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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (June 28, 2018)
7A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, JUNE 28, 2018 Reserve: ‘What do people want these roads to do for them?’ Continued from Page 1A Generating revenue has never been the main priority of the reserve, but the costs asso- ciated with maintenance may not make it a sustainable ven- ture, Barnes said. “If we have to do extensive road rehab every time we do this, we’re not going to break even,” Barnes said. “We’re going to have to subsidize that.” If the report suggests a lot of major modifications are necessary, the community has a few options. Thinning could be taken out of the plan as a recommen- dation altogether, and the roads decommissioned, Barnes said. The downside would be the city would no longer be able to expect any kind of revenue from the reserve, meaning any restoration will have to be paid with grants or the general fund. The ultimate goal of restoring the forest would still evolve naturally, Barnes said, but not as quickly. The community could also still have thinning opera- tions, but leave the logs in the reserve for habitat restoration rather than revenue, Sims said. Roads would not have to be maintained to support logging trucks. There are benefits to hav- ing less disturbance in a water- shed, but he also has seen how thinning has encouraged new growth, Sims said. Keep- ing woody debris within the reserve could also aid in ongo- ing salmon habitat restoration efforts. “You do have an impact,” Sims said. “But it’s also more about the perception of what that is. People are shocked by it, but in a couple of years it looks more natural.” This summer, Sims will continue evaluating roads throughout the reserve to deter- mine which need major, minor or no maintenance to support any future activity — whether that be a logging truck or a hiker. He expects the report to be finished by September, and hopes it will inform the com- mittee in whatever direction is chosen. “A lot of it will come down to: What do people want these roads to do for them?” Sims said. “We’ll take a fresh look at all of it, to see if the commu- nity is excited about another thinning project.” Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian Roads are being evaluated in the Ecola Creek Forest Reserve as a part of the five-year review of the property. Beeswax: Group last searched for shipwreck last summer Continued from Page 1A Oregon Historical Society Researchers have linked the markings from blocks of beeswax found near Manzanita to shippers in the Philip- pines that were part of the Spanish galleon trade across the Pacific Ocean. had a complete manifest of the estimated 235 passengers and crew aboard the ship. Researchers also found a partial cargo manifest, includ- ing 2.5 tons of mercury that may help with identification of the wreck, and were able to link the markings on some of the beeswax blocks found in Oregon to shippers in the Philippines part of the galleon trade. “I hope that our archival research will help the archae- ological team in locating the wreck,” La Follette said. “I would also like other people to do genealogical research of the people on the passenger and crew list.” Other articles in the quar- terly recap the Santo Cristo de Burgos’ crew and cargo, along with the Spanish galleon trade across the Pacific Ocean and the tradition of treasure hunt- ing around Neahkahnie Moun- tain and the Nehalem Spit. One recaps the research by the Beeswax Wreck Project, started in 2006 to ascertain the nationality, port of origin, des- tination, name and final resting place of the ship. The Beeswax Wreck Proj- ect has since been folded into the Maritime Archaeological Society, a nonprofit based in Astoria and focused on doc- umenting shipwrecks in the Pacific Northwest. The group last searched for the shipwreck last summer, deploying side- scan sonar and an underwa- ter robot to explore rocky out- croppings along Oswald West State Park. Scott Williams, lead researcher with the Beeswax project, said the archaeolog- ical society is hampered by a lack of money for the expen- sive underwater archaeology equipment. The group will dive near the Beeswax search area this summer in search of an unrelated anchor chain, but needs a new magnetome- ter to help find metal deposits from artifacts such as the can- nons the Santo Cristo de Bur- gos would have been carrying, he said. But Williams is excited about the potential interest La Follette’s work could generate. “I think it kind of kicks it up to another level of scholar- ship,” he said. “Having this out will really raise awareness.” La Follette, who is active with the Oregon Coast Alli- ance, will present her team’s findings July 8 at the Oregon Historical Society in Port- land. Copies of the Oregon Historical Quarterly are avail- able at the historical soci- ety’s museum store, and start- ing next week at the Columbia River Maritime Museum. D.B. Cooper: ‘I want out of the system’ Continued from Page 1A Colbert claims the letter, part of a larger FOIA docu- ment dump, proves that his No. 1 Cooper candidate — Robert Wesley Rackstraw, an Army paratrooper and ex-con- vict now living in the San Diego area — is the infamous airborne bandit. Rackstraw was once a person of interest to the FBI before the bureau cleared him. In the typed, two-para- graph