Posted on 03/20/2009 6:22:47 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
PORTLAND, Ore. - One of the Northwest's most notorious unsolved crimes may have a comic book connection and while it may sound kooky, the FBI agent in charge of the case says the new clue is no laughing matter.
In November 1971, a man identifying himself as Dan Cooper, later mistakenly called D.B. Cooper, hijacked a Northwest Orient flight from Portland to Seattle, claiming he had a bomb.
At Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, he released the passengers in exchange for $200,000 and four parachutes and asked to be flown to Mexico. He jumped from the plane somewhere near the Oregon state line.
The hijacker was never seen or heard from again and thus one of the Northwest's most famous mysteries was born. Did he die in the jump? Did he survive and make off with the money? No one knows, although there are a number of theories out there.
Larry Carr, the FBI agent currently overseeing the case, now believes the hijacker may have taken his name from a French comic book. The Dan Cooper comic book was popular in France in the 1960s and early 1970s and one issue published around the time of the hijacking shows the character parachuting.
*D.B. Cooper Factoid: The jumper, who identified himself as Dan Cooper, later became known as D.B. Cooper after authorities questioned and then released a man named Daniel B. Cooper. That man was cleared but the name stuck.*
(Excerpt) Read more at komonews.com ...
I can remember yeeeeaaaars ago ,when visiting Alaska.....was the first time I heard about this legend.
LMAO !!
And as a coincidence, if you were to google my real name...the first hit would be a comic book character. :)
{no kiddin'}
Then maybe my long time theory that he landed next to the Columbia River and made his escape in this submarine is true.
And in 1970 you could get one for just $6.98
http://www.michaelchuck.com/the_submarine.htm
When ol’ D.B. Cooper exited that Boeing 727 through the center rear door at cruise airspeed, he went `ass over teakettle’ (investigator’s words), wrapped himself in his chute, and ended up with his bones and the cash (some of it recovered) lying scattered across Oregon deep woods to this day.
I remember riding on 727s after 1971. You’d get up to go back to the restroom, and see a big sign on the center rear ramp declaring that it could NOT be opened in flight.
Rest in pieces, D.B.
;^)
Note: The following text (minus the graphics and photos) is a quote:
http://www.fbi.gov/page2/march09/dbcooper031709.html
IN SEARCH OF D.B. COOPER
New Developments in the Unsolved Case
03/17/09
Did the famous hijacker take his name from a popular comic book hero? © Dan Cooper – Albert Weinberg – Le Lombard (Dargaud-Lombard s.a.) – 2009.
Electron microscopes, dollar bills on a fishing pole, and a French Canadian comic book hero are providing tantalizing new insights into one of our greatest unsolved mysteries—the D.B. Cooper case.
We’ve told the story here before—how in 1971 a man calling himself Dan Cooper hijacked a plane from Portland to Seattle, demanded parachutes and $200,000 in cash, then jumped into the night with the money, never to be seen again.
Did he survive the jump? That is the subject of great debate. But as it turns out, a certain Dan Cooper is very much alive—on the pages of a French comic book series that was popular when the hijacking occurred. In the fictional series, Royal Canadian Air Force test pilot Dan Cooper takes part in adventures in outer space and real events of that era. In one episode, published near the date of the hijacking, the cover illustration shows him parachuting.
Citizen sleuth Tom Kaye and his team are applying new scientific techniques to the D.B. Cooper case. Watch the video. Seattle Special Agent Larry Carr, who took over the Cooper case two years ago, believes it’s possible the hijacker took his name from the comic book (the enduring “D.B.” was actually the result of a media mistake). That’s important because the books were never translated into English, which means the hijacker likely spent time overseas. This fits with Carr’s theory that Cooper had been in the Air Force (see sidebar).
Carr discovered the comic book connection on D.B. Cooper Internet forums, where fascination with the case is undiminished. The forums are also where Carr found the “citizen sleuths” who volunteered to help us reinvigorate the case.
FBI Special Agent Larry Carr, who took over the D.B. Cooper case two years ago
Agent Carr’s Theory
Larry Carr thinks it’s highly unlikely that Cooper survived the jump. “But he came from somewhere and from someone. And that is what we want to know.” Based on what he has learned so far, here is Carr’s profile of Cooper:
He served in the Air Force and at some point was stationed in Europe, where he may have become interested in the Dan Cooper comic books.
He worked as a cargo loader on planes, giving him knowledge and experience in the aviation industry, which was in its infancy in 1971.
Because his job required him to throw cargo out of planes, Cooper would have worn an emergency parachute in case he fell out. This would have provided him with working knowledge of parachutes but not necessarily the functional knowledge to survive the jump he made.
He may have come from the East Coast, but taken an aviation job in Seattle when he got out of the military. It’s possible he lost his job during an economic downturn in the aviation industry in 1970-71. If he was a loner with little or no family, “nobody would have missed him” after he was gone.
