Yeah, a lot of folks know, it's an interesting,
I mean, if you look up any, if you look up any
Google, you know, top 10 mysteries, I mean, Cooper's
always on there. He's on there with Jimmy Hoffa
and Amelia Earhart. I call them the holy trinity
of missing people. Welcome to Nice Ashes. Join
hosts Mike and Nate for cigars and culture. Let's
go beyond the smoke. What are we smoking today,
Mike? We are smoking the Marco 5 Dici 10. And
this is the prettiest cigar I think I've ever
seen. I don't know if you can see that. It is
very nice looking. This is one of Nate's impulse
buys because I don't normally supply the cigars
for our show. And I was getting, I don't remember
why I was in the, I don't know why I was in a
cigar shop, Mike. I have no idea. It's almost
like I'm co -host on a cigar podcast. And this
one just leapt off the shelf at me because I
thought, wow, this is really cool. It was $7
.99. So it's a little bit more expensive than
the cigars we normally smoke on air. But I'm
excited to give it a go. It's got a real cool
X crisscross pattern. We have a very, very special
guest on with us today. Ryan Burns, the Cooper
sleuth. He's the top 1 % contributor to the DB
Cooper subreddit. He's been on, I don't know
how many podcasts and stuff. Many. Videos, done
a lot of videos about DB Cooper. And we're going
to talk with him. Say hi, Ryan. Hello. Hi, everybody.
About DB Cooper and all things DB Cooper related.
All things Cooper, yes. I'll Cooper all the time
in my world. That is a beautiful cigar, I'll
say, for those who can't see it. So first notes
on the cigar. Oh, before we go on, I'm not sure,
Ryan, what you're consuming, but I have a little
bit of honor brand because it's a special day
today. We're recording on Nathan's birthday.
Oh. I'm assuming that we're going to have some
libations. And then once my first glass goes
down, I'm going to switch over to Crown Royal
as usual. But there we go. I do have a vodka
-based drink, so I'll say that. There you go.
I have the Fulton Hop Kingdom Hazy IPA. I have
to say, I'm not an IPA fan. You know, some people
love IPAs and some people hate them. It really
is like an either -or. I don't think you can
be halfway on IPAs. Yeah, I tend to like the
Hazys a little bit better because they're not
quite as varnish, you know, peel the enamel off
your teeth. With the hops or the New England
style. I don't know, the hazy or the cloudy,
you know, you can't really see through them.
So a little bit like that. I'm hoping your vodka
-based drink is kind of like moonshine, but we'll
leave that to the imagination. Well, it's, yes,
it's actually, I'm a weird guy. This is actually,
and this is bizarre. Your audience might think
this is funny, but like, I don't know if this
is a Southern thing or just me being a weirdo
thing. But yeah, I'm drinking a mellow yellow
and vodka mixed together, so. Oh, sure. Yes.
I mean, vodka mixes with anything. So why not?
Yeah. Mellow yellow. So, yeah. Anything mixes
with anything. I remember when I was in, I spent
time in London. Nice. Penal time. No, I was there
for a film internship and I was sharing a house
and renting a room. And one of the other rooms
was being rented by a New Yorker. And we went
down to one of the pubs and we're like, let's
just, they didn't have any beer. And they had,
I think like vodka. And so we're like, let's
just get Vodka Cokes. And we were just doing
Vodka Cokes because we were American and who
there could stop us. We already beat them once.
Yeah, I beat them twice. Vodka Diet Coke is pretty
good. It's not too bad. Vodka Coke. I've never
had that. Interesting. Yeah. It's, you know,
when you're in college, you do what you do. So
how was y 'all's cigars? So far, what are your
thoughts, Mike? So far, it's a little light for
what I was expecting. But overall, the flavor
profile is good. A little airy, too, for how
large a diameter it is. It's a big gauge and
a little longer than we normally smoke. A little
surprised at that. But that's not a bad thing,
necessarily. Well, it could get darker as we
go, Mike. Sometimes they do. The Cooper story
will get darker as it goes. Trust me. Yes, yes.
Yeah, so I've been, so my father -in -law was
the first one, I think, that I heard about the
Cooper story from. Okay. And I'd never heard
about it before, and I looked it up, and then
I like to read a lot of books, so I ended up
getting a few books. Nice. We can talk about
books later. I've got more that I'll probably
order, but we'll get into books later and kind
of like, I mean, however you want to take it,
Ryan. Yeah, my book is actually, my book has
been written. It is, I have several, I have three
currently literary agents who are looking at
it, who are interested. So I'm not sure which
one of those I'm going to go with, but I've got
offers. And so I have a 140 ,000 word book. that
I've written on this case. And I think it's like,
I'll just say, in all humility, I think it is
the best Cooper book ever written. And there
are reasons for that, not just because I'm being
vain, but mainly because we know a lot more about
the Cooper case now than we did years ago. For
example, those books you held up, those are outdated
books. And not through any fault of the, not
through any fault of the authors. I actually
know all those people. I mean, I know them, like
I have their, I text message all those people,
all those authors. I mean, they're all friends
of mine, but like the, this case has really,
The FBI officially closed this case in 2016 because
they were tired of, you know, there had been
really no movement in this case forever. I mean,
ever. I mean, they've never had a viable real
suspect or anything like that. You know, nobody
was ever charged with this crime. There were
never any arrests made at all. So they closed
it in 2016, but they didn't actually close it.
They had a TV show called DB Cooper Case Closed
on the History Channel. And they're like, we're
closing the case. Well, that was a lie. They
didn't actually close the case. The case is still
open. I mean, I know the case agent who was on
it as recently as 2022. He just retired, Larry
Carr, the FBI agent. Yeah, so it's not closed.
But what happened was when they at least said
that they closed it, you see, you know, for your
listeners, we have a thing called FOIA, right?
You FOIA documents. That means the Freedom of
Information Act. So government documents can
be requested by anybody. Any citizen can request
anything. Now, there are exceptions, right? And
that's the big... That's the big booger bear
is the exceptions. And one of the exceptions
has always been active investigation, right?
So like, if anything is an active investigation,
we can't give you the files because that's our
discovery files. Well, when they closed this
case, quote closed it, or at least they said
they closed it. Thomas Colbert, who's the brother
of Stephen Colbert, who actually wrote the book,
one of those books you've got there is the...
Robert Rackstraw book, The Last Master Outlaw.
He and Mark Zaid. Mark Zaid is kind of a famous
civil rights attorney. Trump actually, I think,
blackballed him recently, which is funny. But
on Facebook, Mark is proud of that. But Mark
is a civil rights attorney. But anyway, Mark
sued the government for all of the Cooper files.
Anyway, so he sued them for all the files because
no longer could they say this is an active investigation
because they told the whole country that it's
not. So there's that. So the federal judge agreed
with them. And a federal judge said, hey, we're
going to release the federal judge said that
the FBI has to release all of these files, all
of them. Now, there's about 85 ,000 documents
that the government produced on D .B. Cooper,
85 ,000. OK, and they've released them so far.
Ever since 2017, they've released about 500 a
month. On the FBI, it's called the Vault website,
which is where they have all their files. And
it's like an Easter egg. At the start of every
month, the first or the second day, a PDF drops
of 500 new case documents. So for the first time,
starting in 2017, we actually got real. data
on Cooper because it was an active investigation
and because the witnesses had been told, hey,
don't talk to the media much because this is
an active investigation. Basically, we could
have a trial one day on this, hypothetically.
So don't go run your mouth to the media too much.
And so the witnesses weren't talking much. And
honestly, there weren't many witnesses to begin
with. And we get into that in a second, in a
little bit. And because it was an active investigation,
the only thing that these authors had to go on
were... media reports from the time of the hijacking,
which are, as we know, media reports, especially
back then, were going to be highly inaccurate.
In fact, the name D .B. Cooper is an error. D
.B. Cooper, when he bought his ticket, his alias
was Dan Cooper, right? Not D .B. Cooper. What
happened was during the hijacking, the Portland
FBI and the Seattle FBI were communicating with
each other and somebody, a sheriff's deputy down
in Portland said, hey, there's a... There's a
Dan Cooper. We call him D .B. Cooper. He's a
Vietnam veteran. And he was a young guy, and
he had been in trouble with the law a bunch.
He had come back all kind of messed up from Vietnam.
His name was Daniel Barry Cooper, and they called
him D .B. Cooper. So just offhand, the sheriff's
deputy was like, hey, send somebody over to go
check on D .B. Cooper, because he was kind of
known to law enforcement, right? And they went
there, and he was at his home. But some journalist
was overhearing this, had intercepted, was eavesdropping,
and thought they had a scoop. And so they wrote
down D .B. Cooper and it went out in the not
the Associated Press, the UPI, the UPI article,
I believe, for on the Cooper case on the night
of the hijacking said D .B. Cooper, not Dan Cooper.
So and thankfully so, because Dan D .B. Cooper
is a lot cooler than Dan Cooper. Right. So kind
of a happy accident there. But yes, the misinformation
was out there. So early, early authors on the
Cooper case didn't have. Real evidence. And now
we do. It's highly redacted. Some, you know.
Some of the stuff's redacted. But for example,
we know what kind of parachutes he had now, you
know, officially. We know, we can see what the
witnesses were saying, you know, instead of relying
on, especially the problem is too, some of the
witnesses have like the pilots and the stewardesses
who interacted with him. They have come out lately
now that they're older and done, you know, TV
show interviews and things. But sadly, a lot
of the things they say, we can kind of cross
-check with what they said the night of the hijacking
to the FBI. And they have misremembered things,
you know, because again, 50 years is a long time.
ago. A prime example that I tell people all the
time is the college kid. So there was a college
kid who sat across from DB Cooper. His name was
Bill Mitchell. Real sweet guy. Good friend of
mine. We text back and forth about football.
He loves the Seahawks. And he's an older guy
now. He's retired. But Bill was a college student
who sat across from Cooper. Bill, I was at CooperCon.
We have a thing called a CooperCon. It's a Cooper
convention every year. And Bill comes every year.
