D. B. Cooper Investigators

The Man Who Was Not D. B. Cooper 🗃 The topic of Suspect Number One has come up again in the Vortex. I've been interested in this character, and the FBI's investigation into him, for a while now, especially since a large number of documents on him were released in August 2024. Joseph H. Johnston was one of the FBI's earliest leads, and was rigorously investigated before being eliminated. Eliminated Suspect #1 had the perfect alibi . 🪂 Key points of interest that have drawn the attention of the FBI and amateur sleuths to Johnston include: he was a career criminal who had committed armed robbery; he was said to have recently taken parachuting lessons; he was familiar with Portland vicinity and had recently moved there; he was an unlicensed pilot; he had shown an interest in hijackings; and he had allegedly recently got aerial maps of Portland and Seattle! 🥃 However, Suspect Number One had an unbreakable alibi, having been in jail at the time of D. B. Cooper's skyjacking...

What would it take for someone to commit this hijacking? 💣  What would make someone wake up, get ready and actually board a plane and threaten dozens of people with a bomb, for cold cash? How many people that you know personally would really do what D. B. Cooper did? 💼 Would you do it yourself? You know you've always wanted to build a briefcase bomb, skyjack a jet, kidnap over 40 people, extort a sackful of cash, and jump from 10,000 feet into a dark rainy night... haven't you...? Haven't you? If your answer was Yes, then the FBI would like a word. Artist's depiction of D. B. Cooper 🪂 Plenty of other copycat skyjackers did soon follow Cooper's lead. Sadly, most of them were returned combat veterans suffering from untreated PTSD. In many cases they were clearly not in their right mind while committing their crimes. All were quickly captured. Cooper looks like the rare unicorn among this herd of imitators: rather a comparitively cool, calm  and original  criminal,...

One of the most annoying things in the FBI Vault's D. B. Cooper files is [                    ]. 😉 Yes, you guessed it: today I'm discussing the redactions. Dive in for the key to some FBI secrets! Good thing the FBI redacted all the sensitive information from this document that was anyway utterly illegible, otherwise we might have realized that their printer ink ran out. 🚫 For the past few years, the FBI has been gradually releasing documents to the public, from their D. B. Cooper investigative files. We've always understood that private personal details (e.g., names and addresses) in these documents are redacted, to protect innocent people mentioned in the FBI's files from unwanted publicity & intrusions. Sometimes, however, the size & quantity of the redactions seem quite puzzling, even suspicious . 🔎 I decided to attack this minor mystery, in the hope of better understanding what type of case information was hidden, and wh...

🧩 Do you ever get the feeling that everyone is missing something really big in the D. B. Cooper case? Some unconsidered factor or clue that has been missed, and which has prevented the mystery from being solved in over 50 years? Clues, clockwise, from top left: 👔Fragments of the pink cut-up front reserve parachute, beside the black clip-on JCPenney tie that were left behind on the plane hijacked by D. B. Cooper; ✈️the aft ventral stairs of the Boeing 727 open in flight, photographed during a test performed by Northwest Airlines together with the Air Force and the FBI, after the skyjacking; 🪂a military reserve NB [Navy Backpack] parachute rig of the type D. B. Cooper may have used for his jump; ✏️two different composite sketches based on eyewitness testimony, and disseminated by the FBI. 👤 Some researchers on the Cooper case discuss the so-called "missing missing" - meaning potential suspects who could be considered missing persons in 1971, but who never got reported as m...

The biggest debate in the D. B. Cooper world, other than his true identity, is undoubtedly: Did the hijacker live, or die, after his jump from the jet? 🤷‍♂️ Since no confirmed trace has been found of either a living hijacker or his dead body post-skyjacking, either could be true. 📦 Some of us are reminded of the thought experiment known as Schrödinger's Cat. Until we open the box to verify, we don't know whether this cat's dead, or it survived. Physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who originated the hypothetical feline as an analogy for quantum states, intended to show the absurdity of supposing a cat to exist simultaneously in a state of both dead and aliveness until examined by an observer. 😎 And yet here we are, and here Cooper isn't. D. B. Coopaw? 🏕 Most followers of the case, however, seem to belong firmly to the school of thought that Cooper survived; or else subscribe to the Dead Camp. This second camp - which believes Cooper didn't survive after his crime - is ...

Why Were Twenty Dollar Bills D. B. Cooper's Denomination of Choice? Twenty dollar bills were D. B. Cooper's currency of choice on hijack day. 💵 An interesting point about DB Cooper, is that he had a supply of $20 bills before he even got the ransom money. 🥃 Paid for his one-way airplane ticket with a 20, and broke another 20 for his bourbon and soda that he ordered on the plane. That's like walking round with 100s today, and apparently no smaller change! 🤔 It makes me wonder why, and where he got those 20s? Mercenary pay-out? Bank robbery? International currency exchange coming from overseas? Withdrew his savings as a heist investment? Pawned some stuff... (maybe a distinctive watch, since he wasn't seen wearing any watch or jewellery on the plane)? What do we all think? 🕵‍♂️ I've posed this question to a bunch of smart D. B. Cooper investigators, and brainstorming the topic has proven interesting and educational! The $200,000 of ransom money that D. B. Cooper d...

From time to time, someone always asks the question. "Do you really want this case to be solved?" The hijacked Boeing 727, Northwest Flight 305, on the tarmac at Sea-Tac Airport, Washington, November 24, 1971. ❓️ Maybe they're thinking, with no obvious investigative progress in 53 years, we can't realistically expect it to be solved. Everyone has got used to this eternal mystery. If ever the solution to the case, namely Cooper's identity, were suddenly announced, would we all be disappointed? Our favourite mystery hobby would be gone, all our swirling theories wiped out by fact. 💯 My answer is simple. Do I want this mystery solved? 100 percent Yes! 🔎 It's endlessly fascinating to me to learn facts about the case; and more than the facts, I want to learn the truth. 😎 Quite apart from the satisfaction for me as an investigator finally knowing the answer to this mystery, more importantly there are people out there who deserve to know the truth about the crimin...

😎 The Man: Who exactly was D. B. Cooper: the infamous skyjacker in dark glasses, who stole a bag full of cash, and escaped by parachuting out of a passenger jet? FBI artist sketch of D. B. Cooper, created in collaboration with eyewitnesses It was November 24th, 1971, the day before American Thanksgiving.  An era with no modern airport security, when anyone could buy plane tickets for cash under a false name. That afternoon, a man in a dark suit and tie and black overcoat, and carrying a briefcase, gave his name as Dan Cooper. He bought a one-way ticket from PDX Airport, on a Northwest Airlines 727 jet.  Cooper was about to commit his unforgettable crime of the century. ✈️ The Crime: Just before 3 pm, the plane was taxiing for takeoff from Portland, Oregon , en route for Seattle, Washington. That's when Cooper handed a note to the flight attendant. "MISS, I have a bomb in my briefcase and want you to sit by me." Northwest Airlines Flight 305 was hijacked on the afternoon ...