ZBlogG

The disappearance of D.B. Cooper has remained obscure and intriguing in recent times and is deemed by many to be one of the most renowned mysterious disappearances.

In November 1971, there was a man named Dan Cooper hijacked the passenger plane and threatened everyone on board that he had a bomb stashed in his suitcase. He demanded $200,000 in ransom money and four parachutes on a short flight from Portland airport to Seattle.

The airplane actually landed in Seattle, where 36 passengers exited. The ransom money was given to him. The airplane took off again, and DB Cooper parachuted down over rugged Oregon terrain at night and in horrible weather. 

It is still a question of whether he survived the jump or not. D.B. Cooper was never located, and no sign of him was ever traced, though many believe that he was a professional skydiver. It is still the only unsolved air piracy case in US history ever.

Who is D.B. Cooper?

D.B. Cooper is an epithet given by the media to an unknown hijacker who was never identified. The man booked his flight ticket under the pseudonym Dan Cooper but became famous as D. B. Cooper in popular lore due to a media’s mistake.

After the incident that took place in 1971, the FBI had an active investigation going for 45 years. Notwithstanding a case file that swelled to almost 60 volumes during that time, no definite conclusions about Cooper’s genuine identity or outcome were obtained.

The Prime Suspects

Kenneth Christiansen, whose narrative was told in the novels “Skyjack: The Hunt for D.B. Cooper” by Geoffrey Gray and “Into the Blast: The True Story of D.B. Cooper” by investigator Skipp Porteous, was one of the key suspects. 

Kenneth Christiansen was a skilled paratrooper who resembled D.B. Cooper’s demeanor and nature. The accusation dates back to 2003, after Kenneth Christiansen’s brother, Lyle Christiansen, used circumstantial evidence to persuade officials and a film director of his brother’s identity. 

Another key suspect, Sherida Peterson died at the age of 94. Due to his expertise as a smokejumper, a fireman who parachutes into isolated places to combat wildfires, and his enthusiasm for skydiving, he was deemed a prime suspect.

Mr. Sherida Peterson was a marine during World War 2 and afterward, he served at Boeing in Seattle as a technical editor.

The mysterious story took another turn when D.B. Cooper has been identified as Robert W. “Bob” Rackstraw, a retired Vietnam War veteran who became a university law teacher, according to Los Angeles director Tom Colbert and a team of detectives.

They also claim that sections of Rackstraw’s story have ties to Arizona. Rackstraw has given confusing and evasive answers in previous interviews with cops and journalists, reluctant to confirm or refute that he is Cooper.

Some Insights of Thomas J. Colbert

Just as Colbert broadcast a History Channel video pointing to Rackstraw as the perpetrator, the FBI dropped its investigation on Cooper two years ago. Colbert says that he is working on a new film and has a financial stake in its success.

But he argues that his main purpose is to expose the FBI’s failure to perform its duty, ostensibly because, after the incident, Rackstraw became a CIA operative.

Some years back, Colbert filed a lawsuit against the agency in order to access the case file. During the hoopla, a guy called Dick Briggs apparently informed two acquaintances that he was the actual D.B. Cooper, not Rackstraw.

Ron Carlson, one of their pals, told The Republic that their chats took place in 1979. According to Carlson, the guys were at a gathering in Portland when Briggs spotted out a young couple.

He claimed that they, together with their kid, would soon “find” cash from the airplane robbery hidden along the Columbia River.

The revelation prompted a five-year probe by a team of 40 retired cops. Briggs, according to Colbert, did not meet the hijacker’s profile. 

However, they discovered he was a Rackstraw acquaintance and grew to assume that money from the plane hijacking was planted to clear Rackstraw of involvement. Briggs was killed ten months later in a car accident that was considered an accident.

In the late 1970s, the FBI interrogated Rackstraw and found him not guilty. Inside the Coopersphere, there are no clear answers, only a confusing amusement house of uncertainty and perplexity.

Given the craze that surrounded the case’s resolution, the crime may now seem antiquated. After all, no one was killed. Cooper’s skyjacking, on the other hand, has long since transcended a single act becoming an ever-expanding world of new stories that are the most contemporary of Hollywood productions.

The Legacy of D.B. Cooper

The case is almost closed but the suspects are still on the list of detectives. All through the event, Cooper was portrayed as calm, calculated, and courteous. 

He didn’t injure anyone, and he outsmarted the country’s greatest criminal detectives. D.B. Cooper has been hailed as a folk hero as a result of his actions.

After the hijacking incident went viral, many sketches of the hijacker were made by the artists. He was described as a whitish olive-skinned guy who was 6’1 tall and weighed almost 70-75 kgs. 

Cooper was believed to be between the ages of 35 and 40, with brown eyes and black hair. according to the FBI. The sources mentioned that he was wearing a clip-on necktie and he had eight cigarette butts in his pocket.

The Formal Investigation

These were among the evidence retrieved by FBI officers, albeit Cooper had not left his ransom letter behind. Agents also conducted interviews and performed ground searches. During the first five years of the inquiry, the Bureau would come across nearly 800 suspects.

The fact that investigators were interviewing a Portland man called Daniel B. Cooper, who referred by his acronyms, was leaked to the press. However, that D.B. Cooper was freed, and the notorious D.B. Cooper was born from the press. 

For 18 days, authorities scoured the region with aircraft, helicopters, and around 300 troops. Cooper was nowhere to be found.

Revelations of the Disappearance Case of D.B. Cooper

In 2016, the FBI said that it was terminating the Cooper investigations to reallocate resources. All Bureau pieces of evidence will be protected. Cooper’s cigarette butts, which potentially include DNA, are missing from the investigation.

People are still looking for leads. In the year 2020, a hobbyist scientist said that he had detected minuscule pieces of algae (“diatoms”) on the 1980 cash found near the riverbank. 

The diatoms on these invoices only emerge in the springtime, and they only had diatoms on them for one season. This refutes one idea that the money was thrown into the ocean during Cooper’s November 1971 leap.

Final Word

His story has become something of a folktale as a result of those riddles. Cooper’s identity has been a source of conjecture for decades. He’s been mentioned in countless books, TV shows, and movies, but the mysterious disappearance case of D.B. Cooper is still unsolved.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7t7XZmpqaZpOkunCwyKyYqaiVlr%2BiusKeZJyZo5p6sLKMnWSbZZOkvLGx0Wg%3D