Author Archives: Garry Rodgers

About Garry Rodgers

After three decades as a Royal Canadian Mounted Police homicide detective and British Columbia coroner, International Best Selling author and blogger Garry Rodgers has an expertise in death and the craft of writing on it. Now retired, he wants to provoke your thoughts about death and help authors give life to their words.

WHO WAS THE REAL SKYJACKER D. B. COOPER?

On November 24, 1971, a mysterious man using the alias D.B. (Dan) Cooper boarded a Northwest Orient Airlines Boeing 727 flight from Portland, Oregon to Seattle, Washington. Once airborne, he produced what appeared to be a bomb in a briefcase and demanded $200,000 in ransom along with four parachutes. Once his threat was met, he donned a chute and bailed out in the dark, damp and cold. Nearly fifty years later, the infamous D. B. Cooper has never been found or conclusively identified.

Who skyjacker D. B. Cooper really was is one of the world’s great unsolved crimes.  The FBI put countless hours into following thousands of leads. By July 2016, they ran out of steam and officially closed the case. That’s not without some interesting suspects surfacing which can’t quite be ruled out. However, with advanced forensic techniques, there is still the strong possibility of solving the case—even if the real D.B. Cooper is no longer alive.

This bizarre story began on a Wednesday afternoon in Portland, Oregon. A nondescript man dressed in business attire arrived at the Northwest Orient wicket and paid cash for a one-way ticket to Seattle. He registered as Dan Cooper and boarded Flight 305 which departed at 2:50 pm for the 30-minute hop north to Seattle. On the flight were 37 passengers, including Cooper, and 4 flight staff.

From witness accounts, there was nothing unusual or nervous about Dan Cooper. He ordered a bourbon and soda while taxing out and lit up a smoke. Once in the sky, Cooper called a flight attendant and passed her a hand-printed note. Cooper said, “Miss, you’d better look at that note. I have a bomb.”

Cooper’s note was specific. It read that he wanted $200,000 in “negotiable American currency” along with four parachutes—two main packs and two reserve units. He then demanded the flight land at Seattle, pick up the money, refuel and fly him on to Mexico City.

Cooper then cracked open his briefcase. The attendant saw red cylinders that looked like dynamite along with a maze of wires and switches. Cooper closed his case and directed her to alert the cabin crew. The pilot and co-pilot transmitted this information to the Seattle tower who immediately involved the police and the FBI.

Flight 305 went into a holding pattern outside Seattle while Northwest Orient management approved paying the ransom. In less than two hours, they sourced 10,000 20-dollar bills and delivered the money to the Sea-Tac airport. The authorities also obtained parachutes from a skydiving club and grouped them with the ransom cash.

Once Cooper was assured his demands were being met, he instructed the airplane to land and allowed the passengers to disembark. Cooper stipulated that the pilots and one attendant stay onboard. The plane refueled and departed at 7:40 pm with a destination of Mexico City by way of another refueling stop at Reno, Nevada.

Cooper stayed in the passenger compartment with the attendant. He gave further instructions to the flight crew that they were to level out at 10,000 feet, keep the landing gear down, lower the flaps to 15 degrees and slow the aircraft to near stall speed at 120 miles per hour. Then, Cooper had the attendant go into the cockpit cabin and close the door.

At 8:13 pm, the fuselage lost pressure. Then, there was a sudden shake in the tail section as if a weight was discharged. The crew called Cooper on the intercom, but he didn’t respond. The Boeing 727 landed in Reno at 10:15 pm and the crew found D.B. Cooper and his money to be long gone.

The police and FBI in Portland, Seattle and Reno acted fast. Their priority was to identify Cooper and try to locate him. This was the days before intense video surveillance so all the authorities had was interviewing witnesses who had contact with the man known as D.B. Cooper.

Artist drawings taken at different locations were remarkably similar. The image was a white male in his forties with brown eyes and short, receding hair. His build was between 5’10 and 6 feet with weight estimation at 170-180 lbs. Cooper’s dress was a dark suit jacket and matching slacks, with a white shirt and a black clip-on tie. He wore an overcoat and had only loafers on his feet.

The news of this brazen and bizarre event brought masses of information pouring in. By daylight, air and ground searches pounded the area where they thought Cooper jumped. Agents tracked down suspects and verified alibis. They also processed physical evidence left on the plane.

The investigation was exhaustive. But it wasn’t unproductive. Although D.B. Cooper was never found or identified—officially—there is existing evidence that could solve the case. It might be a matter of time before a break comes and the D.B. Cooper case is cracked through modern forensic technology. Here’s what’s known about the elusive Dan Cooper.

The Physical Evidence

The FBI, along with local police, treated the Boeing 727 like the crime scene it was. They isolated the area Cooper sat at and recovered some items. Of prime importance were 8 Raleigh King-Sized filter-tipped cigarette butts. These were verified by the flight attendant who observed Cooper smoking them.

Forensic examiners lifted fingerprints from the bourbon glass Cooper drank from. They also lifted prints from surrounding surfaces including an in-flight magazine that the attendant saw Cooper flip through. The prints have never been identified even through modern computerized assessments.

