I don't think I will believe the money was a plant until all other reasonable explanations are excluded.

The thing that has always intrigued me about the money is the almost uniform erosion around the edges that left it in an elliptical shape, and then the holes.

Very likely, it is just that the edges were fragile and fragments came off when the money was handled. This would also explain varying reports of fragments. I've seen pictures though of buried, wet, damaged money and I've just not seen this particular characteristic.

Burned? Have you ever burned a book - all the edges burn off leaving a ragged rounded edge - but  most the middle stays intact due to lack of oxygen.

Erosion from water force? Could  all of the edges come off the money as it is forcefully ejected through a dredge pipe -- or what if it got stuck in a blade while the water ran over it?

Insects, rodents, animals. Critters like paper like material and they like to nibble.

I would have thought that they could determine more about the money from these characteristics. Or maybe they did and we just don't know about it.

This may sound trite, but things tend to get rounded in Nature, when exposed to external forces like in a flow. What we are talking about is the disassembly of atomic structures when exposed to some force, especially on the periphery of those structures. There are no or very few naturally square corners in Nature due to the atomic makeup of matter ( in 4 or 5 basic patterns in our world). Over time edges of objects (and objects themselves) will tend to be rounded. (like pebbles in a stream). On a beach the rounding would take more time than in a free flowing stream, for example. If a few bundles survived 8 years in nature, it is very likely that was due to some special circumstance that protected those bundles (like other bundles around them).

In the case of the money the motion or force is water and moving particles (sand).

Kaye thinks he identified the holes as due to bacterial action - he illustrates that on his site. I am not sure if he identified the bacterium responsible but very likely that could be identified and is probably generic to that environment. Tom does not state at what depth that bacterium is most populated. That would be interesting to know but it probably is most active near the surface where temps are highest. (The same for diatoms, most active on the surface where temps are high and oxygen is available.)

Your thought about how fire and burning rounds edges closely parallels the rounding that happens in flow-friction.
We are talking about atom structures being disassembled when exposed to a force/friction/energy etc...

Does that make sense to you? (I am not being patronising here).   

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I don't think I will believe the money was a plant until all other reasonable explanations are excluded.

The thing that has always intrigued me about the money is the almost uniform erosion around the edges that left it in an elliptical shape, and then the holes.

Very likely, it is just that the edges were fragile and fragments came off when the money was handled. This would also explain varying reports of fragments. I've seen pictures though of buried, wet, damaged money and I've just not seen this particular characteristic.

Burned? Have you ever burned a book - all the edges burn off leaving a ragged rounded edge - but  most the middle stays intact due to lack of oxygen.

Erosion from water force? Could  all of the edges come off the money as it is forcefully ejected through a dredge pipe -- or what if it got stuck in a blade while the water ran over it?

Insects, rodents, animals. Critters like paper like material and they like to nibble.

I would have thought that they could determine more about the money from these characteristics. Or maybe they did and we just don't know about it.

This may sound trite, but things tend to get rounded in Nature, especially in a flow. There are no or very few naturally square corners in Nature due to the atom makeup of matter ( 4 or 5 basic patterns) and the interaction of matter with a surrounding medium ... which be no more than motion of a piece of matter in a vacuum of no more than 1 atom p. cubic cc.  Over time edges will tend to be rounded.

In the case of the money the motion or force is water and moving particles (sand).

Kaye thinks he identified the holes as due to bacterial action - he illustrates that on his site. I am not sure if he identified the bacterium responsible but very likely that could be identified and is probably generic to that environment.

Your thought about how fire and burning rounds edges closely parallels the rounding that happens in flow-friction.
We are talking about how atom structures are disassembled when exposed to a force/friction/energy etc...

Does that make sense to you? (I am not being patronising here).

