10 ms·

A team of former FBI investigators claims to have identified D.B. Cooper

130 points by ccnafr 8y ago

phthano 8y ago
I read this book. Their evidence seems pretty strong.
- gmiller123456 8y ago
  Is the article correct in stating that pretty much all of the evidence centers around the six letters? IMHO, and apparently the FBI's too, that's a pretty weak connection. It wouldn't be difficult for anyone, especially a CIA or FBI agent, skilled in writing forensics to point the finger at someone else.
- hcs 8y ago
  Does the book actually have any details about the code? I haven't found anything online that looks even slightly convincing.
- Lazare 8y ago
  So...what evidence was in the book? Because the article has literally zero other than "this guy's ex-boss said he totally recognised a letter".
pembrook 8y ago
Every couple of years a new group comes out with their findings on this, then it gets debunked. It's like Jimmy Hoffa's body. Easy stories for a slow news day.
Overtonwindow 8y ago
FWIW I think ol Mr. Cooper landed, but then died from exposure out there. Cash was found on the banks of the Columbia river, but that could've been washed up and buried over time. IIRC that cash was not loose, but in bundles, so its very plausible it just got lost to the elements. The real kicker for me is that money, more precisely, the rest of it. It's never been found in circulation. Success and truly his survival would've been evident by the spending of the cash.
- Zhenya 8y ago
  Maybe be burned a bunch of it to try and stay warm? Especially if all the wood was wet.
  - Overtonwindow 8y ago
    Good point. Not sure how well currency burns, but ...NONE of it has ever showed up in circulation. Now...what would be really crazy is if all of a sudden a twenty gets passed at a White Castle in Nevada, and all the alarm bells go off, and suddenly we're all reevaluating everything. Personally, I hope he made it.
paulcole 8y ago
> The first sentence, “I want out of the system and saw a way through good ole Unk,” was decoded to, “I want out of the system and saw a way by skyjacking a jet plane.” And the second sentence, “And please tell the lackey cops D.B. Cooper is not my real name,” was decoded to “I am 1st Lt. Robert Rackstraw, D.B. Cooper is not my real name.” I wish they explained this in some level of detail that makes it remotely believable.
- jandrese 8y ago
  Obviously "Unk" is code for "skyjacking a jet plane", and "please tell the lackey cops" is code for "I am 1st Lt. Robert Rackstraw". What's so hard about that? The guy just has a very idiosyncratic set of code phrases that he was clearly using in Vietnam. I have to agree that the evidence in the article seems flimsy at best. Maybe the book makes a better case for it, but I'd be concerned that it isn't one of those things where someone who is 100% convinced about something doesn't attribute every tiny little coincidence as concrete proof of their theory.
  - kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
    If you're tuned into the right numbers station and know the Illuminati secret handshake it all makes sense.
    - vidanay 8y ago
      I know the handshake and it doesn't make sense
      - jschwartzi 8y ago
        It's a different handshake now. They change it every time someone claims to know it.
        mcguire 8y ago
        It requires three hands and a left foot, now.
blakesterz 8y ago
I think they recorded most of the serial numbers of the bills? And it was never spent? If someone was to spend that today, are those still in some tracking system now so they'd be found? How long are things like that followed?
- notarealaccount 8y ago
  Are you asking for a friend?
- everdev 8y ago
  The only counter argument that comes to mind is that in some foreign countries US dollars are accepted. If that money is in international circulation is might not be picked up. Although, one would assume that over time some of it would make it's way back to the US.
- secabeen 8y ago
  Yes, they recorded every serial number of every bill, and not a single one has ever been recorded in circulation. A subset of them were found in the area where he jumped out in 1980 by an 8-year old, but those were not put into circulation.
- mabbo 8y ago
  He may have just never spent any of it. Presuming he's still alive, there might be a duffel-bag full of very well-known serial-numbered bills buried behind his house, with a last will and testament saying "I did it, go dig up the money now, haha, I got away with it". Sounds crazy, right? But then you remember this guy hijacked a plane and then jumped out of it and maybe crazy is exactly right.
ataspinar 8y ago
Anyone who has watched Prisonbreak already knows the answer.. old news!
lifeisstillgood 8y ago
I remember reading a different account that basically ended with, we found a bunch of the money in a river, but never found the body, he died on impact. I think the sheer brass balls of it will keep people interested, and the "disappearance" will let the mystery run and run. But Occam's razor says no money was ever found because he never got up after reaching the ground.
coltonv 8y ago
If there's one thing I've learned from reading about a lot of conspiracy theories for fun, it's that circumstantial evidence can seem right when presented in the right way, even if it's completely wrong. I think everyone should take a look at the Wikipedia article for theories of who actually wrote the works penned to name "Shakespeare" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare_authorship_question https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare_authorship_questio...) and scroll down to the "Alternative Candidates" section. When you read one, the circumstantial evidence looks perfect. Then you read another candidate and you say "gee that sounds really valid too...". Obviously they can't both be right, but each one presents circumstantial evidence that seems to connect perfectly. After you've red the alternative candidates, read the "Case for Shakespeare's authorship", which is the case that it really was Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon that wrote the plays. There's some hard evidence (though not enough to be 100% conclusive, it's probably 90% conclusive, and enough convince most scholars) that makes the rest of the theories seem totally unfounded. I went on a bit of a rant here, but hopefully my point comes across, that circumstantial evidence is really quite far from real hard evidence. Unless some guy comes forward with those bills with the correct serial numbers or someone finds a body, it's going to remain an unsolved mystery.