D. B. Cooper left his clip-on tie on the seat. It was sourced as being sold by J. C. Penney and contained a pearl tie clip. From the clip’s position, it appeared to have been placed by a left-handed person. This is consistent with witness descriptions of how Cooper was holding objects and conducting his actions. With forensic advancements, Cooper’s tie would later tell a whole lot more.

The Parachute Evidence

There were two thought schools in the early Cooper investigation stages. One was that he was an experienced parachutist with possible military training. The other was that Cooper was a rank amateur. Experienced parachutists mostly agreed that it was foolhardy—if not suicidal—to jump from a jetliner in those conditions.

When Cooper left the aircraft, it was pitch black, rainy and cold. The air temperature at 10,000 feet was well below zero, and Cooper was wearing nothing but a suit and slip-on shoes. When he demanded the specific parachutes, he made no request for warmer clothes, better boots, a helmet or any gloves.

However, D. B. Cooper was exact about the parachute types. He demanded four packs. Two were main chutes that were back mounted. The other two were reserve or backup packs designed to be harnessed on the chest. Two of the parachutes went out the door with D. B. Cooper, and two stayed behind on the plane.

These parachutes were unique and Cooper knew it. One main, or back-mounted, unit was a civilian sport-diving parachute that was steerable. The other was a military emergency parachute suitable for pilot and aircrew ejection. The civilian parachute had a long and slow opening rate while the military one deployed immediately and would work for low altitude operation.

One reserve parachute complemented the civilian model. The other was termed a “dummy” chute and was more suitable for last-resort operation. Cooper left the civilian-type main and reserve parachutes on the plane. He jumped with the low-altitude escape model on his back and modified the dummy pack to hold his money.

The Bail-Out or Jump Location

Flight records and crew input estimated D. B. Cooper’s exit-from-the aircraft time at 8:13 pm. This is when they felt the fuselage pressure drop and the shake when presumably his body weight relief changed the flight characteristics and the plane required re-trimming. Given the flight path, speed and distance, the original investigators placed the jump site as being in the Ariel district of southwest Washington near Lake Merwin on the Lewis River drainage.

Searchers extensively covered the Ariel region. They used fixed-wing airplanes, helicopters and submersibles. Hundreds of military staff, police officers and local volunteers scoured the ground on foot, horseback and all-terrain vehicles. They found nothing.

In the spring of 1972, investigators and flight experts reevaluated their location estimate. They realized there was a flight path mistake as the pilots were on manual flight control, not autopilot. With a westerly wind influence, the experts revised their suspicion to believe that Cooper jumped further east over the Washougal River region.

Search efforts focused to the south-south-east of Mount St. Helens. Again, they found no trace of D. B. Cooper or his effects. The man and the money had simply vanished. The big question on everyone’s mind was whether he was alive or dead.

The Boeing 727 Aircraft

It’s obvious that D. B. Cooper, whoever he was, knew more than his parachutes. He also knew his airplanes. Cooper knew the Boeing 727-100 model was ideally suited for a jetliner jump.

The 727 had a very interesting design compared to other popular jets of the era like the 707, 737 and 747. It was tri-engined with all three powerplants mounted high on the rear and not forward on the wings. The 707 also had a unique entry and exit door in the tail.

The rear-entry/exit stairway, combined with the elevated rear engines, made the Boeing 727 about the only commercial passenger jet that a jumper could safely and practically exit. With the rear staircase lowered, it allowed the parachutist to enter the outside and be partially protected from the wind stream. The jumper would also be below the heat and thrust of the engine exhaust. (Click on GIF Image for Animated Bail Out)

D. B. Cooper also knew things about the staircase operation. He was able to open it while in flight which is not what system was designed to do. The flight attendant who stayed on the Seattle to Reno leg also stated that Cooper asked her a question about the staircase operation that indicated he had technical knowledge of it.

The Portland-to-Seattle Flight Choice

Without question, D.B. Cooper intentionally chose the Northwest Orient Airlines 727 flight from Portland to Seattle. Besides the 727 being the perfect plane to serve Portland, the company’s home base was in Seattle. It was the headquarters city for Northwest Orient and the location where decisions could be quickly made and cash being raised fast.

$200,000 was a lot of money back in 1971. It’s the equivalent of $1.26 million today. That’s not pocket change, but Northwest was able to source that amount and deliver it to Cooper in a two-hour window. In all likelihood, Cooper knew it.

D. B. Cooper also knew the topography. In conversations with the attendant, Cooper casually mentioned a landmark in Tacoma that he could see out the window. He also stated he knew McChord Air Force Base was a 20-minute drive from there. It’s also likely Cooper would know that two F-106 fighters were scrambled from McChord and were shadowing him all the time.

Cooper also must have known intimate things about his jump zone. On one hand, it was the dead of night and in a cold climate. A random leap into unknown territory would have been extremely risky for suffering injury or experiencing hypothermia. One the other hand, if Cooper had planned his exit strategy as well as his entrance, then he probably had something prepared for the getaway.