And I was talking about DB Cooper having a mystery
bag with him. He had this bag with him. It wasn't
his bomb. He had a briefcase bomb, and then he
had another bag with him. And I said, I was telling
the audience, I said, you know, Bill saw this
bag with Cooper. And out in the audience, Bill
shaved his head going, I didn't say that. Like,
I didn't see a bag. And so I get off the stage,
and Bill goes, hey, Ryan, I never saw Cooper
with a bag. And I said, wow. I hated to be the,
well, actually guy, but I had to be the, well,
actually, you told the FBI that night, you know,
that Cooper had a mystery bag with him, had a
bag with him. And the stewardesses saw this bag
too, so we know it's real. But he had totally
forgotten that, you know, about the incident
because it was 50 years ago. So information is
really impressive now. So what has it told us?
For your audience, I will start from the beginning.
OK, with Cooper, if that's what you want. Yeah,
sounds good. I think it's a fair bet to say that
people maybe my age. I don't know how old you
are. I don't know how old Mike is. I know I'm
one year older. Can't remember things anymore.
But yeah, I don't know. I don't know how many
people I don't know exactly our age demographic
out there. I don't know how many people are familiar
with this story. I know quite a few people that
I've talked to that I know our listeners are
familiar with the D .B. Cooper story. But I think
a brief overview. Yeah. Or however in -depth
you want to go. Yeah, a lot of folks know. It's
an interesting, I mean, if you look up any Google,
you know, top 10 mysteries, I mean, Cooper's
always on there. He's on there with Jimmy Hoffa
and Amelia Earhart. I call them the holy trinity
of missing people, right? Amelia Earhart, Jimmy
Hoffa, and D .B. Cooper. But what's fascinating
about Cooper, the reason why it's more fascinating
than Amelia Earhart and Jimmy Hoffa is we don't
even know who the guy was. He's a missing person
who's unknown. So that makes it even more dramatic.
I mean, we know who Amelia Earhart was, and we
know who Jimmy Hoffa was, but Cooper existed
for five hours. This is a man who literally came
into the world and went, went, and that's it.
There's a famous quote from an FBI agent who
said, scratching his head, said, we don't know
who he was, where he came from, or where he went.
So it's November 24th, 1971. It's the day before
Thanksgiving, and a... Middle -aged man walks
into Portland International Airport, and he goes
up to the Northwest Orient, which is Northwest
Airlines now. He goes up to Northwest Orient,
ticket at ticket, and says, hey, I want a flight
to Seattle. Can I get on your next flight to
Seattle? They said, yep. And he dropped down
a $20 bill, which is what his flight cost, including
tax. They were nice enough to make it to where
with tax, it was $20 on the nose. And he gives
his name as Dan Cooper. Now, back then, something
that I think especially younger people would
be shocked at is that There was no airline security.
It did not exist, essentially. I mean, there
was a little bit, but you did not need to show
ID to buy a plane ticket. In fact, some airlines,
you could buy the plane ticket on the plane.
Okay, so no ID. There was no metal detectors.
The only security they had at the time was some
gate agents had been trained at profiling. So
it's just like, you know, if somebody looks suspicious,
you can pull them out and interrogate them, whatever.
But Cooper was dressed as a businessman. He was
wearing a tie, a suit, a trench coat, and carrying
a briefcase and just looked like everybody else.
Very bland. Cooper's superpower, really, as I
say, was his blandness. This guy looked like
everybody. He was... If a bank robber wears a
mask as their disguise, Cooper's disguise was
being able to blend in. He drew no attention.
So yeah, yeah. So Cooper, that was his disguise.
So Cooper buys a ticket. He boards the plane.
Now this is a 727, all right? This is important
to remember is that 727s was the aircraft he
chose. They have stairs that lowered, okay? Most
airplanes, in fact, only... Two aircraft, commercial
airliners, had these rear stairs. That would
be a DC -9 and a Boeing 727. And the utility
of it was that they could land at smaller airports.
They could land at airports that didn't have
a jetway to pull up to. And that was kind of
their thing. And so these stairs could lower
from the rear, from inside. In fact, that day,
there was construction going on at the airport
there in PDX. The plane, they boarded from those
stairs because there was construction and they
couldn't use the jetway. So the passengers boarded
from the rear. So Cooper walked up the same stairs
that he would eventually jump off of to board
the plane. But this was only a 30 minute flight.
And remarkably, the 727 could hold over 100 people.
But there were only 36 passengers on the plane,
including Cooper. So you would think there'd
be more the day before Thanksgiving. I've often
wondered about that. Like maybe it wasn't as
busy as it was back then because people were
more localized in those days. You know, we're
so spread out. I think people lived closer to
where they were from back then. So maybe visiting
family, you would drive instead of flying. So
maybe it wasn't as busy. But there were only
36 passengers on this plane. But it was a milk
run, 30 minutes to Seattle. So Cooper, interestingly
enough, because it was such a short flight, they
served them their drinks before they took off.
So they did drink service before they even left.
So Cooper, he's the first person served by the
stewardess, Florence Schaffner. And he orders
a bourbon and seven up. And he gives her, it
was only a dollar. The drink costs a dollar.
And he gives her a $20 bill. So I often joke
that he's already inconveniencing poor Florence
Schaffner before he even hijacks her. Because
she's like, look, I just, she tells him, she
goes, look, I don't have any change with me right
now. You know, I mean, basically the calculations,
if you want to in your head, everything was five
times. I guess, less expensive than it is now.
So for example, a $20 bill is the equivalent
of a $100 bill now. So you're buying a drink
that costs $5 and you're giving the woman a $100
bill is what he was doing. It's like, oh, come
on, really? But that's what he had. So she gives
him his bourbon and seven up. He spills it, okay?
He actually spills his one drink. I don't know
if he's nervous or whatever, but he spills it.
It's not replaced. Right before they take off,
he sits in the very back row on the right side
of the plane as you're looking forward. So if
you're into the Navy, that would be the starboard
side of the plane. On the middle seat on the
back row. And behind him is the stewardess in
her jump seat. You know, they get in their jump
seat to take off. Well, as she's walking to her
jump seat, he hands her a note. And she, remember,
this is the time of the sexy stews, right? This
is the swinging 60s and 70s, right? The stewardesses
are wearing go -go boots and everything. And
they're used to getting hit on by businessmen.
So she thinks this is like his phone number or
something. And so she puts this note in her bag
and goes and sits down. And she says that he's
kind of looking at her and he turns around, you
know, he turns to look back, you know, where
she's sitting and stares at her. And she says
she returned his gaze. And they had a brief staring
contest. And finally, she's like, well, what
do you want? And he's like, Miss, I think you
need to read that note. And the note said, Miss,
I have a bomb in my briefcase and I want you
to sit by me. So, oh, my God. Now I will take
a brief. break here to point out that hijackings,
your audience will be amazed to know this, that
I believe it's between 1963 and 72, there were
about 150 hijackings of American airliners, okay,
in a 10 -year period. 150 hijackings. Now, so
it was almost like a, it was almost expected
in a weird way. It became like a fad. And most
of it, what it was, is it was Cubans who were
Because if you recall your history, when Castro
took over from Batista in Cuba, a lot of the
Cubans fled to America, okay? And a lot of the
Cubans who were born in Cuba, who were now teenagers
or in their 20s in 71, they were enamored by
Castro's socialist paradise, right? So, and remember,
there's a travel ban. You can't fly to Cuba.
So, well, one way you can fly to Cuba is to hijack
a plane and say, fly me to Cuba. So it was a
real thing. I mean, I would probably say 90 %
of all the hijackers were Cubans who were going
home. And it was almost like it was fun. Passengers
were like, hey, we can go get some rum and cigars.
Castro was like, hello. You know, he wanted to
put on a good image. So whenever a hijacked plane
would land there, and they did negotiate with
terrorists, I guess, back then. That was their
thing was, hey, look, if, you know, what is the
risk assessment here is, okay, we're going to
fly some. teenage Cuban to Cuba. And instead
of him killing people, maybe, if he does, or
blowing a plane up or whatever, they're just
not going to risk that, right? So you cooperated
with hijackers back then. So it wasn't a shock
that they were hijacked, honestly. I mean, they
were surprised, but what really surprised them
was that when she sits down next to him and says,
what do you want? You know, what are your demands,
sir? He says, I want $200 ,000 and four parachutes
before we land in Seattle. What? Okay, now extortion
hijackings. There had been one previously, just
one. A couple of years earlier, a mailman who
had, he went postal apparently, a mailman in
Arizona was upset that he had been charged about
$300 extra on his taxes by the IRS. And so he
hijacked a plane and asked for $100 million.
Yeah. So the first extortion hijacking was a
guy asking for $100 million. And back then that's
a billion dollars or whatever. So they eventually
shot off, they shot off the tires of this airliner.
They captured this guy. But anyway, so Cooper
says, I want $20 ,000 and $400 ,000. parachutes.
Well, the pilots go, okay, well, they call their
bosses at Northwest Airlines in Minneapolis and
they say, you know, what do you want to do? And
back then, the FBI actually gave you an option.
They don't do it anymore, but they gave you the
option in those days if you were being extorted
in a kidnapping situation. or something like
this, they gave you the option to play ball with
the bad guys or to let the FBI intervene. You
know, go ahead and pay the ransom. You know,
we'll catch the guy later. So if you want to
pay the ransom, you can. So Northwest Airlines
didn't want the guy with a bomb to blow their
plane up, even if it was a fake bomb. You know,
don't take that risk. So they said, sure, whatever.
And they told the FBI to stand down. So the FBI
really... and this surprises people, had nothing
to do at all with the Cooper hijacking as it's
going on. Like everything that they did was afterwards.
So this was essentially a transaction between
an angry customer and the airliners. That was
literally how they handled it. The FBI didn't
get the money. They didn't get the parachutes.
This was all Northwest Airlines employees running
these errands. Okay, so it takes a while to get
$200 ,000 back then and four parachutes. The
parachutes were the problem, really. It wasn't
the money because Northwest Airlines used...
C -First Bank in Seattle. And interestingly enough,
C -First Bank had a ransom pack ready to go.
They had $250 ,000 of pre -recorded bills. Okay,
so the serial numbers were already recorded.
And what it was is their idea was, hey, if we're
ever robbed, give them this money as well as
whatever they asked for, right? Because that
way we can track them with the serial numbers.