- hitekker 8y ago
  >a bit of a rant On the contrary, you’ve described an intuitive way of teaching the dangers of overrelying on circumstantial evidence. Well done.
  - coltonv 8y ago
    Thanks! I'm glad to have contributed to a conversation worth having.
- StanislavPetrov 8y ago
  >I went on a bit of a rant here, but hopefully my point comes across, that circumstantial evidence is really quite far from real hard evidence. You are absolutely right. Unfortunately for all of us this simple bit of wisdom is considered heresy in modern society.
- 8y ago
dredmorbius 8y ago
Vaguely related: the Cooper Vane, a true documented legacy of the incident. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooper_vane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooper_vane
joejerryronnie 8y ago
D.B. Cooper, going by a different alias, used the stolen $200,000 to finance the initial version of a small, speculative "Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System".
Lazare 8y ago
Here's the problem: 1) "Rackstraw – a former Special Forces paratrooper, explosives expert and pilot with about 22 different aliases – was once a person of interest in the case, but was eliminated as a suspect by the FBI in 1979. His elimination was controversial amongst the investigating agents, and he remained, for many, the most viable suspect in what remains the only unsolved case of air piracy in the United States." Rackstraw is the obvious choice. 2) "Rick Sherwood – a former member of the Army Security Agency, which decoded signals during the Vietnam War – cracked the codes. Rackstraw served under Sherwood in two classified units, and Sherwood was familiar with his writing style having deciphered some of his earlier messages." They got someone who knew Rackstraw to look into whether it might be Rackstraw. 3) "Using codes that only Rackstraw would have known, Sherwood honed in on two sentences for analysis. The first sentence, “I want out of the system and saw a way through good ole Unk,” was decoded to, “I want out of the system and saw a way by skyjacking a jet plane.” And the second sentence, “And please tell the lackey cops D.B. Cooper is not my real name,” was decoded to “I am 1st Lt. Robert Rackstraw, D.B. Cooper is not my real name.”" This person came up with a possible solution that fingers the exact target he set out to finger. That's fine as far as it goes, but it'd be a hell of a lot more convincing if either they got a cryptographer with no knowledge of the case or individual to come up with it, or if the target wasn't the obvious guy they were literally looking for evidence against. Especially since the translations, as retold in the article, seem awfully tenuous. And speaking of those translations! "And please tell your lackey cops" translates to "I am 1st Lt. Robert Rackstraw, "? Really? What sort of code...is this exactly? I mean, if we assume there's a code where the word "lackey" means "Robert" and the word "cops" means "Rackstraw", and so on, then yes, that sentence does mean what is claimed, but that's 1) a pretty strange code and 2) you could just assume it's a different code where "lackey" means "Vladimir" and "cops" means "Putin", and now it incriminates the Russian president. That there is a code that incriminates Rackstraw doesn't mean it's the code that was used (if, indeed, any code was used; the letters as quoted aren't especially cryptic). Alternatively...well, what is the alternative? I don't see a lot of potential ciphers here that yield the astonishing results claimed. > “We now have him saying, ‘I am Cooper,’” Colbert told Seattle PI. “Rackstraw is a narcissistic sociopath who never thought he would be caught. He was trying to prove that he was smarter than anyone else. But he couldn’t fight 1500 years of brainpower on our team. Maybe they needed a few more years of brainpower. (Also, if you believe the story, it wasn't about 1500 years of brainpower, but the fact that they talked to one guy who used to be Rackstraw's boss, and is claiming without proof that Rackstraw used to use a code where "Unk" mean "hijacking a jet" and "lackey cops" meant "Robert Rackstraw". I don't really believe that, but if you do, then this is mostly just about talking to the one guy who just happened to have the one scrap of secret info that identifies the hijacker, man, if only they'd thought to talk to the prime suspects ex-boss from the very start! In short: What a pile of nonsense and poor writing.
iambateman 8y ago
The fact that “please tell the lackey cops" is code for "I am 1st Lt. Robert Rackstraw" is absurd. “Unk” means “skyjacking a plane”??? I don’t know what the codes they used in Vietnam were, but I don’t think they needed a code for “a man is skyjacking a plane.” Maybe there are details I’m missing, but it takes away from the legitimacy of the claim in my opinion.
- emmelaich 8y ago
  I thought they were absurd too. Surely "saw a way through good ole Unk" means he found a way to steal from Uncle Sam.
- philwelch 8y ago
  There’s probably more to the code; perhaps the letter is much longer and part of the code is to embed a key in some other, fixed part of the text.
- rconti 8y ago