Evidence Turns Up on the Ground

For seven years, there wasn’t hide nor hair seen of D.B. Cooper. The suspected landing regions were combed by professionals from the military and law enforcement agencies as well as folks from the general community. It wasn’t so much D. B. Cooper that the civilian sleuths were interested in. It was the cash.

Most people believed, on the balance of probabilities, that Cooper died in the fall. That meant his bag of money was out there—somewhere. It didn’t hurt the search efforts that Northwest Orient and their insurer offered a large reward for Cooper or the cash’s capture.

A bit of a break happened in 1978. An airline placard from Flight 305 was found near a logging road in southern Washington State. It was the instruction notice for how to operate the rear stairwell of a Boeing 727. This location jived with the eastern flight path that the aviation experts reassessed and placed in the Washougal River drainage.

A bigger break came in 1980. A much bigger break. A 10-year-old boy was digging along a sandbar bank on the Columbia River downstream from Vancouver, Washington which is near Portland. He found part of D. B. Cooper’s ransom money.

The young fellow spotted a weathered wad of bills. They were all U.S. twenties for a total of $5880. The serial numbers matched the ones recorded by Northwest Orient and their banker.

The bills were in pretty tough shape. They were worn in a “rounded” pattern that indicated water-sourced erosion rather than being buried or hidden in their original condition. This led investigators to consider the source.

The forensic team eliminated the Lewis River drainage because it poured into the Columbia downstream from the sandbar. The Washougal drainage, however, was upstream. Searchers went back in full force through the Washougal and its tributaries. They came away empty-handed.

The Current Forensic Evidence

Since 1971, there have been tremendous advances in forensic science. The biggest one is DNA genotyping and that’s been done in the D. B. Cooper case. The results—or lack of results—are interesting.

There were biological deposits on the J.C. Penney tie Cooper left on the plane. Two small samples and one larger sample allowed the forensic lab to build a male profile. The best guess is the bio-material was saliva.

And the best guess is that the profile is from the real D. B. Cooper. But that’s just an educated guess because this tie could have been contaminated by another male who borrowed the tie from Cooper or sold it to him. This avenue is weak, but it’s the only DNA path the forensic team has.

But what about the Raleigh King-Sized filtered tip cigarette butts? The attendant saw Cooper with these in his mouth. Surely it would be his saliva and DNA on those?

Well, no one knows what happened to Cooper’s butts. In deep-diving the Cooper case literature, it looks like the FBI lost the entire eight cigarette butts. Internally, the blame bonces between the Reno team who recovered them and the Las Vegas lab who received them. Buck-passing also goes from Vegas to Seattle but, the truth is, the cigarette butts are unaccountable and they have been gone for a long, long time.

There’s still a bit of a shining light in the D. B. Cooper forensic closet. In 2008, forensic specialists used a highly-sophisticated scanning electron microscope to look inside Cooper’s tie. What they found was telling.

D. B. Cooper’s tie was significantly contaminated at the near-molecular metal by some very rare and unusual metals. The microscope picked up traces of cerium, strontium sulfide and pure titanium as well as other tidbits of bismuth and aluminum. That meant the tie had to have been in a metal shop that manufactured high-tech materials.

The prominent place where these materials amassed was in the Boeing factory near Seattle. At the time, this combination of micro-materials was only used in making the prototype in Boeing’s supersonic transport development project. Insiders said that only managers and engineers wore ties in the work area where they’d be exposed to airborne trace metals.

The D. B. Cooper Suspect List

The FBI investigated over 1,000 suspects during their years of probing. Some leads were weak. Others were strong. And, some still haven’t been completely ruled out.

But before naming names, there’s a big curiosity many people have. That’s where did the handles D. B. Cooper and Dan Cooper come from? There seems to be some confusion.

In the official investigation, there’s no such name as D. B. Cooper. The suspect used the name Dan Cooper on the flight manifest, and that is undoubtedly an alias.

Somehow, the Portland media, in a rush for a deadline, got the name wrong and put it on the wire as D. B. Cooper. The name stuck and now holds legendary status.

There’s an interesting background to the “Dan Cooper” alias, though. In the late 1960s, a Belgium comic book publisher ran a series about a Canadian Air Force test pilot who did a lot of thrill-seeking stuff. Bailing out of airplanes with parachutes was one. The magazines were never printed in English—only French—and the hero’s name was Dan Cooper.

When the FBI closed the file they called NORJAK for Northwest Hijacking, they publicly indicated they’d done their best to eliminate all reasonable suspects. However, they left the door open to re-investigating leads should something new and good come in.

Here are the top names who the FBI looked into:

Kenneth Christianson was a U.S. Army paratrooper who joined Northwest Orient as a mechanic and then went on to be a flight attendant and purser. He served on 727s and knew them intimately. Christiansen was left-handed, smoked and liked bourbon. He died in 1994 and allegedly left a deathbed confession

Jack Coffelt was a conman and government informant. He allegedly made a jailhouse confession and was a dead-ringer in looks to the D. B. Cooper sketches. Coffelt was in Portland on November 24, 1971, and showed up a few days later with leg injuries that he said were from a skydiving accident. He died in 1975.

