cooper case. A pragmatic view of the case requires that. This basic issue has become like chasing cats, some of which may be imaginary.   

The above nonsense by the Poster-who-must-not-be-named only further evidences his lack of aeronautical qualifications and his interest in spreading disinformation.

Here are some facts.  Even in 1971, all radio communications between aircraft and air traffic control were recorded.  These recordings were used during investigations of accidents and incidents.  The Cooper hijacking was an "incident".

The Seattle Air Traffic Control Center recorded all radio communications it had with the hijacked airliner during the time it was in their airspace.  That includes the time frame starting with its departure from Portland a few minutes after 3:00 PM PST until it was handed off to the Oakland Air Traffic Control Center in Northern California at 9:45 PM PST.

Gerald H. Osterkamp, Chief, Seattle Center, had a transcript of those communications prepared and certified that "I hereby certify that the following is a true transcription of the recorded conversation pertaining to the subject incident".  Osterkamp had a Xerox copy of his original true transcription prepared and certified on that copy that "I certify that this is a true copy of the original which is on file at this office".  It is a partial copy of that copy that made its way into what we have today which has 19 redactions.  There is absolutely no way that we have a copy of the original transcription that Osterkamp prepared.  It is plainly evident that Osterkamp's original certifications page was prepared on a different typewriter than the redacted transcript that found its way to Sluggo or wherever.

The Oakland Air Traffic Control Center and the Reno Tower recorded all radio communications with the hijacked airliner from 9:45 PM PST until the aircraft shut down on the Reno airport ramp at 11:22 PM PST.  Donald E. Erink, Chief, Oakland Center, had a transcript prepared of those communications and certified that "I hereby certify that the following is a true transcription of the recorded conversation pertaining to the subject hijacking".  It is a safe assumption that Erink kept a copy of that transcript in his office files.

As I have stated any number of times before, the Oakland Center transcripts do not contain any redactions and are classic air traffic control communications for 1971.  The Oakland Center controllers communications were straight out of the controller's textbook.

The Seattle and Oakland original transcripts still exist today unless someone purged them in a CYA attempt.  Both the FBI and FAA would have copies of the originals since this is an ongoing criminal case.  And those transcripts are of communications that were made over air traffic control radio frequencies and could, and probably were, heard by any number of people in the Pacific Northwest.  Lastly, such communications are in the public domain.