So they had a pre -recorded ransom pack of $250
,000. So they gave $200 ,000 in a bag and they
drove it to the airport and they got the parachutes
from a couple of different places. It took a
while. So they had to circle. Remember, this
is only a 30 -minute flight. So they had to circle
for about two hours or so over Seattle. Now,
the brilliant part about Cooper. is that none
of the passengers were ever aware they were being
hijacked. Like, this is remarkable. Not a single
passenger knew they were being hijacked until
they landed in Seattle, and they asked some guy,
like, what the hell's going on? Oh, y 'all were
hijacked. Oh, we didn't know. Because the pilots
were like, oh, we have a mechanical difficulty.
We're going to circle and burn off some fuel,
you know, whatever. Because Cooper, remember,
he's in the back row. Very smart on his part.
You sit in the very back. You're inconspicuous.
The only thing that drew some attention was that
the stewardess sat with him the whole time. One
of the stewardesses sat with this guy. And so
a couple of passengers after the hijacking was
over with, they were like, yeah, I thought maybe
they knew each other. Or maybe another guy thought
that he was an airline executive who was like
doing a secret shopper sort of thing, you know,
just assessing the airline, you know, things
like this. I mentioned earlier the college kid
who sat across from Cooper. He's our best passenger
witness is this college kid. Now, the only reason
he paid attention to D .B. Cooper at all was
because. He was a strapping 21 -year -old college
student, and this hot babe stewardess was paying
all of his attention to, quote, this geeky old
guy. That's what he said. So he was jealous.
He didn't understand. And so he wanted to pick
on the guy. He had two hours to do nothing. He
just looked over at this guy whispering to the
stewardess and picked on him. Picked on him as
far as, like, for example, Cooper had a turkey
neck. Interesting detail that D .B. Cooper had
a turkey gobble when he talked. He had a gobble.
He had loose skin is what he called it. He told
the FBI after the hijacking, he said it looked
like he had been fat and lost a lot of weight
in his face. He had like sagging neck. That,
you know, and which is interesting because, but
that's a detail that a guy who's sitting across
from you would see. He would see your side profile,
see your neck, you know. But he was picking on
him and he said his socks were oddly colored.
His socks or something didn't match his shoes.
And he was just really like that. So just, he
was wondering why this girl was talking to this
guy, but the passengers didn't know. So they
land and they bring the money on board. And when
they bring, when the stewardess, he tells the
girl, go get the money. And she goes and brings
it on board and he lets the passengers go. Then
they bring the parachutes on and they refuel.
And they go, okay, where do you want us to go?
Because they said, okay, now you have your ransom.
Where do you want us to fly you to? He goes,
fly me to Mexico City. And they go, okay. But
he says, but wait, don't just fly to Mexico City.
When you fly to Mexico City, I want you to fly
with the flaps at 15 degrees, with the gear down,
and with the rear stairs lowered. And they're
like, what in the hell? And we actually have
the audio transcripts of the pilots talking.
And one of them is like, I don't know where this
guy is coming up with this stuff, but he seems
to know a little bit about an airplane. So he
was a, I think Cooper was a pilot of some sort,
not a commercial airline pilot, but he knew some
things about airliners or knew some things about
aviation that made them. Actually, Northwest
Airlines, after the hijacking was over, contacted
the FBI saying, hey, look, we've been talking
to the pilots, and there are some words and phrases
that are used that only pilots would use. For
example, before they took off from Seattle, they
were talking about having to file a flight plan.
Now, you can file a flight plan in the air, and
pilot lingo, they have this terminology called
pick it up in the air. And when the stewardess,
he's going, why the hell haven't we left yet?
Stewardess says, hey, she's on the phone with
the pilots the whole time. Remember, they're
in the back of the plane and the stewardess is
on the phone, on the interphone at the back of
the plane the whole time with the pilots up front.
And she's relaying this and she goes, the pilots
are saying that they have to file a flight plan
first. He goes, no, no, no. They can do that
in the air. He says, they can pick it up in the
air, which is that pilot term. And the pilots.
That went in their brain like, hey, he sounds
like one of us, you know? So that's one of those
weird clues about Cooper. But anyway, so they
take off. Well, the problem is you can't fly
to Mexico City on a single tank of gas flying
in that configuration. The Boeing 727 could fly
from Seattle to Mexico City on a single tank
of gas flying without all that drag, right? Flying
with the gear down, flaps down, that's just going
to kill your fuel efficiency. So they said, we
have to stop in Reno to refuel. He goes, that's
fine. Because again, Cooper didn't care. He was
never going to be on the plane anyway. So they
take off heading south toward Reno for their
refueling stop. And he still has the girl back.
He keeps the girl. He lets the stewardesses go
except for one. He keeps one stewardess back
there with him. Then there's three crew members
in the cockpit, okay? So there's four hostages
at this point. And about five minutes after takeoff,
he asks the stewardess, he says, look, I need
you to demonstrate how to... Or he was going
to have her lower the stairs, but she was freaked
out. She goes, I'm going to be sucked out of
the plane. Now, the plane was flying depressurized.
So you can open a door and you're not going to
be sucked out. But still, I'd be scared too.
So she goes, I'm going to be sucked out. And
she's panicking. He goes, fine, just show me
how to lower the stairs. And she does. And he
bids her adieu. He says goodbye. He even waves
goodbye at her and says, OK, see you. And she
goes to the front. And about five minutes later,
the cockpit gets a indicator light that says
that the aft stairs are open. Okay, so Cooper
had opened the stairs. And roughly about 8 .13
p .m., as they're about 10 miles north of Portland,
the pilots feel what they call a pressure bump.
And what they mean is that their ears popped.
One of the pilots said it was like a cork going
off out of a bottle. Another said it was like
lowering or raising the window when you're speeding
down the interstate. That kind of woof you feel,
right? They felt that. And what that was is those
stairs. So if you can imagine the wind. was pushing,
the wind was keeping, those stairs were lowered
by gravity only, okay? So the stairs really weren't
lowering a lot because the wind was pushing up
against the stairs. But his body weight, as he
went down the stairs, kind of pushed, made some
resistance against the wind. So when he leaves,
when he jumps off, all that wind resistance,
I liken it to how, the best way to describe it
to people is, it's kind of like a diving board,
but think about if you're driving down the road.
when you're a kid or whatever, and you stick
your hand out the window and you have to like
put some resistance in your arm to keep it from
flying backwards, right? And just imagine you
suddenly like, you know, loosen your arm muscles.
Your arm flies backwards really quickly. That's
what happened. So whenever Cooper's weight was
released, the stairs rebounded like a diving
board and they slammed it and they slammed up
against the top of the plane and that forced
all this wind down and it popped their ears.
So that's how we know where Cooper jumped essentially.
But the pilots weren't too sure. So they flew
all the way to Reno. And they landed and he wasn't
there. But they looked back and they said, hey,
we think he jumped out around this point. So
about 10 miles north of Portland, about 8 .13
p .m. And that's it. I mean, literally, when
he had jumped out with one of the parachutes
and the money was gone and all he left on the
plane was eight cigarette butts that he had smoked
and his clip -on tie. famously. I think that
was a brain fart on his part. He was very studious
about taking things with him. In fact, so Cooper
kept his right hand at most of the time inside
this briefcase bomb. And it was a pretty convincing
looking bomb. I mean, we can say, we're still
debating it to this day, whether it was real
or fake. Normally, we would say, of course, it's
a fake bomb. But basically, the stewardess who
got the best look at it and saw it several times,
she was the daughter of an electrician. So her
mind, she grew up around gadgets. And she was
able to describe it really well, which wires
went where, which things went where. And some
Marines, I believe, have actually replicated
that bomb and it would have gone off. If it was
dynamite bombs with a, I think it was like a
nine volt or a dry cell battery, kind of a big
battery, it would have blown up if it had been
real dynamite. We don't know if it was real dynamite,
but it seemed overkill because back then... Lots
of hijackers would say, I have a bomb. And no
one's going to call their bluff on it and say,
let me see it. You know, they could just say,
I have a bomb. And usually it was because these
guys were all captured. Usually it was like rags
in a shoebox. It was nothing. But his bomb looked
convincing. And actually, the way he designed
it was good enough. to actually explode if it
was real. So we don't know if it was real or
not. It would have been a bad day if it had been
real and he didn't get his way. But Cooper, not
a nice guy. I think a lot of people in the, a
lot of people, your listeners maybe too, we have
this image of Cooper as like Han Solo in a business
suit. He's kind of this roguish air pirate, you
know, but not a good guy, honestly. I mean, he
was friendly to the crew enough, but he still
looked at a 21 -year -old girl and said, I will
kill you if you don't do this. And that's not
nice. and did lose his temper a few times and
repeatedly told the stewardess, I'm not going
to be taken alive. I will die here today. So
that's kind of scary a little bit. So he scared
her, you know, and inconvenienced a lot of people,
too. I mean, there were thousands of people.
They shut down airspace. This was a plane that
had a bomb in it. You know, they shut down all
the airspace around Seattle for hours the day
before Thanksgiving. Real inconvenient. So, yeah,
I've been babbling. What about your cigars, guys?
It's a cigar show. Tell me about the cigars.
It's funny because I just messaged Mike and was
like, hey, do you want to do a cigar check soon?
And that was a great recap of everything. It
totally matches everything I know from the Wikipedia
page about D .B. Cooper. Which I wrote. Okay.
Well, there you go. The current Wikipedia page
is something that I, yeah, exactly. But yeah,
it's very fascinating because all of the different
things, like you were saying with the flaps and
the different terminology that he used. And I
think the next bit will be very interesting where
we maybe talk about. about suspects or favorite
candidates to be him and stuff. But real quick
about the cigars, I'm probably over halfway through,
Mike. Oh, I'm about as far as you are. I took
my wrappers off. I was babbling, so you guys
got to smoke a lot faster than you normally do,
probably. Yeah, usually we were like, oh man,
you know, if one of us is talking more than the
other one's way ahead and then we got to try
and catch up. But it's growing on me really drastically,
I think. It's a very pleasant medium -bodied
cigar. Yeah, it's yeah, it's very nice. The fact
that it looks so cool makes me want to like it.