Lynn Doyle (LD) Cooper was a Korean War veteran. After he died in 1999, his family members came forward with their belief that “LD”, as they called him, was D. B. Cooper. The family stated he was obsessed with the Dan Cooper comics and images of LD were similar to the suspect drawings. LD Cooper lived in the Washougal River drainage and survived a questionable and unwitnessed accident at the time of the skyjacking. Familial DNA testing does not match the Cooper tie.

William Gossett died in 2003. According to the FBI’s lead NORJAK investigator at the time, “The circumstantial evidence is real strong, and I feel we got the right guy”. Gossett was an army paratrooper with extensive night and low-level jumping experience. He also was an exact physical match to the eyewitness reports of D. B. Cooper.

Richard McCoy was an experienced military parachutist. He was also caught after highjacking a 727 airplane and bailing out over Utah in 1974. McCoy’s modus operandi was an exact replica of the Cooper skyjacking. He also looked like Cooper. Whether he was a copycat or the real McCoy, we’ll never know. Richard McCoy escaped from jail and was shot to death in a gunfight with the cops.

Duane Weber could have been D. B. Cooper’s doppelganger.  Before he died in 1995, Weber confessed to his wife that he was the real D. B. Cooper. He even provided her with key-fact evidence like fingerprint placement on the aft staircase rails. The FBI tested Weber’s familial DNA and eliminated it as being the donor on the tie.

The FBI Theory on Who D. B. Cooper Really Was

Many FBI agents worked on the NORJACK file. Over the years, agent opinions have waffled back and forth on who D. B. Cooper really was and if he survived the nighttime jump in frigid conditions. The majority seem to think Cooper died in the fall.

Others are not so sure. They point to five other 727 hijackings where the perpetrator jumped in midair and lived to tell about it. Some feel it might be crazy, but it’s been tried and it worked. They say there’s every reason to believe Cooper succeeded.

FBI Agent Larry Carr was the last investigator assigned to the D. B. Cooper case. He closed the file in 2016. Here’s Agent Carr’s take on the matter:

“I think it’s highly unlikely Cooper survived the jump. But he came from somewhere and something. And that is what we wanted to know. My profile of Cooper is that he served in the Air Force and at some point was stationed in Europe. That’s where he may have become interested in the Dan Cooper comic books.

I think he worked as a cargo loader on military planes, giving him knowledge and experience in the air-drop cargo aviation industry which was still in its infancy back in 1971. Because his job would have him throwing cargo out of planes, Cooper would have worn an emergency parachute in case he fell out. Certainly, he would have been trained in parachuting and would have experienced a few actual jumps. This would have provided him with a working knowledge of parachutes, but not necessarily the functional knowledge to survive a jump under the conditions he did.

I think he arrived in Seattle after he discharged from the military and might have got a job in the Boeing factory. That’s where the metal traces in the tie likely came from. It’s possible that he lost his job during an economic downturn that happened in the aviation industry in 1970 and 1971.

If he was a loner, or with little family, no one would have missed him after he was gone.”

Did the mysterious Dan (D. B.) Cooper die in his skyjacking? Or did he live to see another day? What are your thoughts?

*   *   *

Post Publication Note 07April2020: A DyingWords follower sent a link to their website that developed an interesting theory purporting the late William Smith might have been the real D. B. (Dan) Cooper. There are some remarkable similarities and it appears the FBI never investigated Smith as a suspect. The website host gave the FBI their information on Smith in 2018 along with Smith’s known fingerprints from his US Army service file. So far, there’s been no response from the FBI, presumably because the NORJACK case is a closed file. Here’s the link to the William Smith suspect website and a comparison photo of an older William Smith to the artist drawing: https://dbcooperhijack.com/

JUST HOW DEADLY IS NOVEL CORONAVIRUS AND COVID-19?

There’s a new viral kid on the block and he’s mean. Real mean. He goes by Novel (New) Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), and gives you the previously unknown disease termed COVID-19. That’s the biological term for Corona Virus Disease identified during the dying days of 2019. Now, in two and a half months, this nasty bug has virally spread from a small shop in China to the far corners of the world. It’s on an unprecedented multiple-mutation path, and that’s what makes it so deadly.

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome caused by the Coronavirus of 2019 (SARS-CoV-2) is particularly dangerous for people with compromised immune systems. That profile takes in newborns, the elderly, folks with immunity disorders and those in generally weak health. This combined demographic comprises a huge part of the human population.

Microscopic view of Coronavirus, a pathogen that attacks the respiratory tract.

There are two parts to this pandemic that’s scaring the pants off people. One is the virus itself which is a brand new member of the Corona genus. The other is the disease it causes which everyone now recognizes as the name COVID-19. How bad this will get is anyone’s guess, but the world health authorities are preparing for panic.

There is little need to panic, though. The key to surviving this outbreak and “flattening the curve” as the containment process is called, is knowledge and caution. Properly protected, you can minimize your exposure of viral transmission and respond quickly if you’re contaminated. Keeping your distance in social settings, washing/decontaminating  your hands and shielding your face (eyes/nose/mouth) are the most important things you can do—they’re the three top tools to tackle the threat.

What is the Novel Coronavirus?

