[imagesource:freepik]

In 1971, a man hijacked a commercial plane flying from Portland, Oregon, ordered bourbon and soda from his seat in 18E, showed the air hostesses his bomb, demanded $200 000 in ransom money, parachuted out of said plane in a black suit, and was never seen again.

That, in short, is the mysterious case of D.B. Cooper, a James Bond-esque dude whose strange story has captivated millions and has remained the only unsolved plane hijacking case in US history.

For decades, law enforcement and amateur investigators alike have wondered who this unidentified man was, whether he survived the plunge, and if he did, where on Earth has he landed up.

Image: CNN

The thousands of theories mapping out who and where Cooper might be has been summarised, surmised and glamorised in true-crime series, books and other media. There’s a 2022 Netflix series titled D.B. Cooper, Where Are You?, a History Channel show on the hunt for evidence about Cooper, and an e-book, Silver Bullet: The Undoing of D.B. Cooper, one of nearly 40 books on the elusive hijacker.

His audacious stunt even triggered an FBI investigation (which was closed in 2016) and led to tightened security at airports.

Image: FBI

Eric Ulis is at the helm of most of these book titles and amateur sleuthing. In 2018, Ulis also started an annual CooperCon, at which fans of the hijacker gather to discuss elements of the case in granular detail.

Ulis, as it turns out, was only five years old when he witnessed this dapper man in a suit and sunglasses board the flight, pull some 007 antics, and disappear somewhere in the vast wilderness of the Pacific Northwest.

“It’s real. He was real. This is not a … Bigfoot legend,” he says. “No one was physically harmed. Of course, the crew endured some stress, but even they admit he was quite polite, all things considered. He exhibited grace under pressure.”

Now in his 50s, Ulis remains positive that he can figure out who Cooper is, and his main lead right now is a black clip-on necktie that Cooper left behind after jumping from the plane.

Image: FBI

To gain access to the necktie, Ulis is suing the FBI. Oh yes, this fan is serious.

“The tie was never collected and handled by today’s standards. It was collected and handled by standards in 1971. And so who knows whose DNA is actually on the tie,” says Carr, a speaker at this year’s CooperCon event in Seattle in November. “That’s still another hurdle we have to jump because we don’t know if that, in fact, is Cooper’s DNA.”

There’s also Tena Bar, a stretch of beach along the Columbia River in Washington state where $5 800 of Cooper’s ransom money was found in 1980. Ulis has spent ages in this area trying to figure things out.

Image: Ulis

While Ulis’ friends consider his fascination an “eccentric hobby,” he says he tries not to bombard them with minutia on the case and keeps all his thoughts and ideas for like-minded people at CooperCon.

Hey, one has to find purpose and pass the time somehow – and if that happens to be based on a man you saw when you were five, doing some bat-sh*t crazy stuff, then so be it.

[source:cnn]