letter, allegedly writ- ten from the Bahamas to “let you know I am not dead but really alive,” the writer repeats a couple of odd phrases, their final iterations appearing in the sentences: “I want out of the system and saw a way through good ole Unk,” (that is, Uncle Sam); and “And please tell the lackey cops D.B. Cooper is not my real name.” Rick Sherwood, a member of Colbert’s investigative team and an Army Security Agency veteran who briefly supervised Rackstraw in Vietnam, had a theory: Perhaps the repetition signaled Army “code-speak,” used by the military to locate enemy troops during the war. Code cracked The decoded results: “through good ole Unk” becomes “by skyjacking a jet plane” — and “And please tell the lackey cops” becomes “I am 1st Lt. Robert Rackstraw.” When Colbert asked his “cold case” team to review Sherwood’s work, “They said, ‘Uh, this is a confession.’” “It’s stunning,” Colbert said. “I mean, he not only admits he’s Cooper, he says he did it.” Sherwood explained the code-breaking process, which is copyrighted, to The Daily Astorian off the record. His results were checked by another member of Colbert’s team, retired Lt. Col. Ken Overturf, using an old Army code book. Earlier this year, Sher- wood deciphered codes from a court-released D.B. Cooper letter sent to the Seattle Times, New York Times, Los Ange- les Times and Washington Post. On each carbon copy — three of which were scooped up by the FBI before they were printed — was a series of numbers and alphabetical let- ters. It’s the same code used in the new Oregonian letter. When decrypted, the char- acters point to the three mili- tary units Rackstraw served in, two of them top secret until the 1980s. He is the only man known to have served in all three units, a fact Colbert called “the smoking gun.” Overturf said in an email: “I do not believe that anyone else could possibly fit the pro- file of these three units.” Because using the code would require someone with knowledge of the coding pro- cess, and the intellect to apply them in the D.B. Cooper let- ters, “the investigative path again leads directly back to Rackstraw,” he wrote. Rackstraw could not immediately be reached for comment. Norman de Winter Colbert argues that, in the months leading up to the hijacking, Rackstraw passed through the Astoria area under the alias “Norman de Win- ter,” claiming to be a moneyed Swiss baron. The bizarre epi- sode remains part of the col- lective memory of people who lived on the North Coast at the time. De Winter got friendly with townsfolk, took their food and money, promised them a free trip to his lodge in Switzer- land for the Christmas hol- iday — and suddenly van- ished. A short time later, de Winter allegedly resurfaced in Corvallis. Then, on Nov. 24, 1971, a dark-suited, cigarette-smok- ing man wearing sunglasses and using the name “Dan Coo- per” (misreported as “D.B. Cooper”) boarded a North- west Orient flight from Port- land to Seattle. He told the stewardess his briefcase con- tained a bomb, and demanded cash and some parachutes after the passengers deplaned at their destination. He ordered the crew to fly him to Mexico and, some- where over the Oregon-Wash- ington state border, he sky- dived into the dark wilderness, the money fastened to his body. He was never caught, and the identity of the thief has been a source of relent- less, often far-fetched specu- lation. The incident remains the only unsolved skyjacking in U.S. history. THE DAILY ASTORIAN PRESENTS A F amily Music Event FREE ‘I’d be extremely nervous’ When the de Winter/Rack- straw/Cooper connection came up, some people won- dered whether the Astoria vis- itor’s name is a nod to Dick Winter, the parachuting hero of World War II’s Normandy invasion. No photo of de Win- ter has been found. Rackstraw is one of many names offered up over the years from the “Cooperite” community. Joseph Lakich and Walter Reca, military vet- erans who both died in recent years, are among the latest Cooper contenders. Colbert, the author of “The Last Master Outlaw,” has been building a cumulative case for Rackstraw’s guilt over several years. He accuses the FBI, which closed the D.B. Coo- per case in 2016, of ignor- ing his evidence. The agency announced it will not accept new evidence except the sto- len money or parachute. In the past, Rackstraw has shrugged off the idea that he’s Cooper, though he has repeat- edly hinted in interviews with journalists that he could be the man after all. He has dis- missed and disparaged Col- bert’s work. With this latest revelation, however, Sherwood imagines Rackstraw’s evasions will become harder to sustain. “If I was Robert Rack- straw, I’d be extremely ner- vous,” Sherwood said. Oregon’s 234th Army Band and Hawaii’s 111th Army Band Featuring music of Leonard Bernstein, John Williams and Steven Reineke, as well as vocal selections from Moana, The Greatest Showman, the Broadway musical Hamilton, military marches and patriotic selections. 3 p.m. Saturday, July 7, 2018 AT ASTORIA HIGH SCHOOL DAILY ASTORIAN SUBSCRIBER PRE-SALE TICKETS AVAILABLE JUNE 18 - 22 General Public Tickets Available June 25 - July 6 (or while supplies last) PICK UP TICKETS AT: The Daily Astorian, 949 Exchange Street, Astoria or Seaside Signal 1555 N. Roosevelt, Seaside Tickets are limited. Up to 4 tickets per household, Tickets are available until July 6, 2018 or whil e supplies last.