A virus is a microscopic speck of organic non-cellular material that sits on the fringe of being alive and being inert. On its own, a virus has a limited existence unless it finds a host of organic cell matter. That can be human, animal, plant or any other life form that replicates itself through cellular division.

According to information from the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), there are millions of different viruses above, on and in the Earth. NCBI has identified 75,000 separate viral genome sequences and has 5,000 of these described in detail. Coronavirus-19 was new to them, and they’re doing everything in their power to figure this one out. It’s not coming easily.

To survive and thrive, a virus must find its way to a host and invade its cells. In humans, that happens through absorption into your airways, eyes or an opening in your skin. Once a virus attaches itself to your cell, it transmits encoded instructions to make the cell copy the virus’s genetic profile and essentially produce clones.

The Coronavirus of 2019 isn’t satisfied with cloning itself. It wants to mutate and create biologically diverse offspring. That presents an enormous challenge to epidemiologists who get a vaccine made for one strain, only to find the bug is far ahead of them with mutants.

The Coronavirus-19 is perfectly suited for mutating. It’s a single-strand ribonucleic acid (RNA) based bug which is simple, quick and cheap to reproduce. Many other viruses are double-strand deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) creatures. They’re much harder to duplicate and change form.

The RNA-based Coronavirus-19 presents another problem. Its specialty is attacking the lungs and causing acute respiratory disease. This results in pneumonia.

Pneumonia is a deadly disorder. It’s usually the coup-de-grace for virally-infected people who have no natural ability to fight back. It’s also extremely difficult for medical professionals to treat pneumonia. Combined, pneumonia is a serious development in deteriorating health.

Where Did Coronavirus-19 Originate and Where is it Going?

Medical investigators are certain that this virus first infected a human being at a marketplace in Wuhan, China. The market is primarily a seafood shop, but it does deal in live animals. One worker was exposed to the virus there in mid-December of 2019, and medical experts feel it’s highly likely the bug came from a bat.

Normally, viruses don’t easily transmit from animals or plants to humans. There are exceptions like the swine flu that came from pigs and the bird flu that started in fowl. However, this seems to be the first bat-related viral outbreak except for rabies infections which can also be deadly.

Once the epidemic became a pandemic, it spread like wildfire. By the way, an epidemic is a local outbreak that defies containment. A pandemic (from the Greek words “pan” meaning “all” and “demos” meaning “people”) is a word-wide viral fire that’s out of control.

That’s the current situation with the world fighting the Coronavirus-19 pandemic. (This piece was published on March 21, 2020). No one knows where it’s headed. The only certain thing is that it’s highly contagious and not at all contained.

Two days ago, the Governor of California wrote to the President of the United States with a plea for federal help to curb the COVID-19 pandemic. Clearly, the Governor sees this as a crisis of monumental proportion. This is a quote from the letter:

“California has been disproportionately impacted by repatriation efforts over the past month. Our state and health care delivery system are significantly impacted by the rapid increase in COVID-19 cases. Our case rate is doubling every four days. We project that 56 percent of California’s population—25.5 million people—will be infected with the virus over the next 8 weeks.”

The Governor states the situation is grave. He tells the President that California’s health care resources will be so overloaded with COVID-19 response that they won’t be able to address critical acute care needs like heart attacks, strokes and vehicle accidents. He also equates the crisis as threatening all of America.

It’s not just America that’s in peril. It seems China has some reprieve after taking draconian steps to quarantine people, however, countries like Italy are getting it bad. And it’s not just “first world” places like Europe and North America that are going to suffer. This bug is now everywhere except Antarctica.

Why is Coronavirus-19 and COVID-19 so Threatening?

One reason—probably the main reason—that COVID-19 is so threatening is because humans have no natural immunity to animal-transferred viral invasion. There is nothing that can be done about COVID-19 except riding it out while your body naturally fights it off. That takes time, and many infected people simply can’t afford the luxury of time.

There is no medicine or vaccine to treat Coronavirus-19 infections and COVID-19 disease. At least not yet. Your body only has two options. One is for your immune system to directly attack and kill the viral copies and mutations. The other is for your immune system to cut off and kill compromised cell tissue.

Coronavirus-19 is a lung killer. Its habitat is the respiratory system and, once in place, your body will create mechanisms to fight the lung invasion. That means making fluids and this is what pneumonia is. If you’re in an overall weak condition, your body cannot control your lung fluids. You slowly drown, and there’s little can be done—even if you’re in intensive care.

Another factor in why Coronavirus-19 is so threatening is that it has an unusual rate of mutation. So far, scientists have isolated two distinct Coronavirus-19 strains. One is the “S” stain which occurs in about 30 percent of diagnosed cases. The other is the “L” strain conversely found in 70 percent. Alarmingly, the L-strain is much more aggressive and it mutated from its S cousin.

Epidemiologists around the world are extremely concerned that more strains of Coronavirus-19 are in the works. In perspective, the S-strain Coronavirus-19 is ten times more potent than the seasonal influenza virus which makes an annual visit. No one knows how strong these projected “superbugs” like L-strain will be.

How Does the Coronavirus-19 Spread?

