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So Al Fazio and the agents were lying - the money was not on the high tide line? Are you saying the agents and Fazio are liars?

You can keep ignoring it (me) but the truth aint going away. Its in the public record for those who care to read it!

I think it might be helpful here to re-assess what Al and Richard Fazio said, or not, and to whom and when, along with statements from the Ingram clan. Here's what I know.

I spoke extensively with Al and Richard in 2010-2011. Al did most of the talking, and Richard was a quiet observer. Hence, I believe that at that time Al Fazio was the shot-caller in the family. That may have changed since I hear from Eric that most of his correspondence with the Fazios these days has been with Richard. Remember, Al is 80-something years old.

When I spoke with Al back in the day, I was surprised to hear him speak authoritatively on where the money was found, its condition, etc. since he wasn't on the beach - or even on the property - until long after the FBI arrived. I pushed Al a little on this discrepancy and he got defensively instantly, so I backed off. Richard, who was with the feds early in their arrival at the beach, never corrected his brother, nor offered a different narrative to me. Not wanting to start a brotherly feud, I didn't push Richard, either.

Further, I don't know exactly when Richard showed up on the beach, himself, or what he observed when he got there. My sense is that he was late to the party and only spent time on the beach after the FBI asked him to fire up his backhoe and help them dig. That would be much later in the day than when the feds first showed up and began shoveling.

Add to all of this a wide discrepancy from the agents digging on the beach gives us a real head-scratcher. One agent, Mike McPheters, says he found separate pieces on the "tide line," which comports with Al's statements. But, Dorwin Schroeder, the PIO on the beach, has never mentioned anything about shards on the tide line, to my knowledge.

Further, Dorwin has said also a lot of inexplicable things about the money find: to me, Georger, and others. Claims ranging from: a stream of shards on or near the surface going 60 yards up and down the beach that "even a blind man could follow," to the traditional "thousands of pieces down to a depth of 3-4 feet underneath the original discovery site to a radius of 20-feet."

Also, Georger has the most extensive collection of narratives from the Ingram family - Brian, Harold, Momma, Crystal - of anyone I know, certainly much more than I. But as he has told us, the family is at odds on what was found or not. What I do recall clearly is speaking with Brian at the 2011 conference and asking him if he went looking for more money after he found the three bundolas. "Sure," he said excitedly. "We spent the rest of the day looking all over the beach and digging or scratching in spots. Never found a thing," is what I recall him saying. That openly disputes the notion that money was washing up at the "tide line."

Considering all of this, I think it wisest to hold all scenarios as potentials and wait until the preponderance of evidence points us in a more coherent direction.

I can live with all of yours. Good report! The weakness in R99s account is his insistence on "If you were going to build a fire pit for a cookout.you would not build it at the "tide line". .." which is irrelevant! The issue is what did happen, not what should have happened according to R99! Facts vs opinions.

Brian's admission 'they spent the rest of the day looking for more money' is important. That admission says that money was important to the Ingrams, and their stumbling across money at Tina Bar was a 'surprise' (not planned). That fact rules out a lot of scenarios various people have suggested. We may not have the whole story of what happened on that day, except that McPheters did find fragments the Ingrams missed, likewise other agents, and the sum-total from all sources probably exceeds $6000. All of it found somewhere within the 'zone' of where agents found their fragments ... if you use what the agents found vs. what the Ingrams found as the indicator for where the money was on the sandbar.

I think Brian has always known more than he is saying. He's protecting his parent's reputations, and his own reputation - good Christian man that he is and practices.

I talked to Patricia Ingram once. I was surprised at how easy and forthcoming she was. I could have asked her (I wanted to ask her!) about the finding of the money, but I steered away from that. The reason I was talking to her at all was to straightened out the matter of paper straps vs rubber bands that suddenly came up, and to get her permission to do forensic tests on the money.

I think the money fragments themselves give up the 'zone' at TBar in which the money was found. Tides are a factor in that zone. I asked Tom about diatom counts - he never answered; maybe he has no counts. Diatoms require moisture/water and water-born nutrients. My guess is diatom counts on the money are within the same range as they are in the sand generally, in that 'zone' from which the money emerged.

