Zodiac placed the VF symbol in the return address spot on the envelope as though it were a place.
At Lake Herman Road and through out the more rural areas surrounding, there are cattle ranches.
Stella Borges (her maiden name) was from one of these known ranches. Are there not similar VF cattle
brands for California registered somewhere?

The Big Dipper ranch with the Big Dipper constellation (an astrological constellation) as a burn mark on one of their buildings, is located ca 45 miles south of San Francisco midtown.

And Vince Fontana ( the guy that the "VF" stands for) is somhow connected to that Dipper Ranch

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/s … en&ct=clnk

Open space district awards grazing lease for San Mateo property Reversing a no-cow trend, the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District is awarding a five-year grazing lease for its Tunitas Creek property to San Mateo Coastside rancher Doug Edwards. This is the second grazing lease awarded by the district in the past year. Last December, a five-year grazing lease was awarded to rancher Vince Fontana for the former Big Dipper Ranch at Skyline Ridge Open Space Preserve. The old paradigm was to kick cattle off property when acquired by conservation groups. Overgrazed, eroded and trampled pastures had alarmed the region’s environmentalists. But further research brought a turnaround in thinking. Removing cattle from San Jose’s Silver Creek Hills in the 1990s, for instance, led to depletion of wildflowers that are food for the endangered bay checkerspot butterfly. Inspired by successful grazing on San Jose’s Coyote Ridge, district managers seek to reduce wildfire risk in an area that is too big to mow and too dangerous to burn – and fend off the encroachment of forest. The district’s adoption of "conservation grazing" – the use of livestock to boost the diversity of native plants and animals, control the spread of invasive non-native plants and prevent fire – may eventually reintroduce cattle to 5,000 grassy acres in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties. Both Edwards and Fontana are longtime ranchers in the region….

Hi-

There have been many explanations for this symbol. I recall in the late 1990s a guy named Maxon Stouder emailed me and said it represented an intersection in Vallejo that also had this unusual configuration of streets. However, his explanation did not lead to any new suspect or to any significant breakthrough in the case. There is one explanation, though, one that was around before I even came to the case in 1998, that I believe is likely to be the correct one for one reason…

There have been various explanations of Zodiac’s crossed-circle symbol–a film leader, a gun sight, etc. There have been various theories on the origin of "slaves in the afterlife." There have been various explanations of what Zodiac meant when he wrote the word "Thing" in his 11/8/69 Dripping Pen Card. The Avery return address symbol may be a "wide lfange beam" symbol.

But there is only one explanation for the Avery return address symbol that explains both that symbol and all of these other seemingly unrelated items. And that is the Norse explanation, which was around before I came along and certainly before I developed a POI.

The crossed-circle in Norse symbology is "Odin’s cross." Odin is the big kahuna of the Norse pantheon of gods, someone to whom Zodiac would ave likely related give his massive ego. There is a reference in the 10th Century writings of the Ibn Fadlan, who spent time living with Vikings, to the concept of "slaves in the afterlife." The word "Thing" is a Norse/Viking word/concept. The Avery card return address appears to be a composite of the Norse runes "Ansuz" and "Laguz." And of course, there is no debating that Zodiac made a key reference to Norse culture with his "sla" letter, which speaks for itself.

So people can explain all of these things in various ways. But the one thing that can serve to explain all of them is to imagine that they are references to Norse culture. The "sla" letter points the way…

Mike

..And of course, there is no debating that Zodiac made a key reference to Norse culture with his "sla" letter, which speaks for itself.

So people can explain all of these things in various ways. But the one thing that can serve to explain all of them is to imagine that they are references to Norse culture. The "sla" letter points the way…

Mike

What if you don’t believe Zodiac wrote the "Sla" letter? Or the Halloween card?

I know, I know…

Somebody sent a comment to my blog, that the 4 dots around the symbol line up with the murder locations. Sounded interesting,but after looking on Google Earth, appears to be wrong

On that card itself Zodiac wrote "4-TEEN." Could be related to that somehow because he doesn’t simply write ’14’ or ‘Fourteen’ but ‘4-TEEN.’ It could be anything really and the only way we’ll ever know for sure is if ‘He’ himself tells us, and as I said before, I aint holding my breath for that to happen. It’s the same as his addressing the card to "Paul Averly" purposely misspelling his name and underlining a section of it to draw attention to it. Why did he do that? Pass! Next Question!

I’mma just put this out there for what it’s worth (likely not much)…

On the Halloween card envelope, the "sorry no cipher" is fashioned into an "x", plus there is a cattle-brand symbol on the card. Well, I was doing a little investigation into my POI, and I found this in one of his books:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1969-LEE-RIDERS … 7675.l2557

It’s a Lee Riders comic one-pager advertisement that portrays a group of cattle rustlers who change a cattle brand "x" into a double diamond. It also portrays the LEE brand. This also falls in rather nicely with the whole "Brand X" which Zodiac makes much of in one of his letters.

Just realized that Z had used the symbol twice, on the Halloween card itself as well as on the envelope. So in fact it was placed there by purpose rather than actually having drawn it out of a temporary mood. Obviously Z wanted to give a hint or task to figure out what it may represent.

QT

I found this, and thought it was interesting. In that VF corp owned Lee Jeans, and Wrangler. They acquired Lee Jeans in 1969.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VF_Corporation

http://therobinreport.com/vf-who/

Odd no Lee factory around Vallejo, but we had a Levi Strauss factory in Napa.
http://www.merchantcircle.com/business/ … 7-252-6926 Looks like it is still there.

I was also wondering if the "V" on the brand could of stood for Vallejo?

It is so interesting that you recently posted this as I received an e-mail advertisement today from Lee Riders, and I noticed that it said it was from VF Corporation. I have not owned or shopped for Lee Jeans in 25 years, at least. It was so weird.

In 1968 Steve Ditko joined DC Comics and created television commentator Jack Ryder, whose alter ego was The Creeper. HA HA HA.

Haha I grew up in summers/winters from 5-18 in Pagosa Springs. My mother is up there right now. Drove by the RRR museum a bajillion times when we would go into town for supplies at the city market. Didn’t know there was a theory for Z in relation to the RRR cattle brand from the Ranch. Small world. The cabin I go to and that we have is up in the Blanco basin outside of Pagosa (town) in the mountains. Funny I never knew that is also where Harmon lived and the Ranch was! I did know that Frank Oppenheimer had his old cabin down the hill from ours. It is still there. Funny connections many colorful people live in Pagosa and yes, lots of cows. In Blanco Basin there are a lot of retired govt/military employees. Most of the residents are. The houses are sparsley set in the middle of nowhere. It would be hard to find it if you didn’t know where it is. You’d need satellite guided navigation/GPS as cell signals don’t work up there.

It is certainly an interesting idea this about the brands, but it is difficult to know how it could tie in with the Zodiac, if at all.

It is possible that the Zodiac was trying to suggest some vague interest in Western comics or cowboy themes, and these were intended as clues to names or geographical locations. The dots for instance may have been intended to suggest other historical ranch names, but "Why?" remains the big question.

The symbolism used by the Zodiac was very eclectic (to say the least) and could lead any investigator into many different fields of study. This makes me wonder if the symbolism was all just a red herring designed to lead the authorities astray. While they were off chasing tangents in many different directions, the Zodiac was elsewhere.

Symbolism may therefore have been used by the Zodiac with the deliberate intention of causing confusion while increasing the mystique surrounding his possible identity. Over time this ruse would also help to deplete police resources and eventually wear down the morale of the detectives. The mystique ensured a high media profile which shone a very public spotlight on the detectives and their failed leads. So the powerful symbolism associated with the Zodiac is perhaps the very reason why he was never caught.

I am not sure if Toschi was misquoted, but the movie had him saying "it [the case] all comes back to handwriting and fingerprints". It seems he had grown wary of trying to sort through the huge number of bewildering possibilities that the symbolism presented, which, when followed, had so often lead detectives to dead ends. He believed that the case could only be solved by examining the material evidence that was available. He may well have been correct, as the obscure and multi-faceted symbolism used by the Zodiac still seems to be pulling researchers in many different directions to this day. When presented with infinite assumption-based possibilities, Occum’s Razor must be skillfully deployed.

Showed this symbol to a hearing impaired person recently. For him it looked like a kind of artistic or pictorial representation of sign language. He translated it as "I am watching you".

I thought this was interesting as he had no previous knowledge of the Zodiac’s Halloween card.

Zodiac placed the VF symbol in the return address spot on the envelope as though it were a place.
At Lake Herman Road and through out the more rural areas surrounding, there are cattle ranches.
Stella Borges (her maiden name) was from one of these known ranches. Are there not similar VF cattle
brands for California registered somewhere?

The Big Dipper ranch with the Big Dipper constellation (an astrological constellation) as a burn mark on one of their buildings, is located ca 45 miles south of San Francisco midtown.

And Vince Fontana ( the guy that the "VF" stands for) is somhow connected to that Dipper Ranch

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/s … en&ct=clnk

Open space district awards grazing lease for San Mateo property Reversing a no-cow trend, the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District is awarding a five-year grazing lease for its Tunitas Creek property to San Mateo Coastside rancher Doug Edwards. This is the second grazing lease awarded by the district in the past year. Last December, a five-year grazing lease was awarded to rancher Vince Fontana for the former Big Dipper Ranch at Skyline Ridge Open Space Preserve. The old paradigm was to kick cattle off property when acquired by conservation groups. Overgrazed, eroded and trampled pastures had alarmed the region’s environmentalists. But further research brought a turnaround in thinking. Removing cattle from San Jose’s Silver Creek Hills in the 1990s, for instance, led to depletion of wildflowers that are food for the endangered bay checkerspot butterfly. Inspired by successful grazing on San Jose’s Coyote Ridge, district managers seek to reduce wildfire risk in an area that is too big to mow and too dangerous to burn – and fend off the encroachment of forest. The district’s adoption of "conservation grazing" – the use of livestock to boost the diversity of native plants and animals, control the spread of invasive non-native plants and prevent fire – may eventually reintroduce cattle to 5,000 grassy acres in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties. Both Edwards and Fontana are longtime ranchers in the region….

Look up Sheriff’s honor camp. It was apart of the work furlough program in San Mateo starting in 1966. Theforeigner, incredible research!

I don’t know about there being infinite possibilities for this particular symbol. The first two possibilities are that it is either a reference to something, or he made it up. From there the next questions are, if it was made up, was it influenced by an existing symbol, or if it is a reference to something what is it a reference to?

Certainly that raises many possibilities, but unless it was entirely of his own originality, then there is a fighting chance of finding the source material. It’s entirely plausible that we’ve just never come across the original symbol. It’s not at all impossible that someone could be flicking through a book one day and find the complete symbol, verbatim, dots and all. Not a remote scenario at all if you ask me. Totally worth pursuing in the scheme of things. Just because the ranch symbols don’t go anywhere doesn’t mean we aren’t close to a break through.

To find multiple possible references to Red Ryder, independently of one another is a different variety of coincidence. You’re arriving at Red Ryder through two completely different means. It’s a shame the symbols not a better match, but it’s too damn close to dismiss.

The more I think about it too, the Red Ryder Ranch. I mean that has to be a significant location in the Red Ryder universe. There is a certain theme to these coincidences that is just of a different flavor than other coincidences. It’s hard to put my finger on, but it’s not "too good to be true" like some of the more on the nose theories, but at the same time it’s sufficiently fitting to be plausible. Then again cattle brands just don’t seem terribly on brand for a serial killer.