The Coronavirus-19 requires physical contact to spread between bodies. It requires an infected person to give it to another directly or indirectly. Direct contact examples are sneezing and breathing in droplets, handshakes or sharing infected objects. Indirect contamination occurs when a droplet of human body fluid (usually mucous) lands on a surface where it’s picked up by another party.

Common surfaces like public pin-pads, handrails and doorknobs are ideal spots for a Coronavirus-19 to hold on and wait. Cash is another filthy substance that flows between hands and harbors the fugitive. In fact, cash can be a worst offender, both paper and coin.

How long the virus stays volatile is a good question. Current literature suggests a virus like this one can stay active for anywhere from a few hours to many days. Temperature, humidity and surface composition are factors in virus survival. So is air movement and competing contaminants like chemicals and other pathogens.

The Coronavirus-19 is a tiny, tiny particle. It’s so small that it can only be seen through an electron microscope. However, it’s big in numbers and there can be an enormous amount of individual virus particles in a single drop of snot.

All it takes is one single virus particle to infect you. From there, the Coronavirus-19 virus has a rapid rate of multiplying. You can pick up a virus and be symptomatic in no time. You can also be infected and be asymptomatic throughout your infectious period.

There simply isn’t enough known about this novel virus to write a playbook for it. As a virus rule-of-thumb, most people are contagious for a 14-day period from scooping the bug till it’s over. That, however, is not a done deal. You can be a walking viral machine and not know it. That goes for the person beside you.

What Can be Done to Stop the Spread of Novel Coronavirus-19?

The short answer is “lots”. It starts with isolating people with infections until the bug has run its course and they’re no longer contagious. That’s a bitter and expensive pill to swallow, but it’s the only thing that works. At least until a vaccine comes along and that’s some time out.

Total isolation, or quarantine actions, are harsh steps. However, they’re nowhere near as harsh as the other alternative which is spectacular sickness and death. If quarantine/isolation measures aren’t practical, then social distancing is the next best measure. A distance suggestion is 3 to 6 feet or 1 to 2 meters, but the further the better seems the safest.

Washing your hands frequently or using an alcohol-based hand sanitizer is mandatory. Soap and ethanol are mortal enemies to the Coronavirus-19, and it’s hand-to-face contact that really spreads this guy around. There are no known scientific studies to determine where hoarding toilet paper fits into your viral protection plan, but there’s plenty of proof suggesting TP is helpful for other bodily functions.

Gloves, on the other hand, are excellent protectors for one-time or single use. That’s provided you refrain from touching your face while being gloved-up which is easier said than done. Bear in mind that your skin is as good a protector as a latex covering. The trick is washing your hands or discarding your gloves between contacting your mucous membrane orifices.

There are varying opinions about mask effectiveness. Some feel masks are better defenses to protect others from you than vice versa. The Coronavirus isn’t often airborne except for an immediate expulsion in close range. If you peel off your mask while still having contaminated hands or gloves, it’s pointless protection. Also, conventional surgical masks, or even regular respirators, don’t protect your eyes. Full face shields are much better.

It’s all about limiting exposure, keeping your distance and minimizing unsanitary hand-to-face contact.

The trick to taming this terrible threat is mass-cooperation between our fellow human beings. This is the time to stop all non-essential exposure. It’s a suck-back and reload situation. It might be a good time to just read a book while staying home.

So far, there’s been amazing interaction between health authorities and political personnel. This is a unique time in human history. What makes this different from other pandemics is that our experts have much better communication ability than in past outbreaks and have responded, for the most part, with speed.

So has cooperation among the public. There’s been some fear factor and some fake news. That goes on with every crisis, and that’s to be expected in this one, too. The Coronavirus-19 fight will be won. Unfortunately, there’ll be casualties along the way.

Casualties fall into two groups in our interconnected society. One is health care workers and pandemic victims. The other group is financial—business and personal. There’ll be few segments not taking a punch in the gut from this new kid’s viral viciousness. Yet, our societies will survive and so will you.

The key to surviving this viral outbreak and “flattening the curve” as the containment process is called, is knowledge and caution. Properly protected, you can minimize your exposure to viral transmission and respond quickly if you’re contaminated. Keeping your distance in social settings, washing/disinfecting your hands and shielding your face (eyes/nose/mouth) are the most important things you can do—they’re the three top tools to tackle the threat.

Post Publication Note (23Mar2020): This graph was supplied by a DyingWords follower:


Post Publication Note (24Mar2020): CalTech Interview with Virologist Dr, David Ho.

INTERCONNECT — FINDING YOUR PLACE, PURPOSE AND MEANING IN THE UNIVERSE

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Once upon a time, a youth lay on their back and gazed in awe at the starry sky. The moon waned as a dim crescent—God’s Thumbnail, some call it—which let the universal brilliance of consciousness resonate in the youth’s eyes. Billions of fireballs blazed above, and countless more stars couldn’t be seen. The cosmos had cracked its coat. Like a galactic exhibitionist teasing eternal entropy, the universe flashed a perfect picture of order defying chaos and displayed an unbashful interconnection with all its occupants, including the star-gazing youth.