So that might be part of it, too. You know, I'm
getting the response I want because I want to
like it. And it's not bad at all. Not bad at
all. I will say, Ryan, that you answered one
of my questions because in one of the interviews
I listened to you on, you see, he said he ordered
a bourbon and soda and soda here in Minnesota.
can mean pretty much any form of pop, including
soda water. Like anything that's carbonated can
be called soda. So 7 -Up is specific. And I was
like, I wonder if it was like... Well, in down
south, we call that a Coke. So yeah, like down
south, if you go into a restaurant, they'll say,
what kind of Coke do you want? And I want a Sprite.
So like, it's weird. Soda is Coke in our vernacular.
So yeah, but soda is definitely, we would call
that a Yankee thing or pop. Pop's the most Yankee
-ish, as we would say. We're Pops. We're Pop
here. Soda is club soda, specifically here. Okay,
so Pop is like Coke to you guys. So, okay, gotcha.
Yes, yeah, Pop is like Coke. It was bourbon and
7 -Up, which, you know, apparently... I mean,
look, we're so we're such nerds that we've tried
to, like, figure out which bourbon was served
on the plane on that on that day, trying to figure
out, you know, and the FBI even like you can
look in one of the things you find with these
FBI files I was mentioning is them doing research
on this. Cooper smoked Raleigh cigarettes, for
example. OK, so they can look and see what kind
of person smoked Raleigh cigarettes and say who
was the. Was this guy a middle class guy or upper
class guy or lower class? And Raleigh actually
has a bad reputation. Actually, my own research
showed that Raleigh cigarettes were for basically,
of all the main cigarette brands at the time,
they had the lowest education rate for people.
So they had like the lowest education rate for
smokers. The lowest amount of college degrees,
I think, of like 20 tobacco companies was Raleigh.
So I don't know what that means for Cooper, but
the FBI looked into that. The FBI looked into
like, what kind of person drank a bourbon and
seven up, right? Who would do that? Trying to
figure out, narrow it down who this guy might
be. But as I said, we don't know a daggum thing
about this guy because he didn't say much. He
was seen by, I mean, we've got 10, we have 10
eyewitnesses, okay? And only, I would say, two
of them had any sort of real conversation with
this guy, okay? It was the two stewardesses,
two of the three stewardesses. But that's it.
And then he's gone. left nothing and he looked
like you know if people people remember that
skit from mad tv of the asian lady saying uh
he looked like a man you know there's a skit
where the he looked like a man everything she
says you know just describe the guy who robbed
you he looked like a man well that's like every
time i read db cooper's physical description
and i just say he looked like a man because like
that's all they could say he had a part his his
hair was black his nose was small but the only
physical feature that he really had that is notable
was his lower lip he had a what they called a
protruding lower lip. And something was unique,
something was unique enough about his lip to
where several years later, the FBI were showing
photos of a suspect to Tina Mucklow, who's the
main stewardess was named Tina. They were showing
photos and she goes, hey, that guy's lip. looks
very similar to cooper's lip so like years later
she remembers what this guy's lip looked like
so clearly it was distinctive but that's really
the only feature he had his skin was dark too
he had olive skin the only stewardess who saw
him without his sunglasses on if you remember
earlier i mentioned this first stewardess the
one he handed the note to is not the one he sat
with the whole time she freaked out a little
bit and ran to the cockpit with the note and
never came back Because she was probably crying
up there. And they kept her up there the whole
time. Because they didn't want the passengers
to see some stewardess crying. So the first stewardess's
name was Flo. She describes him. Remember, she
had a staring contest with the guy without his
sunglasses on. So once he handed her the note,
he put his sunglasses on. Once he became the
hijacker, he put his sunglasses on. But she looked
in his eyes for a while, and she had many interactions
with the guy. She mixed in his drink and brought
his change back. And 15 minutes after getting
off the plane, she tells the FBI he appeared
to be of Latin descent. And we have another witness
who says that Cooper appeared to be Mexican or
perhaps Native American. And all of our witnesses,
except for the college kid. Nine of the ten used
the term dark complexion or olive complexion.
So his skin tone was dark. So he may have been
Latin of some sort or Native American. He had
high cheekbones as well, which is a Native American
trait and could have been Native American, but
or some kind of mixture. But he wasn't like your
standard white guy. It may have been Italian
or something, but he was, they used the term
swarthy, which isn't a word we use much anymore,
but like that was a term they used back then.
So passengers called him swarthy. He was dark
skinned. And that wasn't just the low lights
of the airplane. People say that. Maybe it was
just the low lighting or bad lighting, but because
the ticket agent who sold him the ticket. And
the gate agent who took his ticket said, also
described him as olive and dark complected. So
there's that. Sure. And then I wanted to bring
up, because again, I listened to some of your
stuff. They threw away the cigarettes, famously.
They destroyed them, yeah. And they supposedly
have some hair. Yeah, okay. Have they tested
this hair against any of the databases? Because
we've recently had murders solved in Minnesota.
Don't start with the hair. Don't start with the
hair. Yeah, the niece. Yeah, the niece. Well,
my hair is rapidly leaving, as I'm sure everybody
can see. Not that you two gentlemen have anything
to brag about. But yeah, you know, like a niece
or a distant relative of some kind, anything
like that. So, OK, so the forensics. OK, so here's
what we have. All right. So there are three ways
that we could could have traced Cooper, three
ways that we could have. OK. First is the cigarettes.
He smoked seven cigarettes. There were eight
cigarettes in the ashtray because he offered
the stewardess one, and she took it. He actually
peer pressured her into a cigarette. I think
I mentioned earlier, I didn't get to finish it,
but he had his hand in the briefcase bomb the
whole time, his right hand. So she lit his cigarettes
for him with matches and stuff. And at one point,
he was like, are you a smoker? And she goes,
no, I quit recently. He goes, well, but I bet
you still want one. And she's like, yeah, sure.
So one of those cigarettes is hers. But what
happened was the only, this is before DNA, right?
This is 1971. So all they had was, the only thing
you would use cigarettes for is fingerprints,
okay? Which was the DNA of the time. And they
sent, so the real villains, as you'll learn in
this case, are the Las Vegas FBI office, okay?
So the plane lands in Reno, which means that
all the things on the plane are under the jurisdiction
of the Vegas FBI office, because Reno's near
Vegas, right? So all the physical things taken
from the plane were in the custody of the FBI's
Vegas office. Now, the Vegas office sends these
cigarette butts to the crime lab in Quantico
and says, hey, do you see any fingerprints on
this? And if you don't see any fingerprints on
it, feel free to destroy them. Now, remember...
We can read all of these files. We have all these
files now. We have all these internal memos.
That's the brilliant part about this. It's not
a mystery what happened to the cigarettes. We
now know what happened to the cigarettes. They
say you can destroy them if there was no fingerprints.
Well, the crime lab is smart enough not to destroy
evidence. So they send it back to Vegas. And
Vegas, when Vegas gets it back, they throw them
in the trash can. They literally throw them in
the trash can. Because they're just nasty cigarettes
and there's no fingerprints. Now, so the cigarettes
are gone forever. Number two, they found a hair,
well, they found two hairs, but they found a
arm hair and a head hair on the headrest, on
the head cloth, okay? Back then, those planes
had head cloths. And they found those and they
preserved those and they put them on a microscope
slide. Now, back then, there was a thing called
hair microscopy. So before DNA. Hair microscopy
was like you would look at somebody's hair under
a microscope and compare it to a hair from a
crime scene. That's what they did. It's been
proven to be quack science. And in the late 90s,
the Supreme Court said you can't use it as evidence.
And the FBI had to do a whole bunch of new trials
and things for people who had been convicted
of this hair microscopy. So anyway, so they had
this hair slide with the hairs on them. Well,
that's missing, okay? They have no idea where
it is. It went missing in 1984. Now, again, another
source of DNA is the hair slide, is the hair,
right? I mean... Easily. In fact, at CooperCon,
you'll like this. So at CooperCon last year,
one of our key speakers was a woman named Colleen
Fitzpatrick. She solved the Somerton Man case.
If you know that case, the Somerton Man, the
guy who washed up on shore in Australia, you
know, with no identification. There's a she solved
the there's a case called the boy in the box
in like Massachusetts or somewhere. So she's
a DNA like wizard. And so she came to talk about
the DNA of the Cooper case. And really, the hair
is the only. thing we could have now, but the
hair is missing. So it's like, oh, great. And
now the third source of DNA possibly would be
from his tie that he kept. His tie that he wore
and left on the plane on accident. Okay. Well,
the FBI, when DNA, it's really fascinating to
read these FBI files because we can see how frustrated
these guys are, these FBI agents, because we
can read their internal memos as they're typing
away. And in the late 90s, with OJ going on and
all this other stuff, they're like, DNA, that's
interesting. So the guy who was assigned to the
Cooper case, he's like, what DNA do we have?
There's the hair, the cigarettes. And he sends
to the Vegas office. Remember, the Vegas office.
So let me back up a little bit. The Seattle FBI
office are who controls the Cooper case because
the crime actually happened in Seattle. So it's
their case. OK, well, Seattle. But remember,
Vegas kept the physical evidence. So Seattle
in the late 90s sends a memo to Vegas saying,
hey, send us all the Cooper physical stuff so
we can have it checked for DNA. And Vegas kind
of sheepishly is like, uh, uh. Well, we lost
the hair slide and we threw the cigarettes in
the trash. Oh, my God. So all they have to test
for DNA is the tie. And when they test the tie,
it has three partial DNA profiles on it. OK,
so which one is Cooper's? In my opinion, none.
And the reason I say that is because this tie,
they put this tie in the mail. The regular mail
and send it to different FBI offices. For example,
if there was a suspect in Minneapolis or somewhere,
the Vegas office who had the tie, they would
send it to the office in Minnesota and they would
go show it to the ex -wife of this guy. Did your
husband ever have a tie like this? That sort
of thing. And this happened a bunch. This tie
was passed around. like a joint at a frat party.
I mean, it was, and nobody's wearing gloves.
Nobody's handling it with care. I mean, they're
probably sitting in the car as they're going
through Burger King. You know, it's just a tie.
There's no DNA in their brain thinking like that,
right? So this tie is highly contaminated. And
in fact, the three profiles we have, the three
DNA profiles we have are so partial that the
crime lab estimated that something like 15 million
people. could test hot as a match to one of these
profiles. So really useless because we don't
know if it's Cooper's anyway. And, you know,
just because you come up hot, that means you're
one of 15 million people. who shares DNA with
probably an FBI agent, not even Cooper. So there's
no DNA on this case, except for the hair slide,
if we ever find it. I mean, I don't think they
would destroy a hair slide because it does have
an exhibit sticker on it and everything. It's
just missing. It's probably in the Vegas office
somewhere in a file. So yeah. It's probably at
some FBI's agent's safe at home. I don't know.