  Yes, obviously there are details that are missing. The article doesn't have any of the letters he wrote, and refers to a very complicated code indicated by repeating words, none of which were in the article. Even with the evidence, I'm sure it's far beyond me to assess it, but it seems insane that people are dismissing a highly trained codebreaker's extensive work because 2 specific sentences in a newspaper article cribbed from multiple letters aren't immediately obvious to the layperson.
  - hcs 8y ago
    Photos of the decoding in question: https://dbcooper.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/DBC-Letter-5-FBI-WA-DC-WFO-DBC-WAPO-Letter-Mailed-12-15-71J3-1-300x147.jpg https://dbcooper.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/DBC-Letter-5... https://dbcooper.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/DBC-Letter-6-3-28-72-Typed-Note-Message-CodeB.jpg https://dbcooper.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/DBC-Letter-6... Definitely nothing obvious to this layperson. Edit: just noticed the 3 71s in the first image, ok that's a little interesting.
pansinghkoder 8y ago
he did cameo in prison break
justwalt 8y ago
When they say the investigation lasted from 1971-2016, what exactly does that mean? Does that mean they were waiting for evidence to come their way, or has there been a team working X number of hours every week trying to figure things out?
- mimimihaha 8y ago
  This is what I found on Wikipedia. I don’t know if it clears it up or not: “The FBI officially suspended active investigation of the case in July 2016, but the agency continues to request that any physical evidence that might emerge related to the parachutes or the ransom money be submitted for analysis.”
iosDrone 8y ago
Sounds pretty badass.
rmason 8y ago
Although DNA didn't exist at the time the FBI later got a useable sample from the clip on tie Cooper left behind. It was already used to rule out one potential subject. Why didn't all that FBI brainpower tail the guy and get a sample of his DNA that could be compared? I kept reading in the story and it was never mentioned. If the FBI refused to run the test well then you know they're protecting him which I doubt. https://abcnews.go.com/US/db-cooper-dna-results-match/story?id=14258726 https://abcnews.go.com/US/db-cooper-dna-results-match/story?...
dmichulke 8y ago
Regarding the "code": I'm pretty confident that the FBI is not the inventor of it, so obviously there should be some information out there about "encoding a message to that the encoded message is human language". Obviously there's a mapping (assuming x,y are unknowns) (x | "through good ole Unk") -> "by skyjacking a jet plane". (y | "And please tell the lackey cops") -> "I am 1st Lt. Robert Rackstraw," Doesn anyone know candidates for this type of mapping?
- d0gbyt3 8y ago
  Some more information i found: https://dbcooper.com/2018/06/pi-team-coopers-confession-found-in-letter/ https://dbcooper.com/2018/06/pi-team-coopers-confession-foun...
lawlessone 8y ago
>But he couldn’t fight 1500 years of brainpower on our team. We beat him. I didn’t expect it, but it’s the icing.” so why hasn't he been arrrested huh?
Boulth 8y ago
Wikipedia had some more interesting info https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._B._Cooper https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._B._Cooper The Bureau were more skeptical, concluding that Cooper lacked crucial skydiving skills and experience. "We originally thought Cooper was an experienced jumper, perhaps even a paratrooper," said Special Agent Larry Carr, leader of the investigative team from 2006 until its dissolution in 2016. "We concluded after a few years this was simply not true. No experienced parachutist would have jumped in the pitch-black night, in the rain, with a 200-mile-an-hour wind in his face, wearing loafers and a trench coat. It was simply too risky. He also missed that his reserve 'chute was only for training, and had been sewn shut—something a skilled skydiver would have checked."[83] He also failed to bring or request a helmet, chose to jump with the older and technically inferior of the two primary parachutes supplied to him,[53] and jumped into a −70 °F (−57 °C) wind chill without proper protection against the extreme cold.[110][111]
hymen0ptera 8y ago
There's one theory, notably absent, from the entire cavalcade of possibilities that no one seems to highlight... 1. D.B. Cooper boards the plane. 2. D.B. Cooper reveals a bomb, and with it, his intent to kill everyone on the plane, placing himself in control of their jeopardy. 3. He then, demands assistance, which involves the FBI. This, after placing everyone's life in danger, with the threat of violence. 4. The thing he asks for is absurd, and anyone who has ever used a parachute would raise an eyebrow at accepting equipment from a hostile entity. Even the FBI. 5. Once handed to him, there will be no way for him to look at the equipment, to see if it works, within the confined space of the plane. 6. As long as the money is real, someone making demands like this would expect the parachute to be real too. Especially, providing that their experience and status as a parachutist remains at novice level, with no specialization for preparing equipment. 7. The FBI could have easily provided him with real money and a sabotaged parachute, leaving him to plummet to his death. And why not? There are obvious risks to this play. What if D.B. Cooper had been smart enough to unpack and inspect the parachute before jumping out of the plane, and then, what if he noticed the sabotage and blew up the plane? That's the primary risk, there are other risks, and alternative options in the FBI's corner in this story. They could have also opted to have the fighter jets circle back and gun D.B. Cooper down, before a working parachute reached the ground. But, no matter what, no one seems to have considered the possibility of a vengeful off-the-record FBI. Which, of course, we all know, definitely existed back then.

