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Bruce said:

McPheters said he dug at the High-Tide line and found a dozen or so fragments.

What did McPheters mean by "the High-Tide line"?  Was there a sign on the beach saying "HIGH TIDE LINE"?  Vague statements aren't worth much.

The Fazio's said the Ingram money was found  'on the tide line from a few days ago '! They tried to convince everyone the money had arrived just days before.

That may define what the tide line was approx. Feb 14 1980

One question is: would fragments even float? To be moved around, or float up from a lower elevation, along a tide line? I dont quite buy that scenario ? I would have to see it ....

Quote

We didn't find anything of Cooper himself, except that money. Dna wasn't being used in those days. But, I've always wished that money and those fragments could have been tested for dna. Something of Cooper himself.       

Speaking of evidence that FBI agents are not scientists, the belief that Cooper's DNA would travel through the air or through the rope, through his clothes, through the bag, then get onto the bills, then it would stay on the bills without decaying in a wet and ecologically active environment for almost a decade... *facepalm*

No. The agent is wondering if parts of Cooper's body or blood had been in contact with the money. A good part of the excavation was motivated by a desire to look for Cooper's body, body parts, chute or pieces of the chute, the brief case, or any other artifact of the hijacking ... not just money. Some agents wondered if the money was there maybe parts of Cooper were too. The reason for this agent's comment is possible serological contact between the money and Cooper himself (post mortem).

Tosaw had a similar thought which motivated him to look for Cooper's body in areas adjacent to Tina Bar.
 


 

The Fazio's said the Ingram money was found  'on the tide line from a few days ago '! They tried to convince everyone the money had arrived just days before.

That may define what the tide line was approx. Feb 14 1980

One question is: would fragments even float? To be moved around, or float up from a lower elevation, along a tide line? I dont quite buy that scenario ? I would have to see it ....

I would think only dry fragments might float, which would probably mean only fragments on the surface.

About the "high tide line," I suspect that it might have been a 10'-20' band of beach that one of the pix we've seen shows as being strewn with short pieces of branches.  But there are a few different elevations that might plausibly have been called a "high tide line" when the water level is mostly the result of things other than tide.

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The Fazio's said the Ingram money was found  'on the tide line from a few days ago '! They tried to convince everyone the money had arrived just days before.

That may define what the tide line was approx. Feb 14 1980

One question is: would fragments even float? To be moved around, or float up from a lower elevation, along a tide line? I dont quite buy that scenario ? I would have to see it ....

I would think only dry fragments might float, which would probably mean only fragments on the surface.

About the "high tide line," I suspect that it might have been a 10'-20' band of beach that one of the pix we've seen shows as being strewn with short pieces of branches.  But there are a few different elevations that might plausibly have been called a "high tide line" when the water level is mostly the result of things other than tide.

exactly...

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The Fazio's said the Ingram money was found  'on the tide line from a few days ago '! They tried to convince everyone the money had arrived just days before.

That may define what the tide line was approx. Feb 14 1980

One question is: would fragments even float? To be moved around, or float up from a lower elevation, along a tide line? I dont quite buy that scenario ? I would have to see it ....

I would think only dry fragments might float, which would probably mean only fragments on the surface.

About the "high tide line," I suspect that it might have been a 10'-20' band of beach that one of the pix we've seen shows as being strewn with short pieces of branches.  But there are a few different elevations that might plausibly have been called a "high tide line" when the water level is mostly the result of things other than tide.

Hom quote: I would think only dry fragments might float, which would probably mean only fragments on the surface.

Attached is a weathered fragment (crop) from a Cooper twenty. Note the construction and flakes ready to drop off...
This Federal Reserve note Paper is made from 75% cotton and 25% linen fibers. Cotton fibres have a twist and a linear fold or pocket which can trap air (thus the insulating power).

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Q: Do you think the Ingrams had seen fragments of money on the surface and followed that to find the bundles?
A: Yes. That's exactly what I have always thought. The fragments were easy to see on the surface especially in the area around the Brian find. You would have had to have been blind not to see them. I think that's what clued them into looking and poking around. That's just my personal opinion. Something explains those fragments, and their distribution in the layers we dug into. I thought that money came up with the dredging piled on that beach, and a lot of that work was done at night when you wouldn't see what was there. Palmer then arrived and decided that wasn't the case. To me it's still an open question.
A: We didn't find anything of Cooper himself, except that money. Dna wasn't being used in those days. But, I've always wished that money and those fragments could have been tested for dna. Something of Cooper himself.               
...

What is the most likely scenario for the existence and location of the fragments?  Could the "money pile" have been bigger and seasonal rains washed the decaying fragments away from the main cache?  This seems most likely to me, but is there another scenario?

If Cooper's body decomposed near the money, then there is a chance that some of his DNA could have migrated onto the money.  If I get this part wrong, please correct me, but if no diatoms were detected on the money, then it possibly came out of the river protected somehow, or it originally landed out of the river's waters.  The only water it would have been exposed to is rainwater, because high water would have exposed it to diatoms.  Thoughts?

Tom never said there were no diatoms, he only said he didn't see/find any .... that he was sure were diatoms? Tom hedged ...   Frankly, either there are or there aren't. Since diatoms are prolific and endemic to the environment the conditions under which there would be no diatoms is rather specific, if not curious, if not a clue. Palmer did not cite diatoms either. No FBI lab report that I have heard about mentions diatoms either. Tom's test money exposed to the river showed diatoms.

All I know is Palmer said the upper active layer of sand on a beach is sterile (meaning relatively bacteria free), he claimed the money had just arrived (maybe missing the previous diatom season, 1979), the bills had somehow escaped all previous diatom exposure, and/or  where the money was prior to discovery was oxygen and sunlight free ?  My feeling is this is all going to come back to Tom's hedge  that he just didn't see any diatoms on his three bills ?  This leaves the possibility that the rest of the Cooper money is thriving in diatoms! 

Maybe there will be a recall on all Cooper money?  Maybe the manufacturer forgot to add the diatoms?



         

I think dispersal by rains (or, by the latest water level crest) could occur only if the original money mass were at the surface.   I think more likely the sand/soil in which the money was all together got "churned" and dispersed into the positions of the eventual money/fragment finds.

That makes sense.  I was thinking along the lines of the bar being built up with dredged material and over the years, rainfall washing the surface into the river, maybe a few millimeters at a time.  A heavy rainfall when the money was near the surface might wash some of the fragments toward the river, leaving the big clumps of bills together.  I don't think the money could have been exposed for more than weeks, without someone noticing it.  Is that plausible?

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I think dispersal by rains (or, by the latest water level crest) could occur only if the original money mass were at the surface.   I think more likely the sand/soil in which the money was all together got "churned" and dispersed into the positions of the eventual money/fragment finds.

That makes sense.  I was thinking along the lines of the bar being built up with dredged material and over the years, rainfall washing the surface into the river, maybe a few millimeters at a time.  A heavy rainfall when the money was near the surface might wash some of the fragments toward the river, leaving the big clumps of bills together.  I don't think the money could have been exposed for more than weeks, without someone noticing it.  Is that plausible?

For the record, when Meyer Louie and I visited Tina Bar in July, 2013, we were told by an old timer there that people were at Tina Bar practically ever day, including himself.  So it is definitely a given that anything new at Tina Bar would have been noticed immediately.

That is what Ive always thought too, based on conversation with family and others who used the bar for fishing.