It's interesting. It's funny how a lot of people
with the Cooper case, because they were so tight
-lipped, if you remember me saying earlier that
the witnesses weren't talking much and the FBI
weren't talking much because it was an active
case. So you've got 40 -something years of, why
is no one saying anything? What's this mystery?
And it just makes people think there's more mystery
to it than not. Why can't the FBI? Why is this
the only unsolved hijacking ever? You know, this
sort of stuff. Why can't they solve this? So
people either think that... The FBI are incompetent
or they think they're covering something up.
What's really funny is when people think they're
incompetent and they're covering it up successfully.
It's like, wait, that doesn't work. Either they're
geniuses or they're not, you know. But it's not
incompetence. We can read these files. I have
literally, I have a database. I collect, they're
all OCR scans. I have about 46 ,000 files now.
And I mean, I can type in cigarettes and see
what happened to them, right? That's how. But
you can read their frustration. I mean, they
tried. I mean, you make 85 ,000 documents. You're
trying to solve this case. You know what I'm
saying? Like it wasn't on the back burner. They
were trying, but at a certain point, all they
could do was sit and wait by the phone for somebody
to call because there's no, there was, I mean,
he left so little information about himself that
there's really nothing to go off of because he
said very little. One of the only things that
I have come to the conclusion about is I really,
I don't think Cooper was American. And I've come
to that conclusion on an opinion, I guess, mainly
because when Cooper asked for his money, We're
not exactly sure the terminology he used. He
either said, I want negotiable American currency,
or I want circulated U .S. currency. Now, we're
Americans, all three of us. If we robbed a bank,
we would never say, I want $200 ,000 in negotiable
American currency. We'd say, I want $200 ,000.
I want $200 ,000. There's only one currency to
us. It's our dollar, right? By God, we're in
America. Why would we assume you? Yeah, and there's
only one language, right? And that's English.
Yeah, right. Exactly. But someone like a Canadian,
for example, especially a Canadian who perhaps
lives in Vancouver area. Vancouver, Canada is
really close to the border. Big, huge, major
city. And they do. They have to specify Canadian
dollars or American dollars all the time because
they go back and forth. So the fact that he said
something like that, American or U .S. currency,
I'm not sure which one. The fact that he put
a qualifier on it at all might be a clue that
he's not American because... That's just a weird,
who would say that? That's true. I say USD, but
I've lived next to the Canadian border for a
long time. And where I live and grew up, you
can put Canadian money in a lot of the vending
machines and it'll accept it. Okay, that's right.
Yeah, where you live is close to the border.
So yeah, that makes sense that you would understand
that. You understand that. Yeah. But as an American,
you would never say, I want US currency. No,
I would say. $200 ,000 for sure. Yeah, just $200
,000. I mean, $200 bucks, cash, whatever. So
there's that. But yeah, in the FBI, it's said
that they have investigated over a thousand suspects.
Not exactly true, but a lot. I mean, at least
over 900 names. I have a spreadsheet that has
about 500 of them now that they investigated.
Now, most of these suspects were just people
who were like, hey. My cousin looks like this
guy or my neighbor looks like this sketch or
whatever. And the problem is the famous Cooper
sketch that we all know and love, where he looks
like a little alien sort of with the sunglasses
on, right? That sketch was made with the three
stewardesses there with the sketch artist two
days after it happened. So that's really our
best sketch. I mean, and if you look at the one
thing that's cool about the FBI files is one
of the things that the FBI did is they would
take photos of suspects to the witnesses. And
they would say, hey, is this guy Cooper? Does
this look familiar to you? And they would do
them 10 at a time sometimes. And the FBI. If
people don't know about the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover's
FBI, they document everything. I mean, they take
a piss, they documented it. I mean, it is documenting
everything. So we have exactly what the witnesses
said when viewing these photographs. So that
can kind of give us a thing. They'll go, oh,
that guy looks like, they can say, well, that
guy doesn't look like Cooper, but his nose looks
like Cooper's nose. Or they'll say his face shape.
And so if I have this guy's name, I can go on
Ancestry .com and go try to find a photo of this
suspect. And you can kind of look in. They do
usually look like that first alien looking sketch.
Very narrow head, small little nose. So that's
kind of cool where you can read what the witnesses
say about them. But a thousand suspects, roughly,
you know, none of them. There are only a few
who the FBI did not eliminate. And those are
interesting guys. But in my opinion, we don't
know who Cooper is. And we may never know because
he could have been any of millions of people.
But there are some decent suspects out there.
I've been reading the, and this is the one you
were kind of talking about, The Last Master Outlaw.
Yeah, garbage. By Thomas Colbert. Garbage, yeah.
And Tom. Zoloski. Zoloski. I was going to say
that name, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's about Robert
Rackstraw. You know, I've been working through
it. And the further I've gotten into it, the
less convinced I am it's actually Rackstraw.
Well, good. Because it's not. That's the whole
fun. Yeah, that's the whole fun of it. And the
other one was, and, you know, some of the subreddit
stuff was like, you should read where was Skip.
Yeah. And so I'm going to read that one too.
You know, and then I've got Skyjack, which I
guess is a good introduction to it by Jeffrey
Gray. Yep. And then I've got this one here, D
.B. Cooper and the FBI Third Edition by Bruce
A. Smith. Yes, that's the Bible. Which goes through
a lot of FBI files and stuff from what I've kind
of flipped through. Yeah. But the Rackstraw thing
is interesting because they're seemingly super
convinced that not only is Rackstraw Cooper,
but Rackstraw is also this Norman De Winter guy.
perusing about right in you know whatever whatever
and um and and i think the biggest thing for
me is not having the background that you have
but the the all the stuff that i read that you
wrote on the wikipedia about the cooper the whole
the whole like five hour ordeal right was he
was very calm collected knew exactly what he
was doing and everything i'm reading about rock
straws this guy's an asshole yes like he's flying
by the seat of his pants he has no idea what's
going on Maybe he's got this little scheme here
and that little scheme there. He's one of those
minions in The Sopranos TV show, right? That's
always fucking things up. And just somehow is
charming enough to get out of a lot of situations,
but not to get away with stuff. No, he got caught.
I mean, he was caught. So that's kind of my thing.
So it is very interesting because, of course,
it's fun to read that kind of stuff. Right. Like,
oh, it could be this guy. But then they're kind
of like, OK, so he was he was not convicted,
but he was accused of killing his stepfather.
But he got off on that. So, of course, he's a
bad guy. So maybe also. Cooper. Maybe he's not.
Maybe he's Norman De Winter. Maybe he's not.
Maybe he's this other guy down here. Maybe he's
stealing explosives here and stealing explosives
there. But it's not terribly convincing to me.
No, Rackstraw... Rackstraw's problem is his age,
for one thing. Rackstraw was 27. And if you look
at... For people who are interested in this,
my website is norjack .org. I mean, I'm D .B.
Cooper Sleuth on YouTube. I have lots of videos
on YouTube. So look up D .B. Cooper Sleuth. But
my website is Norjack. NORJAK is the FBI code
word for the Cooper hijacking. It means Northwest
Hijack, NORJAK. So N -O -R -J -A -K dot org.
And you go to the suspects page and I have a
photograph on there of Robert Rackstraw in October
of 71. So a month before the hijacking. He's
a good looking guy, full head of hair, you know,
kind of big, big, burly guy. Whereas Cooper was.
losing his hair, okay? Cooper had a receding
hairline, may have had a bald spot. One of the
witnesses, one of the stewardesses said he was
partially or slightly balding, but he definitely
had all the drawings. He's got receding hair,
his temples were receding. He was an older guy
too. Cooper was, the very first description we
have of Cooper was the woman who, the girl Flo,
who we hand, remember, he hands a note to this
girl. She takes down his ransom demands, goes
up the cockpit, starts crying. They don't send
her back, right? This girl. Well, we have her
handwritten notes. to keep her mind occupied,
stop crying, they hand her a notepad and say,
take notes. And as Cooper is sitting 70 feet
behind her in the plane, she writes down a description.
She goes, 6 '1", 180 pounds, in his 50s, right?
So she goes in his 50s. Now, the stewardess has
eventually lowered that to, they thought, mid
-40s. But the ticket, the gate agent thought
he was 50. One of the other passengers thought
he was 50. So he was older, for sure. And some
of the descriptions about the turkey neck. Right.
Or the the one witness said one witness said
he had a wrinkled, older mouth. So he was an
older guy. OK. Rackstraw was young. And as you
said, Rackstraw was an ass. And yeah, he was
also a womanizer, too. And a good friend of mine
who is well known in the Cooper community is
a guy named Nicky Broughton. Nicky actually got
into the Cooper case because he was Robert Rackstraw's
weed man. He sold Robert Rackstraw's weed like.
you know, back 10 years ago and was just watching
TV one day and was like, oh my God, that's Bob
from work who I sell weed to. So that's how he
got into it. But he says, you know, Ragstraw,
because he knew the guy, he said this guy could
not flirt with a girl. Like even in his 70s,
he was a lech essentially. And he's like, there
is no way that this guy could have like not made
a move on these hot babes or, you know, and something
psychologically, something that's kind of, there's
a real sidebar, but. I've talked to a psychologist
about this who discussed this, that the girls
weren't really afraid of Cooper. So they weren't.
There are times where after the passengers are
off the plane, the stewardesses are back there.
They're shooting the shit with him. They're talking
about, where are you going to take us? And what's
that parachute there? I mean, they're just talking
to him. If a guy has a dynamite bomb, I'm not
anywhere near that guy. But they seem to like
him, OK? And the psychologist said that he gave
off dad vibes. Because he was their dad, he was
in the mid -40s or 50, and they're 21 years old,
they're girls, right? This is their dad's age.
Sure, yeah. And if he was a younger guy, there
would have been more of a threat of a sexual
assault or something like this that would have
made them keep their distance a little bit more.
Yeah, or an overly rash overreaction or something.