130 points by ccnafr 8y ago

phthano 8y ago

I read this book. Their evidence seems pretty strong.

gmiller123456 8y ago
Is the article correct in stating that pretty much all of the evidence centers around the six letters? IMHO, and apparently the FBI's too, that's a pretty weak connection. It wouldn't be difficult for anyone, especially a CIA or FBI agent, skilled in writing forensics to point the finger at someone else.
hcs 8y ago
Does the book actually have any details about the code? I haven't found anything online that looks even slightly convincing.
Lazare 8y ago
So...what evidence was in the book? Because the article has literally zero other than "this guy's ex-boss said he totally recognised a letter".

pembrook 8y ago

Every couple of years a new group comes out with their findings on this, then it gets debunked. It's like Jimmy Hoffa's body. Easy stories for a slow news day.

Overtonwindow 8y ago

FWIW I think ol Mr. Cooper landed, but then died from exposure out there. Cash was found on the banks of the Columbia river, but that could've been washed up and buried over time. IIRC that cash was not loose, but in bundles, so its very plausible it just got lost to the elements. The real kicker for me is that money, more precisely, the rest of it. It's never been found in circulation. Success and truly his survival would've been evident by the spending of the cash.

Zhenya 8y ago
Maybe be burned a bunch of it to try and stay warm? Especially if all the wood was wet.
- Overtonwindow 8y ago
  Good point. Not sure how well currency burns, but ...NONE of it has ever showed up in circulation. Now...what would be really crazy is if all of a sudden a twenty gets passed at a White Castle in Nevada, and all the alarm bells go off, and suddenly we're all reevaluating everything. Personally, I hope he made it.

paulcole 8y ago

> The first sentence, “I want out of the system and saw a way through good ole Unk,” was decoded to, “I want out of the system and saw a way by skyjacking a jet plane.” And the second sentence, “And please tell the lackey cops D.B. Cooper is not my real name,” was decoded to “I am 1st Lt. Robert Rackstraw, D.B. Cooper is not my real name.” I wish they explained this in some level of detail that makes it remotely believable.