Pat did tell me the money was wet when found. Their first task at home was drying the money out. They separated the money into groups and set all of them on the kitchen table, to dry. Wet money at Tina Bar implies diatoms.

What somebody should do is determine the standard depth zone in which diatoms exist, at Tina Bar. Is that zone 8 inches, 12", . . . ?           

Silly Georger again!  He would probably try digging a fire pit under several feet of water.  But based on my personal experiences in digging fire pits on tributaries of the Columbia River, they are much more successful when built on dry land and several feet from the water's edge.

The rest of Georger's post is based on his presumed ability to read Brian's mind, Patricia's presumed replies to his questions if he had the guts to ask those questions in the first place, and his speculations about everything else.

In Harold Ingrams interview for the history case closed documentary he mentions nothing about digging a pit. He said he told Brian to clear the area not dig and that’s when the money was discovered.

Nicky, Go to the other Shutter page, which you can access from the home page here, click the "Tina Bar" name, and you will immediately see a picture of a very young Brian Ingram at Tina Bar.  Adjacent to that picture is Brian's description of how he found the money.  In that description he states that they were going to build a fire and he started moving sand.  It is not a big jump to conclude that the end result was expected to be a pit with a fire in it.

I‘ve never made a fire pit before so enlighten me please is it standard procedure to clear the area before you dig. I’d think you can just clear anything on top as you dig? Also is it possible they could of made a fire for roasting dogs on the surface of the sand and not have to dig a pit?

I‘ve never made a fire pit before so enlighten me please is it standard procedure to clear the area before you dig. I’d think you can just clear anything on top as you dig? Also is it possible they could of made a fire for roasting dogs on the surface of the sand and not have to dig a pit?

No, you don't have to dig a pit to make a campfire and I doubt the tide was anywhere near the location at the time..

Galen Cook has had money on Tbar for sometime now and after a year the bands were still intact.

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My quotations were from:  Mike McPheters, "Agent Bishop", ISBN 13: 978-1-59955-317-7, copyrighted by Mike McPheters in 2009, Chapter 20 titled "Finding D. B. Cooper's Money", pages 136 to 139 inclusive, where he discusses his involvement with the Cooper matter and his activities at Tina Bar.  The material I quoted is on page 138.  Neither a "tide line" nor a "shovel" is mentioned in his discussion.

Bruce, in your own book, "D.B. Cooper and the FBI", 2nd edition, copyrighted 2016, pages 384 and 385, you discuss McPheters and list the above book.  You also make factual misstatements about McPheters.

BS Writes:  Thanks for citing Mike's book. I figured the info you've discussed here might be sourced from there. I've never read the book, and I should. Someday soon.

In the meantime, I think it is quite unfair that you state publicly that I made factual misstatements about Mike McPheters in my book. They are not. They are accounts of events as Mike told them to me directly. As such, they are in conflict with what Mike wrote in his book. To me, that doesn't mean either book is making factual misstatements. Rather, it points to variations in memory and testimonies.

R99 Replies:  The full title of McPheters' book is "Agent Bishop - True Stories from an FBI Agent Moonlighting as a Mormon Bishop".  The whole point of his book is that he was a Mormon Bishop while serving as an FBI agent.  On pages 384 and 385 of Bruce's book, Bruce lists the full title of McPheters' book but states, "After McPheters left the Bureau he became a Mormon bishop . . .".  That is a material misstatement by Bruce.  Incidentially, on page 41 of McPheters' book is a picture of an individual with the following inscription:  "To the McPheters, Best Wishes, J. Edgar Hoover, 11-30-71".  Note that this inscription is dated just six days after the Cooper hijacking.   

BS Writes:  What is even more important is that Mike is unwilling to discuss this matter with me at this juncture. He hung up on me the last time I called, 2013 if I recall correctly, when I announced that I wanted to re-visit his finds at T-Bar. As he was hanging up, he said that he didn't remember what he had found and had nothing further to say on the subject.

So, what is THE TRUTH, here? What Mike wrote in his book? What Mike told me, as spelled out on page 113 in my book (which you do not cite, btw), or Mike's failing memory, circa 2013?