That kind of, I don't know, confidence or slow
patience a lot of times comes from age. Yes.
He didn't seem rushed. He didn't seem, at least
from, you know, from what I've read, you know,
he seemed to know what was going on. He maybe
got frustrated, you know, like, why aren't we
taking off yet? You know, final fight plan, blah,
blah, blah. But he wasn't overly... rash with
things and we can look at the copycat so one
of the things about cooper is he inspired a rash
of copycat hijackings there were 16 about 16
guys in the next few months tried the exact same
thing sure five of them five of them actually
got out and jumped parachuted out with money
tied to them they're all captured but those guys
were all younger a lot well some of them are
younger and some are older and we can look at
this and the younger guys were cussing and they
were upset at times, and they were sweating.
And the older hijackers were more chilled out
because as we're all getting older, you know,
I say that, the way I describe it is, your give
a damn button, you know, isn't pushed as easily
anymore, right? And also, Cooper was prepared
to die very clearly. He told the stewardess,
he said, I'll die here today, I don't care. He
was very like... resigned to his fate almost.
Sure. And Rackstraw, as you said, was a young
guy. But Rackstraw had the skill set. No doubt
about it. I mean, Rackstraw could have done this.
Yes. But there's, I mean... Rackstraw, interestingly
enough, made himself a suspect. He was not a
suspect until he was being extradited from Iran
to go face trial for murdering his stepdad, which
he probably did. Yeah, everybody seems to agree
that he probably did. Yeah, he probably did.
But when he was being extradited, he was on a
plane with the FBI. He's like, y 'all haven't
solved that Cooper case. Well, I could have done
that. And he started talking about the Cooper
case. And we have this file in the FBI files.
Remember, you get 500 a month or so, and you're
scrolling through these every month. I'm just
scrolling through these. And then you see one
about Rackstraw, like some FBI agent contacting
the Seattle office saying, hey, I took a plane
ride with a guy who knew a lot about the Cooper
hijacking and was kind of insinuating that he
was Cooper. Let's start investigating this guy.
And they eliminated Rackstraw very quickly because
his eyes are lightly colored. He's not Mexican
looking at all. He had a full head of hair. OK.
And again, they showed his pictures to the stewardesses
and they're like, hell no, it's not him. So,
yeah. Well, and the crazy thing about this book,
too, is is everything's in black and white, which,
you know, is probably publishing whatever. But
when I saw the colorized versions of these pictures
of Rackstraw against the sketches, I was like,
no, there's no way this doesn't even look. But
the black and white. Could potentially look like
him, you know. So it's kind of like. Well, if
you squint, anybody can look at the Cooper sketch.
And there's multiple Cooper sketches. There's
multiple sketches. Oh, yeah. And so, like, on
my website, if you go to norject .org, you can
see all the sketches. I mean, there's multiple
sketches that they did. And that was really confusing
to people. And the sketches look like different
people. So it's like. Yeah. You know, it's frustrating.
But Ragstraw, though, is not a serious suspect.
Mainly because just his age is just like, this
guy's not balding or receding hairline. And also
nothing to do, he's handsome. Okay. If you see
that picture on my website, Ragstraw is a handsome
guy. Okay. Cooper was ugly. Something that people
don't realize about Cooper. One thing we've learned
from the FBI files is that they've rejected a
lot of suspects. Whenever they're shown, remember
the witnesses were shown photos of Cooper or
photos of suspects. They eliminate a lot of suspects
simply by saying that guy's too good looking
to be Cooper. Like lots. Okay. And we have the
stewardesses after the hijacking calling Cooper
homely. which is a polite way to say ugly, right?
So he was not attractive at all. In fact, we
even have male passengers. There's a male passenger
who says, who eliminated a suspect by saying,
that guy's too good looking to be Cooper. So
like, even the men were like, this guy's not
attractive. He was weird looking. And Rackstraw's
not ugly. So there's that. But the other book
you have, though, that's actually a more realistic
suspect, in my opinion. Okay, the Skip one? Skip
Hall, yeah. Now, I'll say this. Skip Hall is
more likely to be the gunman on the grassy knoll
than to be Cooper. But he's still a better suspect
than Rackstraw. And I noticed that they try and
conflate these guys with a lot of other crimes
of the time period. And it's like... I don't
know if that's trying to do like the character
assassination type of thing where it's like,
this guy's already a bad guy, so he could also
be Cooper, you know? And let's just like pile
it on. We get that a lot. They're like, oh, Cooper
was the Zodiac killer too. It's like, come on,
no. It's like, that's a common one. Maybe Cooper
killed Mussolini. He was Jack the Ripper too.
Yeah, yeah. So I have a couple of questions real
quick too. And I know we're getting kind of close.
And I know the big questions, of course, with
the Cooper case are, outside of who was he is
uh did did cooper survive the jump because it
was a nighttime parachute jump yep a lot of people
i don't know it seems pretty You know, kind of
a lot of people say anyone could survive a jump
at night. Not a big deal. Yeah. I was reading
one today where somebody fired up Microsoft Flight
Simulator and was flying the path a lot. And
they're like, it would be easy for them to jump
here and here and here and here. Yeah. Use these
lights as that. And especially if they know the
plane lingo and stuff like that. And if they're
trained in parachutes. requesting four and only
needing one because you're one person, but wanting
to not get other people off the plane because
you're going to jump with hostages. It's all
pre -calculated and not something Rockstraw would
do. Yeah, exactly. Do you think he did survive
the jump? Yes, absolutely. I would say 99%, and
that sounds crazy to say that, but again, it's
not because I'm a Cooper fanboy. I mean, I wish
the guy, I mean, not to say I wish he died, but
he was a jerk. And I don't care if he lived or
died. Sure. But I follow the evidence and the
evidence suggests he lived. And in fact, we have
heard for the longest time that the FBI believed
he dies or whatever. Well, that's just what they
told the media because we can see their actual
files now and they all believe he lived. Okay.
And I'm friends. I mean, I interviewed one of
the original, it's on my YouTube channel. I interviewed
one of the original case agents from 71, the
only one who's still alive. He was like, oh yeah,
we all thought he lived. Of course. I mean, when,
because again, parachutes work. Okay. People
don't realize that. Like they really, really
do. Okay. You've got, if you look up skydiving
accidents, it literally is one in a million.
Okay. Something like there were, I mean. Every
year, the U .S. Parachute Association has stats
online. It's one in a million. And the thing
about Cooper is the parachute that he jumped
with, which I actually have behind me a replica,
was a military emergency bailout rig specifically
designed by the military for air crew who have
never jumped out of a plane before. Sure. To
be jumping out on a death -spiraling, flaming
aircraft and just pull the ripcord and you'll
live. So they're designed to always open up efficiently.
And that's what he had. And again, we know from
the copycats, five of these guys jumped out the
same plane, same thing, and they all live just
fine. And some of them had never even put on
a parachute and they made it down fine. And the
thing about Cooper, too, is the main thing is
the money. OK, we haven't talked about that yet.
You know, in my next question is, is the money
in the sandbar is kind of the next question.
Well, in 1980, a boy named Brian Ingram, who's
going to be our guest this year at CooperCon,
I think. Brian, another guy I know, he's in Arkansas,
a very nice guy. But Brian, when he was about
eight years old, was digging in the sand along
the Columbia River and unearthed $6 ,000 of Cooper's
money. And they tore that beach up and found
nothing. else from cooper but just this random
six thousand dollars and what's really crazy
about that is scientific research has been done
because there was a lawsuit in the 80s and the
boy the money the money that was recovered was
split between the insurance company who paid
out the two hundred thousand dollars And Brian
and his family. So he kept about 150 of these
bills. And he sells them off. I mean, these things
sell for $10 ,000 these days. I mean, it's crazy.
Oh, I believe it. And he's been selling them
a little bit. Anyway, he has been gracious enough
to allow scientists to look at the money. And
Tom Kay is a scientist. He's analyzed it and
has written a peer -reviewed paper for Nature
magazine about it. It turns out that in the Columbia
River, they have these things called diatoms,
which are these little microscopic organisms.
And sometimes they, some species will bloom or
live in the springtime. And then there's another
species that lives in the wintertime in the Columbia
River. Well, the money, when the money was found,
it was waterlogged. It had been wet at some point.
Okay. So it was waterlogged and it was buried.
And all they found, all Tom found was the springtime.
diatoms no no wintertime diatoms so the money
did not enter the river in november of 71 okay
because it would have the wintertime yeah stuff
on it right so how'd the money get there okay
if it didn't float there and again we've done
experiments but you know knuckleheads like myself
and others have gotten 300 bills 300 dollars
not 320s but 300 bills and put them in a tub
and rubber banded them the same way that they
had them, they sink. So if you threw a bundle
of $6 ,000 of 20s into a river, it will sink
within three minutes to the bottom. It won't
float down the river and end up on a sandbar.
So it seems like as crazy as it sounds, I mean,
I hate saying this because it sounds so stupid,
but it seems like somebody put that there. I
have no idea why, but it seems like a human put
that there. And even if a human didn't put it
there, It's evidence of Cooper's survival because
Cooper jumps 10 miles west of there or east of
there. And he jumps 10 miles north of the river.
OK, so he's 10 miles north of the river, 10 miles
east of the river. So for the money to get there
without Cooper living and like leaving the area
requires some crazy scenario where somebody finds
his dead body. Right. And disposes of his body
and keeps the money for themselves or some stupid
thing like that. I have no idea. Whenever people
ask me about. Tina Bar is the sandbar. I always
just joke and say, no habla ingles. Because it's
really hard to understand how this got there.
And why is it only $6 ,000? And how did it get
there? If it wasn't wet by in the wintertime
and, you know, it's just it's crazy. And but
it really I avoid it because it doesn't tell
us anything. All we know is it's Cooper's money.
But yeah, yeah, it doesn't tell you a whole lot.
And I saw some interesting things online, like,
you know, why? Why would it be there? What's
going on? And people say maybe like, you know,
he paid somebody to pick him up after his jump.
Right. And they took it. Yeah. And then they
bear and then the person buried it because they
didn't want to get caught with hot cash. Right.
They're going to go back and collect it later.
