Just saying there might be reasonable explanations or ways to exclude the items I listed, but on the face of it they do impinge on his qualifications.
During the recent WSHM events, Bill Mitchell remarked that of the suspect photos he was shown
post 11-24, a large number were from the Eugene area. This may relate to the 'Eugene Incident'
which happened in Eugene airspace the weekend before 11-24, as related to me by controllers
and others involved in the Cooper case.
During the evening of Nov 20th, 1971, the weekend before the Cooper hijacking at Portland, the
control tower and local law enforcement at Eugene began to get calls about someone dropping
flares from a small airplane, then flying in patterns indicative of tracking the flare's drift and
descent. Attempts to communicate with or track and identify the aircraft failed. Approximately 90
minutes later an unidentified small aircraft appeared on Eugene radar again, and more reports of
the flare dropping activity began to come in, to the Eugene airport and to local law enforcement,
in a different area outside Eugene. Officials directly involved that night say that an FAA report was
filed, and the FBI notified.
This incident gained further attention the night of the Cooper hijacking, and was openly discussed
by ATC and FBI officials after #305 had safely passed through Portland - Eugene airspace and the
investigation began to take form and commence. Mucklow had described the bomb as consisting
of red sticks ... and Himmelsbach believed 'red sticks' indicated road flares, not actual dynamite.
Those recalling the flare dropping at Eugene just a few days earlier, wondered if there could be a connection ?
Then the Janet report at Vancouver surfaced! Janet contacted the FBI in the days following the
Cooper hijacking, with another 'flare/fire' dropping report. Janet claims that FBI agents visited her
home and asked her to 'keep quiet' about her report, except that at least two others surfaced at
Vancouver with similar 'fire' (dropping) reports, almost immediately after the hijacking. (Janet
and/or her husband may be the origin of all of the reports made at Vancouver - this has never
been clarified).
So, when Bill Mitchell says he was shown a large number of photos of 'suspects' from the Eugene
area (and was told these suspects were from the Eugene area), the Eugene flare dropping
incident may be the 'link' the FBI was trying to explore, in the hope of finding Mr. Cooper.
Perhaps Cooper was practicing for the hijacking in the Eugene area prior to the hijacking, or he
knew someone and was in league with someone who had a light plane in the Eugene area, ...
but of the suspects Bill Mitchell was shown it would be interesting to see how their genetic
profiles compare with the 'partial' the FBI apparently has.
Geoff Gray says nothing about the Eugene incident in his book. Apparently he didn't run across
the files? Himmelsbach doesn't mention the incident in his book either.
Maybe the Eugene incident and the Cooper hijacking are not related at all.