jandrese 8y ago
Obviously "Unk" is code for "skyjacking a jet plane", and "please tell the lackey cops" is code for "I am 1st Lt. Robert Rackstraw". What's so hard about that? The guy just has a very idiosyncratic set of code phrases that he was clearly using in Vietnam. I have to agree that the evidence in the article seems flimsy at best. Maybe the book makes a better case for it, but I'd be concerned that it isn't one of those things where someone who is 100% convinced about something doesn't attribute every tiny little coincidence as concrete proof of their theory.
- kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
  If you're tuned into the right numbers station and know the Illuminati secret handshake it all makes sense.
  - vidanay 8y ago
    I know the handshake and it doesn't make sense
    - jschwartzi 8y ago
      It's a different handshake now. They change it every time someone claims to know it.
      - mcguire 8y ago
        It requires three hands and a left foot, now.

blakesterz 8y ago

I think they recorded most of the serial numbers of the bills? And it was never spent? If someone was to spend that today, are those still in some tracking system now so they'd be found? How long are things like that followed?

notarealaccount 8y ago
Are you asking for a friend?
everdev 8y ago
The only counter argument that comes to mind is that in some foreign countries US dollars are accepted. If that money is in international circulation is might not be picked up. Although, one would assume that over time some of it would make it's way back to the US.
secabeen 8y ago
Yes, they recorded every serial number of every bill, and not a single one has ever been recorded in circulation. A subset of them were found in the area where he jumped out in 1980 by an 8-year old, but those were not put into circulation.
mabbo 8y ago
He may have just never spent any of it. Presuming he's still alive, there might be a duffel-bag full of very well-known serial-numbered bills buried behind his house, with a last will and testament saying "I did it, go dig up the money now, haha, I got away with it". Sounds crazy, right? But then you remember this guy hijacked a plane and then jumped out of it and maybe crazy is exactly right.

ataspinar 8y ago

Anyone who has watched Prisonbreak already knows the answer.. old news!

lifeisstillgood 8y ago

I remember reading a different account that basically ended with, we found a bunch of the money in a river, but never found the body, he died on impact. I think the sheer brass balls of it will keep people interested, and the "disappearance" will let the mystery run and run. But Occam's razor says no money was ever found because he never got up after reaching the ground.

coltonv 8y ago

If there's one thing I've learned from reading about a lot of conspiracy theories for fun, it's that circumstantial evidence can seem right when presented in the right way, even if it's completely wrong. I think everyone should take a look at the Wikipedia article for theories of who actually wrote the works penned to name "Shakespeare" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare_authorship_question https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare_authorship_questio...) and scroll down to the "Alternative Candidates" section. When you read one, the circumstantial evidence looks perfect. Then you read another candidate and you say "gee that sounds really valid too...". Obviously they can't both be right, but each one presents circumstantial evidence that seems to connect perfectly. After you've red the alternative candidates, read the "Case for Shakespeare's authorship", which is the case that it really was Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon that wrote the plays. There's some hard evidence (though not enough to be 100% conclusive, it's probably 90% conclusive, and enough convince most scholars) that makes the rest of the theories seem totally unfounded. I went on a bit of a rant here, but hopefully my point comes across, that circumstantial evidence is really quite far from real hard evidence. Unless some guy comes forward with those bills with the correct serial numbers or someone finds a body, it's going to remain an unsolved mystery.

hitekker 8y ago
>a bit of a rant On the contrary, you’ve described an intuitive way of teaching the dangers of overrelying on circumstantial evidence. Well done.
- coltonv 8y ago
  Thanks! I'm glad to have contributed to a conversation worth having.
StanislavPetrov 8y ago
>I went on a bit of a rant here, but hopefully my point comes across, that circumstantial evidence is really quite far from real hard evidence. You are absolutely right. Unfortunately for all of us this simple bit of wisdom is considered heresy in modern society.
8y ago

dredmorbius 8y ago

Vaguely related: the Cooper Vane, a true documented legacy of the incident. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooper_vane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooper_vane

joejerryronnie 8y ago

D.B. Cooper, going by a different alias, used the stolen $200,000 to finance the initial version of a small, speculative "Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System".