Yes  - that makes sense. That's why I think it's not a plant that was buried. Something acted on the money to make it look the way it looks. I've not seen a lot of damaged money, but what I have seen: found buried money looks degraded and dirty with ragged edges but not that uniformly all the way around. Stored wet money clumps and degrades tending to tear off but again not that uniformly.
I guess I'm saying that I believe there was an active force upon the money and I listed some options. I tend to lean towards water flow and/or dredging. 

lol...as I've often said -- if we had buried some money when the dropzone thread first started, we would almost have some genuine test data. 

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I don't think I will believe the money was a plant until all other reasonable explanations are excluded.

The thing that has always intrigued me about the money is the almost uniform erosion around the edges that left it in an elliptical shape, and then the holes.

Very likely, it is just that the edges were fragile and fragments came off when the money was handled. This would also explain varying reports of fragments. I've seen pictures though of buried, wet, damaged money and I've just not seen this particular characteristic.

Burned? Have you ever burned a book - all the edges burn off leaving a ragged rounded edge - but  most the middle stays intact due to lack of oxygen.

Erosion from water force? Could  all of the edges come off the money as it is forcefully ejected through a dredge pipe -- or what if it got stuck in a blade while the water ran over it?

Insects, rodents, animals. Critters like paper like material and they like to nibble.

I would have thought that they could determine more about the money from these characteristics. Or maybe they did and we just don't know about it.

This may sound trite, but things tend to get rounded in Nature, especially in a flow. There are no or very few naturally square corners in Nature due to the atom makeup of matter ( 4 or 5 basic patterns) and the interaction of matter with a surrounding medium ... which be no more than motion of a piece of matter in a vacuum of no more than 1 atom p. cubic cc.  Over time edges will tend to be rounded.

In the case of the money the motion or force is water and moving particles (sand).

Kaye thinks he identified the holes as due to bacterial action - he illustrates that on his site. I am not sure if he identified the bacterium responsible but very likely that could be identified and is probably generic to that environment.

Your thought about how fire and burning rounds edges closely parallels the rounding that happens in flow-friction.
We are talking about how atom structures are disassembled when exposed to a force/friction/energy etc...

Does that make sense to you? (I am not being patronising here).

Yes  - that makes sense. That's why I think it's not a plant that was buried. Something acted on the money to make it look the way it looks. I've not seen a lot of damaged money, but what I have seen: found buried money looks degraded and dirty with ragged edges but not that uniformly all the way around. Stored wet money clumps and degrades tending to tear off but again not that uniformly.
I guess I'm saying that I believe there was an active force upon the money and I listed some options. I tend to lean towards water flow and/or dredging. 

lol...as I've often said -- if we had buried some money when the dropzone thread first started, we would almost have some genuine test data. 

In mineralogical tests I am aware of, no sand or mineral types characteristic of the Washougal turned up, on or between the bills. Tina's Bar and the Washougal are different geological zones.

I also think a "plant" is a very low probability for a host of reasons. Oddly enough I could see a theory where Cooper loses his money or even burys the money nearby then time move it's remnants, some to Tina's Bar during the last high water period (Dec-Jan 1878). The dredging operation is very tempting.  Almost too easy. But the problem with that is how in blazes does the bag become a part of the bottom sediment in the area that was dredged? We aren't talking about the bag being hung up on a wing dam but having somehow become a part of the 'channel bottom' where the dredge sucked up sediment. So far as I know the bottom in that area is relatively smooth with very few objects to hang up anything - anything flowing by would just continue moving.

Where was the money before it was planted, and in what condition, if it was a plant? You must account for the money's condition and time to get it into the condition found. This money was not planted a week before it was found in the condition it was found in, or if it was, then where was it before the plant to be in the deteriorated condition the Ingrams found it in in Feb 1980.

The claims of a fragment field and depths of fragments found needs to be clarified. The photos of the excavation clearly show activity digging in diverse areas, and digging within the original area canvassed and a grid laid down based on what was seen on the surface (just as reported). Something is going on for some reason in these diverse areas within the grid-field. The photos document this. Were they digging ginseng from those holes!?