And maybe later never happened. They maybe got
cancer or got hit by a truck. Who knows? Like,
whatever. Or were drunk and forgot where they
placed it. Yeah, lots of different things. I
mean, lots of different things. And it kind of
falls into kind of, what is it, Mike? It's like
Occam's razor, right? Like the simplest solution
is often most true or something like that. Where,
you know, how else could it get there? Is it
an unladen European swallow or an unladen, you
know, African swallow? Nobody knows. Like, easiest
explanation is somebody buried it there. Like
you say. Yeah, it seems that way. Is that data
important? Does it give us insight? No. Not really,
unless there were DNA samples on it, right? Yeah,
it's not going to tell us who he was. But it
does, though, I do think it indicates that he
survived. And like I said, this is probably the
biggest misconception of the Cooper case is that
he jumps into a wilderness. I mean, that's what
the media loves to say, two things, that he jumped
into a wilderness and that he jumped in a freezing
rainstorm. OK, well, again, we have the files
now. We can look and see that the FBI contacted
the National Weather Service and said, hey, tell
us all that. details of the weather that you
know at the time of the jump in the location
well where cooper jumped out it was 44 degrees
okay and it was quote light rain showers which
is just the pacific northwest it's always drizzling
you know yeah so it wasn't it was not a rainstorm
it wasn't gonna freeze to death okay and where
he jumps okay he jumped into a count into a county
with a 1971 population of 130 000 people OK,
he's jumping 10 miles away from Portland, Oregon,
which even at the time had 500 ,000 people of
it. And currently the county where he jumped
into has half a million people living there.
OK, so it's totally grown up. If Cooper dies
or something, you know, for one thing, I mean,
there's going to be vultures. And we have the
FBI files. They're looking for buzzards circling.
I mean, they've done all kinds of stuff, you
know. Yeah, you're going to find remains if he
dies. Well, the remains is interesting because
so. The same month that Cooper went, the same
month of the hijacking, earlier that month, in
that same county, a 16 -year -old boy went missing.
He was hunting. And they didn't find him. Well,
about a year later, they found, and they thought
it might have been Cooper. They found a femur.
They found a femur and his rifle. Never found
anything else. And that's only one year later.
So if Cooper dies, his remains are going to be
gone. I always tell people, like, go walking
in the woods. How many dead animals do you see?
None. essentially, right? Because they're all
eaten. But again, that parachute behind me, I
mean, that thing's not going anywhere if it's
on somebody's back, right? And the money bag,
again, you have money with $200 ,000 in it. Where's
that? How come no one's ever found that, right?
And again, we talk about Cooper jumping into
a wilderness. No, it's not a wilderness. He's
jumping 10 miles from Portland, Oregon. Cooper
was literally as likely to land on somebody's
roof as he was to get stuck on a tree somewhere.
That's a fact. Yeah. He jumped into somebody's
like above ground pool. They gave him Mai Tais
and he never left. He's still there drinking.
It could have happened. Yeah. I mean, who knows?
But the point, yeah, that's probably the biggest
misconception is that he jumps into this unsurvivable.
Like, you'll still see people. I mean, I released
a video reaction today where there was a guy
named Dr. Todd Grande who has like a million
subs on YouTube. He's a psychologist. He did
a thing on Cooper. And I did a reaction video,
you know. Sure. Shameless reaction video to get
clicks, I guess. But I did a reaction video to
it. And he was saying how, you know, Cooper,
you know, if he landed safely, he may have, you
know, got lost in the woods and died. I'm like,
come on. Like, no way. I mean, he's not. Again,
all he had to do is walk west and he's going
to run into I -5 interstate. I mean, he's not
within five miles away. I mean, he's not he's
not jumping into some. He's not jumping into
the Yukon, okay? Yeah, and he knew from the plane
that they were coming over like an airbase and
stuff. So he was familiar enough with the topography
that— Well, sure. That corridor, Portland to
Seattle, is a straight shot corridor up I -5,
okay? Yeah. Tacoma is there. There's the Air
Force Base, McChord, which he mentioned. To the
steward. That's kind of one of the things that
Cooper gives us. The only real clues Cooper gives
us is he does say he's at one point he's looking
out the window and he tells the girl that looks
that looks like Tacoma down there. OK, so he
knew what Tacoma looked like from the air. OK,
that's a clue. At a certain point when he thinks
that the parachutes are coming from McCord Air
Force Base, he's bitching because the parachutes
haven't arrived. And he goes, hell, McCord's
only 20 miles away from here. You know, shouldn't
take this long. So he knew geography of that
area. But I don't think he's I don't think he
was living in the area at the time, because think
about how many times you go to the airport and
you see somebody that, you know, maybe not even
a friend, but just an acquaintance or somebody
who knows who you are. Yeah, we can look at the
copycat hijackers and a lot of them hijacked
500 miles from where. they're from because you
don't want to run into somebody at the airport
who saw you that day. Sure, yeah. I don't think
he was living in the area at the time, but he
had some familiarity with it. Yeah. But what's
interesting, one last thing. Oh, not last thing.
I'll keep talking all night. But one thing that's
interesting about Cooper is that he was a copycat
himself, I think, because 11 days earlier, a
Canadian named Paul Sini, he's the one who came
up with the idea. Paul Sini hijacked an Air Canada
flight with a parachute. and requested a million
dollars. And he ended up getting $50 ,000. And
before he could jump out, a male flight attendant
bashed him in the head with an ax and ended it
very quickly. But Paul Sini, though, was a big
headline news all over America. This guy tried
this ransom jump out with the money thing. And
it's almost like, I think about the, what's the...
Once upon a time in Hollywood, the DiCaprio gif
where he's pointing at the TV like, I can do
that. Me, it's me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cooper has
this like, oh my God, hold my beer moment, right?
I can do that. Yeah, yeah. So the FBI totally
believed this. And I believe it too, that Cooper
was a copycat. Because I mean, what are the odds
that two guys at the same time are devising the
exact same neurodivergent scheme? Because I mean,
this does require some, I mean, doing this is
like, oh my God, that's brilliant, right? I can
jump away from my crime scene as my crime scene
continues flying, you know, 300 miles an hour
away from me. That's genius, really. Yeah. And
at the time, you didn't have, you know, a cell
phone in your pocket necessarily triangulating
your location. So I know there's been a little
bit of, you know, the radius of the search radius
is big because they don't exactly know 100 %
where. Right. I think like he jumped. There's
a pretty good idea. But I think at the time,
you know, in 71 or whatever, it might not have
been as good idea as perhaps people have had
time to look at it and analyze it. Seems like
we've gotten a better idea lately since. Yeah,
we've got a little better on it. The FBI, I believe,
were searching a little. They were searching
a little farther north than they probably should
have been. You know, who knows? But regardless,
nothing was found by anybody. It was a big, I
mean, Clark County, Washington, which is where
Vancouver, Washington is, which is, you know,
just north of Portland. That's Cooper country.
Okay. They grew up, they grow up even today.
I mean, there's, you know, Cooper restaurants.
There's a Cooper themed escape room there. You
know, the Cooper Con is held there. There's,
I mean, anytime a parachute or anything is found,
it's in the FBI files. Like somebody's like,
oh, I found something, you know, and it's a strap
from a firework parachute or something, you know.
Things like this. So if something had been found,
I mean, we would know about it, I think. And
so my best guess for what Cooper did is I think
that he landed on the ground. Now, Cooper did
not know where he was going to be jumping. I
mean, he didn't know precisely where he he may
have had a idea. I think the best thing Cooper
could have known is what county he was in because
he really didn't know. He didn't specify a speed
to fly at. He didn't specify a flight path for
them to follow. But I think he just assumed they
were going to have to fly. over Portland to get
to Reno, which kind of you do. And so I think
he knew they were going to be flying south. Kind
of jumps blindly. Now, he could have seen some
light. He certainly saw some lights beneath him
and could probably see Portland coming up ahead
of him if he could look around. So he knows roughly
where he's jumping, but he lands. What you do
is you stash the parachute somewhere. You stash
the money. Remember where you are. Remember where
you are. And you go. And you walk and you get
back to your transportation somehow. I mean,
Cooper may have driven a car there that morning
and parked in Vancouver, Washington and taken
a cab to the airport, something like that. So
Cooper gets to his transportation, goes back
and picks up his stuff. Or if he has an accomplice,
what you do is you say, you tell your accomplice,
hey, look, I don't know when or where I'm going
to land, but sit by the damn phone. And whenever
I get to a phone, I'll let you know where I am
and you can get me, you know. So it's not that
complicated, really, for Cooper to escape. I
think that people think it's more. Sure. Cooper
gets bonus points. Remember I told you that the
pilots felt this pressure bump thing. Well, they
didn't know that this was Cooper's jump time
until the FBI and the Air Force did experiments.
With the same plane where they put a 200 pound
sled on the back of the stairs and like push
it off of the pole or whatever to see the reaction.
And they actually had the flight engineer from
the Cooper plane on that flight saying, yeah,
that's the sensation we felt. So that's how they
could prove it. And so on all these subsequent
hijackings, all these subsequent copycats, the
FBI told those pilots, hey, look, when he jumps,
you're going to feel something. So let us know
exactly when that happens and we can, you know,
cordon off the area below him or whatever, you
know. And so. That's kind of how they caught
these guys. And so Cooper got a wave with it,
not because he was some super genius, but because
he was the first to do it. Sure. He caught them
by surprise. It's very strange. You talk to the
FBI guys. I've talked to a couple of them who
were there back then, and they didn't think he
was going to jump. And it sounds stupid. Like,
well, why the hell would he ask for parachutes?
They're like, well, we just didn't think he was
going to jump because they didn't know. Part
of them thought maybe he was going to make the
crew jump out and fly the plane himself somewhere.
So who knows? Yeah. But Cooper was smart, though,
asking for. four parachutes, that made the FBI,
not the FBI, but it made Northwest Airlines really,
because remember the FBI wasn't involved at this
point, but it made Northwest Airlines assume
that Cooper is going to make a hostage jump with
him. And why do you want two sets of parachutes?
So that way they're going to give him functioning
parachutes, you know, they're not going to sabotage,
which is smart. For sure. And also having a bomb
was a very smart way to do it because that really
thwarts any sort of attempt to rush the aircraft
and get in a gunfight, which the FBI did do gunfights
with somebody. I mean, several of these copycats
were killed during their attempts in gun battles
with the FBI who stormed the plane. But you don't
storm a plane when there's a bomb because the
whole plane will blow up, you know, kill everybody.