If you remember… that youth was you. Regardless if your years are still young, you’ve reached middle-age or are now advanced in time, the wonder of universal questions remains etched in your mind. Who are you? Where did you come from? Where are you going? And what is your interconnected place, purpose and meaning in the universe?

These are timeless queries people like you’ve asked since humans first consciously observed the heavenly heights. Long ago, your ancestors used their emerging awareness to question universal curiosities. It’s a natural thing for humankind to look for simple answers to straightforward questions and, no doubt, you’ve queried them many times during your earthly existence without receiving any clear response.

For centuries, sages and scientists pondered the meaning of existence within the universe. They’ve debated scientific theories and proposed philosophical solutions to deep puzzles boldly presented in the macro and micro worlds. You’ll find narrow common ground on who’s right and who’s wrong which leaves you to wonder what nature’s realities truly are.

Albert Einstein equated that science without philosophy was lame and philosophy without science was blind. That great scientific sage also spent the second half of his life looking for the Grand Unified Theory (GUT) that interconnects everything in the universe. That includes your place, purpose and meaning.

As wise and astute as Einstein was, he didn’t complete his mission of tying the universe into a nicely packaged bow. It’s not that he didn’t believe all parts of the universe were intrinsically interconnected. Einstein knew in his gut that all physical laws and natural processes reported to one central command. That, ultimately, is the universal dominance of consciousness that allowed your creation and will one day destroy you through eternal entropy.

This isn’t a religious treatise you’re reading. No, far from it. It’s simply one person’s later-in-life reflection on three interconnected and universal curiosities. What’s your place? What’s your purpose? And, what’s the meaning in your life?

To find sensible suggestions, it’s necessary to dissect what’s learned (so far) of universal properties and what’s known about you as a human. You’re a conscious being housed in a physical vessel and controlled by universal principles. You had no choice in how you came to be here, but you certainly have choices now. Those include placing yourself in a safe and prosperous environment, developing a productive purpose and enjoying a rewarding meaning from the limited time you’re granted to be alive.

At the end of this discourse you’ll find a conclusion about your place, purpose and meaning in the universe. It might be one person’s opinion, but it’s based on extensive research and over six decades of personal experience. However, for the conclusion to make sense you need to take a little tour through the universal truths.

Ahead are a layman’s look at the origin of the universe, classical and quantum physics, chemistry, biology, anatomy, neuroscience and the life-changing principle of entropy. It’s also a dive into what’s not known about the biggest scientific and philosophical mystery of all—how consciousness manifests through the human brain and how entropy tries to kill it. Now, if you’re ready to interconnect with the universe, here’s what your place, purpose and meaning truly are.

The universe is enormous. It’s absolutely huge. There aren’t proper adjectives in the English language to describe just how big the universe really is. Perhaps the right word is astronomical which means exceeding great or enormous.

People often use the word “cosmos” interchangeably with “universe”. That’s not correct. Cosmos refers to the visible world extending beyond Earth and outward to the heavens. The universe incorporates all that’s in the macroscopic or outward realm, but the term also drills down and incorporates everything within the micro-regions of molecules, atoms and then into sub-atomic realities where quantum stuff gets seriously strange.

In Chemistry, Biology and Physics 101, you learned you’re created of energized matter built of complex material formed by atomic and molecular chains. So is every set-piece in the micro and macro universe. All visible matter contains material made of atomic structures that strictly obey standard operating procedures set down during the universe’s birth.

How that happened is explained by a few different theories. Religious accounts, depending on the flavor, hold that an omniscient supernatural power created the universe at will and for a vain purpose. Current scientific accounts dismiss all supernatural contribution and exchange it with a series of natural orders called the laws of physics and non-tangible processes of the universe.

Most scientists don’t attach an intentional purpose to the universe. They leave that to philosophers who tend to argue with abstract thoughts that aren’t backed by hard evidence. Then, there are those who think the universe is simply a grand thought.

No matter who’s right and who’s wrong, there are a few facts you can personally bank on. One is that you exist in a physical form and use consciousness to be self-aware. That includes knowing you have a place in the universe, a purpose for being here and there’s a meaning to your life.

As said, this isn’t a religious paper. Religion can be a matter of faith but, then, so can science. The difference is that science relies on direct observation, proven experiments and the ability to replicate results. Science also depends on building hypothesizes, turning them into theories and then certifying them as facts.

No particular physicist claims sole authorship of the Big Bang Theory. Currently, the Big Bang Theory is the leading account for the universe’s origin, and it’s generally accepted throughout the scientific community as being the best explanation—so far—of where your structural matter originated. It goes something like this.

In the early 1900s, an astronomer named Edwin Hubble (the space telescope guy) was busy measuring galactic light and came upon his profound realization that the observable universe was expanding. Not only was the universe growing, Hubble exclaimed, but it was also accelerating its expansion rate. That led to a logical conclusion that the universe must have started in a singular place and at a specific time.

Some of science’s brightest folks worked on mathematical extrapolations and built the theory postulating that all matter and energy in today’s observable universe must have been once compressed in a singularity that exploded. That big bang started the time clock, created space, released energy and formed matter. It’s been growing ever since and, along the journey, you were created as an interconnected part.