Even though our investigation has remained open, it doesn’t make sense for the FBI to commit substantial resources to this nearly four-decade-old crime, Carr says. “So if the public can help, by whatever means, maybe we can shake something loose.”
Enter Tom Kaye, a paleontologist who usually searches for dinosaur bones in the Wyoming desert. With a team that included a scientific illustrator and a metallurgist, and assistance from a veteran Cooper searcher and Brian Ingram—who was eight years old in 1980 when he found $5,800 of the ransom money on a sand bar along the Columbia River (the only physical evidence in the case after Cooper jumped from the plane)—Kaye recently spent time conducting soil, water, and other experiments on the Columbia and some of its tributaries.
“The FBI threw out the challenge,” he said, “and we’ve taken the bait.”
Using technology unavailable in 1971, such as satellite maps and GPS, Kaye hopes to pinpoint exactly where Ingram found the money nearly three decades ago. He plans to retrace the plane’s flight plan to determine more exact coordinates for Cooper’s landing zone. And using an electron microscope, he wants to figure out if pollen found on a tie Cooper left behind on the plane came from a specific region of the country.
And that stack of dollar bills on fishing line? Kaye conducted experiments to help determine if the money Ingram found floated there over time, or was buried there shortly after Cooper jumped.
“After 37 years,” he said, “we’re trying to use science to narrow all the possibilities.”
Locations where Cooper was originally thought to have landed and where some of the ransom money was later found
Tom Kaye (center), Carol Abraczinskas, and Brian Ingram examine archival photographs
It’s yet another twist in a case that continues to fascinate the nation.
If you have any information on Cooper, please e-mail our Seattle field office at Seattle.FBI@ic.fbi.gov.
Resources:
- D.B. Cooper Redux: Help Us Solve the Enduring Mystery
- A Byte Out of History: The D.B. Cooper Mystery
WTF?
You said — “I can remember yeeeeaaaars ago ,when visiting Alaska.....was the first time I heard about this legend.”
—
Well, I was in Portland, Oregon, when his passenger jet flew overhead, on the
“flip-flop” — back down south... :-)
“It was a rainy and stormy night...” Hmmm..., that sounds like a good starting line for a book about him... LOL..
Do it! Write it! :)
"He worked as a cargo loader on planes, giving him knowledge and experience in the aviation industry, which was in its infancy in 1971.
Because his job required him to throw cargo out of planes, Cooper would have worn an emergency parachute in case he fell out. This would have provided him with working knowledge of parachutes but not necessarily the functional knowledge to survive the jump he made."
You said — “Then maybe my long time theory that he landed next to the Columbia River and made his escape in this submarine is true.”
—
Well, that’s not the working theory about the money found at the shoreline of the Columbia River. Rather — it’s that it washed down one of about three possible tributaries and washed up along the shoreline of the Columbia, about that point and was buried in the sandy shore. And they figure that Cooper jumped a bit further north into a very heavily wooded area and was killed (or somehow escaped, having lost the loot).
In any case, the marked bills have never *once* shown up anywhere as having been spent.
—
And by the way, there has been a Florida woman who says that she’s convinced that she was married to Cooper, but didn’t know it at the time. She says that he left a bit of information and she had some clues to that effect. She’s been “working on the case” to prove that she was married to him, after that hijacking. I don’t believe she knew him at the time of the hijacking.
I don’t think the FBI buys into her story, but it is somewhat compelling when you look into her details. There may be some DNA evidence that the FBI has, from the cigarettes that Cooper was smoking on board the plane.
I’ll see if I can find that woman’s name, somewhere...
Hardly in its infancy
That particular FBI agent, who took over the case from another agent who had been “on it” for a long time — even went on forums to post answers to others who were giving him information and trying to help the FBI. It was the first time I had ever heard of an FBI agent going online to help solve a case, and conversing with forum participants. I saw him doing that myself, on the forum...
:-) ... oh yeah...
Hey! I’ve seen some people out there (in “Internet land”) who know a whole lot more about this than I do. “They” would be qualified to write the book... :-)
Okay, I said I would look for that woman who said she was married to Cooper... I found her name...
She is Jo Weber.
If you go to this webpage and look down the page to find...
===== “Duane L. Weber (aka John C. Collins)” =====
that will be the story about that particular woman who said she was married to D.B. Cooper.
Furthermore, a few years back I saw her posting on a particular forum, trying to get information from people in that area of the country (where D.B. Cooper jumped) so she could go on investigative trips out there to check some things out, about the story that her husband told her, when she was married to him. I don’t know if I can find that particular forum again. I don’t even know if the woman is still alive; I presume she is...
A BIG OOOPS, here... no link included above... LOL...
http://n467us.com/I%20Am%20D%20B%20Cooper.html
“It was the first time I had ever heard of an FBI agent going online to help solve a case,...”
I understand the FBI uses all the tools that are handy including the internet to solve cases.
It’s good to see an agent work and converse out in the open, in my opinion.
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