Lazare 8y ago

Here's the problem: 1) "Rackstraw – a former Special Forces paratrooper, explosives expert and pilot with about 22 different aliases – was once a person of interest in the case, but was eliminated as a suspect by the FBI in 1979. His elimination was controversial amongst the investigating agents, and he remained, for many, the most viable suspect in what remains the only unsolved case of air piracy in the United States." Rackstraw is the obvious choice. 2) "Rick Sherwood – a former member of the Army Security Agency, which decoded signals during the Vietnam War – cracked the codes. Rackstraw served under Sherwood in two classified units, and Sherwood was familiar with his writing style having deciphered some of his earlier messages." They got someone who knew Rackstraw to look into whether it might be Rackstraw. 3) "Using codes that only Rackstraw would have known, Sherwood honed in on two sentences for analysis. The first sentence, “I want out of the system and saw a way through good ole Unk,” was decoded to, “I want out of the system and saw a way by skyjacking a jet plane.” And the second sentence, “And please tell the lackey cops D.B. Cooper is not my real name,” was decoded to “I am 1st Lt. Robert Rackstraw, D.B. Cooper is not my real name.”" This person came up with a possible solution that fingers the exact target he set out to finger. That's fine as far as it goes, but it'd be a hell of a lot more convincing if either they got a cryptographer with no knowledge of the case or individual to come up with it, or if the target wasn't the obvious guy they were literally looking for evidence against. Especially since the translations, as retold in the article, seem awfully tenuous. And speaking of those translations! "And please tell your lackey cops" translates to "I am 1st Lt. Robert Rackstraw, "? Really? What sort of code...is this exactly? I mean, if we assume there's a code where the word "lackey" means "Robert" and the word "cops" means "Rackstraw", and so on, then yes, that sentence does mean what is claimed, but that's 1) a pretty strange code and 2) you could just assume it's a different code where "lackey" means "Vladimir" and "cops" means "Putin", and now it incriminates the Russian president. That there is a code that incriminates Rackstraw doesn't mean it's the code that was used (if, indeed, any code was used; the letters as quoted aren't especially cryptic). Alternatively...well, what is the alternative? I don't see a lot of potential ciphers here that yield the astonishing results claimed. > “We now have him saying, ‘I am Cooper,’” Colbert told Seattle PI. “Rackstraw is a narcissistic sociopath who never thought he would be caught. He was trying to prove that he was smarter than anyone else. But he couldn’t fight 1500 years of brainpower on our team. Maybe they needed a few more years of brainpower. (Also, if you believe the story, it wasn't about 1500 years of brainpower, but the fact that they talked to one guy who used to be Rackstraw's boss, and is claiming without proof that Rackstraw used to use a code where "Unk" mean "hijacking a jet" and "lackey cops" meant "Robert Rackstraw". I don't really believe that, but if you do, then this is mostly just about talking to the one guy who just happened to have the one scrap of secret info that identifies the hijacker, man, if only they'd thought to talk to the prime suspects ex-boss from the very start! In short: What a pile of nonsense and poor writing.

iambateman 8y ago

The fact that “please tell the lackey cops" is code for "I am 1st Lt. Robert Rackstraw" is absurd. “Unk” means “skyjacking a plane”??? I don’t know what the codes they used in Vietnam were, but I don’t think they needed a code for “a man is skyjacking a plane.” Maybe there are details I’m missing, but it takes away from the legitimacy of the claim in my opinion.

emmelaich 8y ago
I thought they were absurd too. Surely "saw a way through good ole Unk" means he found a way to steal from Uncle Sam.
philwelch 8y ago
There’s probably more to the code; perhaps the letter is much longer and part of the code is to embed a key in some other, fixed part of the text.
rconti 8y ago
Yes, obviously there are details that are missing. The article doesn't have any of the letters he wrote, and refers to a very complicated code indicated by repeating words, none of which were in the article. Even with the evidence, I'm sure it's far beyond me to assess it, but it seems insane that people are dismissing a highly trained codebreaker's extensive work because 2 specific sentences in a newspaper article cribbed from multiple letters aren't immediately obvious to the layperson.
- hcs 8y ago
  Photos of the decoding in question: https://dbcooper.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/DBC-Letter-5-FBI-WA-DC-WFO-DBC-WAPO-Letter-Mailed-12-15-71J3-1-300x147.jpg https://dbcooper.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/DBC-Letter-5... https://dbcooper.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/DBC-Letter-6-3-28-72-Typed-Note-Message-CodeB.jpg https://dbcooper.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/DBC-Letter-6... Definitely nothing obvious to this layperson. Edit: just noticed the 3 71s in the first image, ok that's a little interesting.

pansinghkoder 8y ago

he did cameo in prison break

justwalt 8y ago

When they say the investigation lasted from 1971-2016, what exactly does that mean? Does that mean they were waiting for evidence to come their way, or has there been a team working X number of hours every week trying to figure things out?

mimimihaha 8y ago
This is what I found on Wikipedia. I don’t know if it clears it up or not: “The FBI officially suspended active investigation of the case in July 2016, but the agency continues to request that any physical evidence that might emerge related to the parachutes or the ransom money be submitted for analysis.”

iosDrone 8y ago

Sounds pretty badass.

rmason 8y ago

Although DNA didn't exist at the time the FBI later got a useable sample from the clip on tie Cooper left behind. It was already used to rule out one potential subject. Why didn't all that FBI brainpower tail the guy and get a sample of his DNA that could be compared? I kept reading in the story and it was never mentioned. If the FBI refused to run the test well then you know they're protecting him which I doubt. https://abcnews.go.com/US/db-cooper-dna-results-match/story?id=14258726 https://abcnews.go.com/US/db-cooper-dna-results-match/story?...

dmichulke 8y ago

Regarding the "code": I'm pretty confident that the FBI is not the inventor of it, so obviously there should be some information out there about "encoding a message to that the encoded message is human language". Obviously there's a mapping (assuming x,y are unknowns) (x | "through good ole Unk") -> "by skyjacking a jet plane". (y | "And please tell the lackey cops") -> "I am 1st Lt. Robert Rackstraw," Doesn anyone know candidates for this type of mapping?

d0gbyt3 8y ago
Some more information i found: https://dbcooper.com/2018/06/pi-team-coopers-confession-found-in-letter/ https://dbcooper.com/2018/06/pi-team-coopers-confession-foun...

lawlessone 8y ago

>But he couldn’t fight 1500 years of brainpower on our team. We beat him. I didn’t expect it, but it’s the icing.” so why hasn't he been arrrested huh?

Boulth 8y ago

Wikipedia had some more interesting info https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._B._Cooper https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._B._Cooper The Bureau were more skeptical, concluding that Cooper lacked crucial skydiving skills and experience. "We originally thought Cooper was an experienced jumper, perhaps even a paratrooper," said Special Agent Larry Carr, leader of the investigative team from 2006 until its dissolution in 2016. "We concluded after a few years this was simply not true. No experienced parachutist would have jumped in the pitch-black night, in the rain, with a 200-mile-an-hour wind in his face, wearing loafers and a trench coat. It was simply too risky. He also missed that his reserve 'chute was only for training, and had been sewn shut—something a skilled skydiver would have checked."[83] He also failed to bring or request a helmet, chose to jump with the older and technically inferior of the two primary parachutes supplied to him,[53] and jumped into a −70 °F (−57 °C) wind chill without proper protection against the extreme cold.[110][111]

hymen0ptera 8y ago

There's one theory, notably absent, from the entire cavalcade of possibilities that no one seems to highlight... 1. D.B. Cooper boards the plane. 2. D.B. Cooper reveals a bomb, and with it, his intent to kill everyone on the plane, placing himself in control of their jeopardy. 3. He then, demands assistance, which involves the FBI. This, after placing everyone's life in danger, with the threat of violence. 4. The thing he asks for is absurd, and anyone who has ever used a parachute would raise an eyebrow at accepting equipment from a hostile entity. Even the FBI. 5. Once handed to him, there will be no way for him to look at the equipment, to see if it works, within the confined space of the plane. 6. As long as the money is real, someone making demands like this would expect the parachute to be real too. Especially, providing that their experience and status as a parachutist remains at novice level, with no specialization for preparing equipment. 7. The FBI could have easily provided him with real money and a sabotaged parachute, leaving him to plummet to his death. And why not? There are obvious risks to this play. What if D.B. Cooper had been smart enough to unpack and inspect the parachute before jumping out of the plane, and then, what if he noticed the sabotage and blew up the plane? That's the primary risk, there are other risks, and alternative options in the FBI's corner in this story. They could have also opted to have the fighter jets circle back and gun D.B. Cooper down, before a working parachute reached the ground. But, no matter what, no one seems to have considered the possibility of a vengeful off-the-record FBI. Which, of course, we all know, definitely existed back then.