This sounds like a pretty big undertaking. It also sounds pretty far out to think everything in the known universe was stuck in the space smaller than an atom where it was exceedingly hot and heavy. Well, guys like Einstein and Steven Hawking accepted the Big Bang Theory as fact, although Einstein famously quipped, “God knows where that came from.”

Without any other scientific direction to go on, what you see in the universe got started from a single point and is enormously here in its present form and place. The best-educated guesses place the universe’s age at about 13.77 billion years, give or take a few hundred thousand. This rough age-estimate comes from measuring Cepheid Variable Pulsating Stars (CVPS) with the Hubble Space Telescope which has proven to be quite useful once NASA got its foggy lens fixed.

The size of the observable macro, or outer, universe is impressive. Current measurements find the most distant visible electromagnetic radiation to be 46 billion light-years from Earth. That’s in every direction where the radio telescopes pick up the Cosmic Background Radiation (CBR) signal. Astronomers believe the CBR is a leftover mess occurring about 300,000 years after the Big Bang. If the true universal distance radius is 46 billion light-years, then the entire trip across occupied space is around 92 billion light-years in diameter.

That is a massive distance. It’s gigantic, humongous and colossal. Light, which is electromagnetic radiation, travels at 186,000 miles per second or 300,000 kilometers per second. That means that in one year a light particle can travel 5.88 trillion miles or 9.5 trillion kilometers. Multiply that by 92 billion and you’ll see that it’s a long, long way across the visible universe.

That’s just the macro universe that astronomers can see with current technology. Most scientists agree they’ve only explored something like four to five percent of the visible universe, and there’s far more out there than known today. This is an ongoing search with exciting discoveries emerging all the time.

To get a feel of where your physical place is in the macro universe is, you’re on the surface of a planet called Earth. Your home base is 93 million miles or 150 million kilometers from the sun which is a common-type star. It takes eight minutes for light to leave the sun and meet your eyes. To put this distance in perspective, a light particle can circle the Earth seven and a half times in one second.

The solar system extends a long way out. Pluto, which has returned its classification into the planet family, is seven hours distant from the sun via light speed. Going further, your planetary arrangement orbiting the sun is in one part of your home galaxy called the Milky Way. The sun is approximately 30,000 light-years from the big black hole at the Milky Way’s center, and you’re actually closer to the nearest independent galaxy than you are to the Milky Way’s core.

No one knows how many stars there are in the Milky Way. It’s a countless number. The current consensus is there may be a trillion stars in your home galaxy. Some astronomers feel there could be a trillion or more galaxies in the visible universe.

The Milky Way is part of a galactic bunch called the Local Group. These 54 assorted-shape star arrangements form part of a larger galactic collection known as the Virgo Supercluster. This is a big, big crowd but nowhere near what’s really going on out there.

Recent astronomical observations confirmed that beyond the Virgo Supercluster lies a monster called “Laniakea” which is Hawaiian for “Immeasurable Heaven”. This stupendous structure sits in a part of space called the “Zone of Avoidance” where the clouds of dust and gas are so thick that visible light is impossible to perceive. Astonishingly, Laniakea and the Virgo Supercluster are being pulled together across space and time by a behemoth force nicely titled the “Great Attractor”. No one knows what that force field is, but it’s powerful.

As you lay on the Earth’s surface and gaze at the starry sky, you’re not seeing reality. You’re only seeing light that left its emission point a long time ago. If you spot Andromeda, the only independent galaxy visible with your naked eye, you’re seeing that structure as it was two million years ago. For all you know, Andromeda may no longer exist.

The universe can play a lot of tricks on an observer. But one thing the universe never does is change its basic operating rules. Space, time, energy and matter follow strict laws that apply everywhere throughout the universe. Whether you’re on Earth, in Andromeda or around Laniakea, all fundamental forces behave the same way.

There are four fundamental forces in the entire universe—both in the macro and micro worlds. Those are electromagnetism, gravity, the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force. Space, time, energy and matter all adhere to these four forces from which many physicists have tried to find a common denominator to frame the Grand Unified Theory (GUT).

So far, no luck. Einstein spent the second half of his life working on a unified theory. His intuition told him unification lay in an infinite pool of information which is the non-visible and non-tangible factor that gives space, time, energy and matter its direction. This information or intelligence principle certainly seems to be real, and it’s captured in the acronym STEMI for Space, Time, Energy, Matter and Information or intelligence. It might also be universal consciousness.

Information permeates the entire universe. It somehow laid down the four forces emerging from the Big Bang and then made other rules or laws of physics which carried throughout the entire regions of reality. However, what the rules say about operating the outward cosmos are not exactly the same rules as those governing sub-atomics.

What directs your existence in the macro world adheres to classical or Newtonian physics. Down in the microcosm realm, though, your matter and energy have different masters. The wee parts of you behave according to quantum physics which are somehow interconnected back into classic physics and STEMI.

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If you have any difficulties downloading any efile type, please email me at garry.rodgers@shaw.ca and I’ll ship you an attached copy. Also, please feel free to share Interconnect. It wasn’t written as a money-maker. Rather, it’s a personal letter to myself in an attempt to figure it all out. Here’s one of the principle take-aways: