Is it possible that D.B. Cooper lived?

 

The basics of what we already know.

On November the 24^th, 1971 a man identifying himself only as Dan Cooper bought a ticket at the airport in Portland going for a short jump up to Seattle, Washington. Once in the air, he gave one of the flight attendants a note saying that he had a bomb, and that he wanted her to come and sit next to him. Over the next few hours he would keep the passengers completely in the dark about what was going on, as well as write notes for some of his demands, and had the presence of mind to ask for them back afterwards. It also seems as though he knew never to go near the cockpit, perhaps that is because he had some knowledge of cockpit voice recorders.

He demanded 200k in cash and 4 parachutes. He had the plane stay in the sky while the FBI gathered the money and the parachutes. DB Cooper had the 727 stay at the end of the runway and keep all the shades on the plane closed. It was also at this time the plane got fuel. Long story short eventually the Cooper was satisfied that he had gotten what he demanded he released the passengers. After arguing about leaving the staircase down before takeoff, it remained closed and one of the flight attendants showed him how to open it.

He told the pilots to fly at a certain hight, and at a certain speed. Eventually opening the door and jumping from the plane.

While I could go into more detail here, I would rather get to the speculation. There is a lot of great information out there that is not going to biased like my opinion. Season 1 Episode 5 of the old Robert Stack Unsolved Mysteries does a great reenactment of the events for its time, and even has interviews with some of the flight attendants that spoke directly with DB Cooper. For more in depth information about this case I would start there.

The speculation…….

John Douglas, the FBI agent and the author of Mindhunter, picked up from a bank robber that he was selective about choosing which banks to rob. He called this in some way profiling, and he applied the idea to serial offenders. With a lot of success and has left me wondering a bunch of times after reading his book, how did he fucking that…. Like the double breasted suit. How?

Anyway, not to get to off topic.

Have you ever put yourself there? Walking down this stair case, 10,000 feet above the earth, going around 200 mph. How the fuck did he even know where he was?

Now lets go back to the profiling. What if he did know where he was? Then is that possible?

I recently watched the series band of brothers. If you haven’t seen it I can promise you this, you will go through a world of emotions contemplating what these people went through. It also gives you that glimpse into being there. Inside one of those “flying tin cans” with a parachute strapped to your back, at night so the enemy cant see you. Way back in the 1940’s when things weren't don’t by sophisticated computers. Relaying on a navigator to go by land marks of light, the speed of the plane and a compass to gather your location. Letting you know when it is time to jump to coordinate your movements with others on the ground. We did in fact train people to do this.

Now this is 1971, the estimates of Coopers age was mid 40’s. Even at 45 in 1971, would make you 15 in 1941. Which is the same year as Pearl Harbor. Since this is a guess of his age, lets just say he was 17? Cooper could have joined the military any time after Pearl Harbor, as people were known to lie about their age to be able to serve.

So if DB Cooper was a navigator in World War 2 and had lived through however many flights, he was probably really good at it, and also trained to be able to jump out of a plane going this speed. With actual jumps under his belt as well.

If you consider this with some of things that were going on around that time with some of things he said it makes you wonder. Boeing at that time was laying off thousands in the Seattle area. If you were consider that not only this person might have been ex military, and worked at a Boeing factory for 20 plus years after the war only to get laid off, you might have a grudge. Which is maybe why he said “I don’t have a grudge with your airline, I just have a grudge.”

To be clear I am not saying this is what happened, but after all of these years it might be valid to ask these questions. So my other question I wanted to speculate on is, did he live?

The money found on Tena Bar may shed some insight that speaks to if Cooper lived. Along with the fact that they never found him, and he even may have sent a letter to the press saying he was on some island.

The 3 wads of cash were all found together on Tena bar in Washington. The cash was bound separately in 3 piles with three rubber bands. They were not bound together. Which logic dictates that it is more probable that it was placed there by someone rather than floated down the river. Also there were some tests about how long the rubber bands could have gone in that environment without breaking down, and it was only a couple of years.

So to me it at least seems possible that the money was keep from the elements for a significant time before being placed there intentionally to be found. I would guess intentionally for a couple of reasons. One to let people know that he lived and/or to see if he could ever actually spend the money.

Thanks for reading.