And the thing that just drives me nuts about this whole thing is: where is the forensic work that would settle a lot of these questions. We might as well be discussing this in the Stone Age ... with Aliens in orbit and at Quantico who have modern technology and they are watching laughing!   

I can see Cooper losing the money, but if he tried to hide the money and come back, why only a few bundles? why plant it where it might not of been found, or possibly not saying anything about finding the money.

What can be believed about Cook stating some fishermen found pieces of the money? lots of people claim they know where the Amboy chute was, but fail to come through? other than a plant. the money would of had to have gotten there by jumping close by, or falling into the river.

After I found the 1974 photo prior to the dredge operation, I seen how high the water levels rise. Now, if the current brought the bills there, and placed them on the beach. what was stopping it from moving when the water would rise again, or how was it not noticed on the beach? is the sand eroding away with high currents slowly revealing the money? that puts the dredge operation into play again...

All good questions.

One serious problem with a plant theory is the time frame. The time of the plant and the condition of the money at discovery must generally agree. That includes the clock on the rubber bands. The plant has to be timely, especially in a volatile place like Tina Bar exposed to natural change, a high erosion rate, and people. The facts of the plant must account for the debris field and agree with other facts found on Tina Bar at the time of discovery. The forensic facts of the money bundles like sand and silt found deep between the bills (which takes time to happen) must agree with the date of the planting.

You can't plant the money on Sunday and have ten years worth of wear and age etc show up on or between the bills, seven days later or even two weeks later!

I and several others are suspicious that the found money shows evidence of contamination by the 1974 dredging spoils that were placed on Tina Bar. If as Tom says the dredging spoils and the money were never in contact and the money was planted after the dredging spoils were (long) gone, then what accounts for a specific contamination that may be in the fibres of the bills?

Don't forget, the rubber bands on these bills have a chemical clock. Rubber bands pass through a number of predictable chemical phases and physical states during their lifetimes. That clock is highly dependent on temperature, humidity, contact with oxygen and UV light, etc. Tom has shown that these bands begin to seriously deteriorate within about six months when exposed to 'nature'. In a less harsh environment they have a longer lifetime. It is conceivable the money was planted with fully aged bands still in place. Or maybe the bands were still viable when the money was planted, if it was a 'plant' - we just don't know. Since no laboratory analysis of the rubber bands was apparently done on the Ingram find, we are apparently missing any forensic information those rubber band fragments might have told.

[edit] Let me give an example. As bands age they may go through a temperature-dependent phase called the "melt transition phase". Rubber bands turn 'gooey' during this phase prior to drying and crystallization. The melt transition phase requires at least 68*F. If the Ingram bands never went through this phase then the bands may never have been at or above 68*F during their lifetime after Cooper had the money. This would restrict the kinds of environments the Cooper money was exposed to after Cooper received the money on Nov 21st 1971. In addition, bands which go through the 'melt-transition' gooey phase can pick up particles from the environment, somewhat like what amber does. Those particles could then convey information about what environment the money was in.  This is just one example of how and why laboratory examination of band fragments could be important.   

I think all we have are the gross facts of the Ingram find, and you could drive a truckload of theories through that gap ... plant theories included.
 

 

   

 

Tom seems to have narrowed down the type of rubber bands that were used.

Rubber bands were sourced from the original manufacturer that supplied the west coast banks in the 1970's [2]. The companies technical people provided rubber bands of similar type and composition to those used at that time [3]. The rubber bands were stretched to 150%, 180%, 216% and 250% beyond their zero tension lengths on a plastic fixture (Fig. 1). One fixture was chained in the San Pedro River in southern Arizona (Fig. 2). A second fixture was buried in a tray under one inch of sand in the back yard of a private residence within ten miles of Tena Bar (Fig. 4). The third fixture was a control and left in a drawer in the lab. Both test fixtures were removed at intervals to determine the decomposition rate.

One photo on Citizen Sleuths shows the bills underwater appear not be be double banded. I've been talking with him since last nite. I just got another response from him a few hours ago. I'll ask him if he has any idea if they were double banded...