R99 Replies:  In 2013 McPheters would have been 70 years old.  This makes him about the same age as Bruce.  So the question is whose memory is failing?

On page 113 of his book, Bruce states that he has not seen any evidence of a "tide line" at Tina Bar.  I have been at Tina Bar when Bruce was also there and Bruce has probably actually walked on the tide line.  This has been discussed any number of times before, including the past week, on this site.

Also, Tina Bar is about 90 Columbia River miles from the Pacific Ocean and only about 5 feet above sea level.  This means that the Columbia descends about 1 foot vertically for ever 15 to 20 miles it moves downstream.  For comparison, the Mississippi River descends about 1 foot vertically for ever mile it moves downstream between Minneapolis and the Gulf of Mexico.  The Columbia River is NOT a raging torrent by any standard during nominal water levels.  And the daily tidal variation is between one and two feet at Tina Bar.

Touching back on the fire pit... I would agree with Shutter, you don't need a pit or hole for the fire. We (my family) like to cook out over a campfire. We do this quite often,especially during the warmer months. I use an old rim from a tire off of a semi-truck tire as a fire ring. This ring protects the fire from the wind. I am thinking if they dug a pit for their fire, it may have been for protection from the wind. Otherwise it would be much easier to just build the fire on top of the sand. If it was really windy they might have had to dig their pit fairly deep.

Touching back on the fire pit... I would agree with Shutter, you don't need a pit or hole for the fire. We (my family) like to cook out over a campfire. We do this quite often,especially during the warmer months. I use an old rim from a tire off of a semi-truck tire as a fire ring. This ring protects the fire from the wind. I am thinking if they dug a pit for their fire, it may have been for protection from the wind. Otherwise it would be much easier to just build the fire on top of the sand. If it was really windy they might have had to dig their pit fairly deep.

camping back in the 60's and 70's all the campgrounds had rims in place for a fire.

A tide line can mean many things to many people. looking at photo's from the dig you can clearly see where they were screening the sand at the low tide point.

while several believe the tbar money is answered. I believe we have only started to get a grip on the money find. the bands degrading after 3 months is a myth...

Are the bands buried or exposed on the surface or both? If buried, how deep? Very interesting Shut, keep us posted. Thanks.

They are buried. how deep is unknown. the project was started by Galen Cook. bundled money is buried...

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What is a tide line?

One of the more fascinating aspect of Cooper World is the fact that certain terms or circumstances that I, or others, take for granted are not accepted by others. Such is the case with the term "tide line."

To me, a tide line is a distinct line of detritus on a beach that runs parallel to the prevailing water line. Today, I realized that my experience in my former life of being a commercial beachcleaner in New York - and a kid who lived 11 miles from the water and was at the beach at least 2-3 times a week - has shaped what I consider to be a real tide line.

What I have observed at T-Bar - with Robert and many others over the years - is perhaps best described as a "debris line." These deposits are linear for sure, but only run about 10-50 feet, and have always appeared to me as the wash-up of river debris - twigs, junk, grassy stuff, flotables, etc. - from the highest level of water volume that day (or night). In fact, most days that I have been on the Columbia, in particular T-Bar, I have not seen any organized debris line of any kind - tidal or otherwise.

What I do see is that, in general, the debris actually clumps around catchment areas, such as tree and bushes, upended stumps and roots, wing dams, rocks, etc.

Bruce, At Tina Bar there is a smooth and hard packed area that the waves and tides wash on a daily basis.  This area extends from about 5 to 10 feet from the lowest level of the water depending on the slope of the beach.  Then the beach immediately transitions into a rough surface of dry and loose sand which is very difficult to walk in.  That transition point is what I call the tide line.  And I am sure that you have seen it and walked on it.

Above you say: "And the daily tidal variation is between one and two feet at Tina Bar."

Please translate this into an actual line or zone on the excavation photo ... people can see.

Where does one and two feet fall in the space A-D ?

Sooner or later all of these factoids, numbers, and opinions you keep tossing out have to translate into something a common ordinary person can understand, see, and evaluate!