I'm gong to preface this now and forever by saying - I am very appreciative of the work, time, expense that Kaye and company put into their project and do not disparage the project or even the conclusions even though I question some of them.

I agree that the rubber bands have a clock..but I have a question about that.

We don't know the original size of the bands or degree of stretch that the bands had while wrapped around the money, so did the experiments include degrees of stretch less than 150? Multiple widths of bands? Was the size of the test objects of roughly the same diameter as a pack of the money? Do we know whether the bands were doubled? A band that is stretched to more than 1/2 of its limit would seem to be more likely to degrade enough to snap than one that is not. 1/3 even more....so..........If the band had little to no stretch or was doubled, then degradation might occur without actually breaking or falling apart until it was handled. I've seen this before on bundles of checks that have been stored for years. They held together until I handled them.

And go look in any office where someone has occasion to band together bundles of things. I would be willing to bet that if you surveyed enough of them the majority: 1. do not use the flimsy narrow bands because they have learned their lesson, and 2. they double wrap.

That said.....just imagine with me for a moment that we accept, as a given, that the money bag somehow landed in the Columbia, lay on the bottom until it went through a dredge, and that everything was essentially pulped except this one water compacted "bundle", which was double banded with a medium size band that was stretched to no more than 125 or 150% of its stretch load. This "bundle" emerges reasonably unscathed to be deposited on the bank in the sand where it was soon buried by the spreaders. There it stays for years, untouched.
 
Yes, the bands are degrading, but not to the point of breaking because they are not stretched a lot, and, as the double row of bands are degrading into that sticky gooey thing they are actually kind of melding into each other creating a slightly even stronger bond (even though this will disintegrate if you so much as hint at screwing with those atoms).

I'm just a common sense kind of thinker so maybe I'm missing the big picture here, but, given the scenario I gave - is this possible?
If all the data is on the website, then I just wonder if too many assumptions were made with the bands for them to be used to reach a conclusion about how long the money was there. It was a relatively simple experiment - too bad he didn't include more variables while he was doing it. Then I wouldn't have to stay up all night wondering about all this stuff.

lol....I know...I know....bitch, gripe, moan, groan....we're never satisfied are we 

Given what Snowmman found about the dredger, I think what you propose is possible.

This "bundle" emerges reasonably unscathed to be deposited on the bank in the sand where it was soon buried by the spreaders. There it stays for years, untouched.

Larry talked to the guy who bundled and wrapped the money and I think he said he wrapped each bundle with several rubber bands. Whether he double wrapped each band, I don't know.

Again, the aging cycle (a chemical cycle) is temperature and oxygen (and UV) dependent. In cold water the bands will age and break over time (depending on the stress they are under), but if they never reach 68*F they will never reach the 'gooey' phase as we normally know it. They might soften? 

We need to work out a cold water scenario for how the bands age. Some of Tom's experiments may apply in that case.

At the Portland Symposium in 2011, Brian told me that he and his family went looking for more money after finding the three bundles. He told me that they found nothing, not even a single shard.

Also, Dorwin told me that they didn't find a debris field of shards. Rather, they found a splatter-like deposition in the sand underneath the bundles. As I understood Dorwin, the bundles were the epicenter and the shard-field spread out for 20 yards in all directions from there, and were found equally placed to a depth of three feet and all the shards were beneath the surface.

Lastly, McPheters told me that he found about a dozen shards in the tide line and beneath it as he dug on "shovel detail." It was my understanding that he was downstream from the bundles. I'm not sure what the physics must be to deposit shards underneath a tide line. Old tide lines?

What does all this mean? Just another mystery, I guess...

Georger, do you know if the G-men went to other beaches on the Columbia looking for money?  Talking to fishermen? Or was T-Bar the only place of investigation. Dorwin never told me, even though he said that he took over Norjak in the Portland FO after Himms left two weeks later.

I'll see you in the ethers, Georger, or at least at T-Bar.

BTW: How far away from the Maharishi are you?