So Cooper was smart, but also stupid sometimes,
you know. But we like Cooper. And we like the
story. But sadly, I don't think it's going to
ever be solved. But you never know. Especially,
you know, Cooper's long dead by now. This guy
was middle -aged, heavy smoker. He was certainly
dead, surely. And the hope was that maybe he
had a spouse. Or, you know, somebody who... Was
waiting till they died to say, hey, you know,
dad was Cooper. And we get that, though. That's
the thing is we do get that. Yeah. And then we
investigate him like that guy's full of shit
or. Yeah. Why would you lie to your family on
your deathbed? But like people did that. And
it's a it's very common in conspiracy theories
for people to have false confessions. That's
true. Mussolini has 12 people that confess to
killing him, even though they weren't even there.
Some of them like you're not even in the area.
You know, you get to say whatever you want, but
there's no documentation. Right. Yeah. And also
another thing, too, is Cooper is a very safe
thing to confess to because you're not confessing
to being the Zodiac killer. Right. You're confessing
to pulling off the coolest crime ever, essentially.
You know, I mean, what a cool crime. You jump
out of a plane with $20 ,000 after having a sexy
stewardess light your cigarettes for you. It's
very James Bond -ish, you know? Yeah. It's like
an intro to a James Bond movie. Yeah, it is.
And then the title credits come up. Yeah, you're
not confessing to being the Zodiac Killer. You're
confessing to being this cool Han Solo in a business
suit guy, you know? Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm about
done with my cigar, but I do have, I've got one
more question specifically about the Cooper case.
And that is, and in the Rackstraw book, they
bring this up quite a bit, is there were, I think,
four notes to the FBI post hijacking. Yeah, right.
And there was like, you know, they were like,
oh, two of these were within where Rackstraw
lived or postmarked from where within he lived.
So it has to be Rackstraw and stuff like that.
I don't know about the validity of some of these
notes. And if they were, I mean, you've got all
the files I saw you posted. I don't know if it
was like this morning that you got a new request
in from the FBI and a scan of this and that.
So I don't know if you know more about these
notes after the fact. Yeah, the letters. The
letters, yeah. Okay, so lots of letters, actually.
It's more than four. There's several FBI files.
So people would write hoax letters. You know,
I'm Cooper. I'm on a beach somewhere. F you,
you know. FBI. Yeah, yeah. So we do get a lot
of these. And there is one, though. The one that
they hone in on, on the Rackstraw, is the most
complicated one. It's got all these numbers and
weird things in it. And look, I don't put it
past Rackstraw to have done that. It doesn't
make him Cooper, I guess, is what I'm saying.
Sure. The problem with these letters, though,
is that it's almost like a trope, where I think
that what happened is, because of the Zodiac
killer taunting the fifth eds, and you have Jack
the Ripper's from hell letter, right? I mean,
people... this image that people actually send
taunting letters to the authorities. But Cooper,
remember, I didn't mention it earlier, but Cooper
was so studious about not leaving anything behind
that one of his matchbooks, he had these matchbooks
with him. And remember, the stewardess is lighting
his cigarettes because he's using matches. She
uses the last match of this matchbook and she
tosses it in the seat pocket in front of her
like trash, right? He goes, no, no, no, give
that back to me. So like he took an empty matchbook
with him. He was very, and all the notes, all
the notes that like his notes that he brought
aboard. Yeah, he kept all of those. Yeah, he
asked for them back. And the tie really, I think
people say, well, if he was so studious, why
would he leave his tie? I really think that that
was just a brain fart. Because if you think about
all of us are men, think about when you take
a tie off, you throw it on the first thing you
see. Just almost a reflex. And I think that Cooper
did that. I think that it was dark by that point.
And the tie is black. When he sent the girl Tina
to the front, he said, turn all the lights off.
Okay, so it's dark back there. He's about to,
yes, yes. $200 ,000 tied to his body with parachute
cord. He's about to jump out of a jet airliner.
You know, this is the pivotal moment of his whole
life, right? And he just brain farted and left
his tie on accident, I think. I mean, I think
he wanted to bring it with him. Or if he was,
you know, I guess I don't remember where they
found it, but it's also possible he was on the
steps ready to jump and he took it and threw
it off and the wind blew it back in the plane
or something. Like, you know, who knows? Well,
they found it on his seat. So literally on his
seat. Okay, sure. Yeah. I mean, there's like
a thousand reasons why you would just, the tie
would just, you know. Yeah, just brain fart.
And what's interesting about the tie is that.
That was their trump card. So the FBI, they kept
that a secret. OK, the only thing that they kept
a secret really was the existence of a tie. And
they did that because if there were lots of false
confessors, I have a video on one of my YouTube
videos. I have a little I have a little like
10 minute video about the eight questions that
the FBI. There was a list. It's in the files
of here are the questions you ask anyone who
confesses to being Cooper. Any crazy person walks
in and these are the questions you ask them,
you know. And but the tie, though, they would
say, what did you leave on the plane? Because
they know. The existence of the tie was not known
until the late 80s. So the FBI kept this on the
back burner. And in hindsight, that may have
been a mistake because the tie did have a distinct
tie clip on it. Now, it wasn't a one in a million
tie clip. It was sold in department stores. But
if they had published that and said, look, we
recovered this tie from the plane. In addition
to the sketch, do you know somebody who looks
like the sketch and would own a tie like this?
And they didn't do that. And this tie, as we
discuss, kind of the big thing now is they have
microscopic, they've done very high electron
microscope scans of this tie. And it is covered
in... like metallurgical chemicals. And we can
see, actually, when you look at the... It's amazing.
When you look at the scans and the UV light,
you can actually see his fingers. You can see
Cooper, whoever he was, where he held his tie,
where he would hold his tie to put it on or take
it off. And there are more particles of these
metal fragments and chemicals on the part where
he touched the most, right? Whatever he was doing,
his job, most certainly, whoever he was, it's
probably our biggest lead, really, was handling
chemicals. Okay, because it's all over. Ty is
filthy. Like no other Ty is ever this filthy.
So he was a metallurgist or something of some
sort, perhaps. Or I mean, again, people say,
well, the Ty could have been from goodwill or
it could have been something he stole. It could
have been his brothers. All fair, all true. But
we don't have shit to go off of. So we may as
well. That is a valid piece of evidence to follow.
Right. Yeah. So as valid as anything else, honestly.
Yeah. And so the tie can point us in some directions
to say, hey, let's look at. I know that a buddy
of mine has done some really he's fed all the
information into chat GPT or some kind of AI
service. And they're there. The AI, I think it's
Gronk or Gronk or whatever the the. Elon's AIS.
And I think they determined that this guy may
have been an airline crash investigator because
of the particular fragments that he would have
been sorting through. Like if you're an airline
crash investigator, you're picking up things,
right? And you're going to wear a tie too because
you're a professional, right? I mean, men back
then, that denoted you from being blue collar.
If you're wearing a tie, you're the manager,
you're middle management or whatever, you know,
that sort of thing in that era. And also a clip
-on tie too means you're going to be around machinery
and things. you don't want your tie to get snagged
on something and choke you to death. So that's
why metallurgists and people who operated machines
who wore ties would wear clip -on ties, because
they didn't want to get caught in a machine and
choke them, you know? So it was a clip -on to
pop off. So Cooper, probably an engineer of some
sort, maybe an airline crash investigator, or
maybe his brother was, and he was just taking
it, you know? But we'll never know, probably,
sadly. Well, maybe not. Yeah, I mean, the time
is running out. But it's the journey, as we say.
It's the journey and the fringe you make along
the way. Yes. Yes, the real treasure was the
friends you made along the way. And the connections
you made. And it's a fascinating piece of piece
of history. And I don't know, it kind of, you
know, it sucked me in a bit. And hence why I
reach out to you. And I know I'm done with my
cigar, Mike. Are you done with yours? I am. OK,
so let's do final cigar thoughts and then we
will wrap up the episode here with Ryan. What
did you think, Mike? I thought it was a decent
medium bodied cigar. I would put it at probably
probably three and a half, something like that.
It's not crazy. But it was decent. Yeah, that
sounds good to me. Three and a half, it was pretty
good. It's not really our, we rate on a five
point scale. It's not really our flavor profile
that we normally go for. But I think this one
was pretty good. I think the shelf appeal would
alone make it a, I mean, it's a 3 .5 smoke quality,
but I think the shelf appeal would make it an
easy four for sure. How much was it? It was $7
.99. Okay. And the shelf appeal on this one,
and I think this one would be a fine. want to
give somebody that You don't really know what
their cigar preference is and just hand it to
them and be like, hey, and they'd be like, wow,
this looks fantastic. It's great. We've been
sucked in before on the packaging sometimes of
cigars and we think it's going to be really good
and it's not. But we try and do things that are
affordable for the everyday person to be able
to go and we can say, hey, is this cigar worth
your $2 or $3? Is it worth your $8? Generally,
if you spend more than $10, it should be a decent
smoke. You shouldn't be complaining. about it.
Good. I would say that advisory note, probably
13 now with inflation, cigars have gone up in
price, unfortunately. Okay. I thought China was
going to pay for that, but who knows? But anyway,
yeah, if I could get any other country to pay
for my cigar habit, I'd be happy. I'm sure. But,
you know, what do you do? And you say you might
have or you've got you've got some leads. So
you're going to have a book out soon, hopefully,
or I don't know how long the process takes. Yeah,
it's called I mean, it's called D .B. Cooper,
the FBI files. And we in the Cooper world, we
that book you have, the Bruce Smith book is called
we call that like the Bible of Cooper, because
it is kind of like a big Bible. But sure, I've
been talking to Bruce himself, you know, about
it and my book. It's probably, it's like, if
it's the Bible, his is BC and mine, I mean, his
is, you know, the Old Testament and mine's the
New Testament because he wrote that book before
a lot of the files came out. Right. And so we're
kind of like saying the same story, but in a
different way. And so he's the Old Testament,
I'm the New Testament. And yeah, I'm excited
about it. I've never read, I've never written
a book. I'm a lawyer. I can write decently well.
And it was really fun to do it. So it'll be.
Hopefully it'll be and it will be a officially
published book. You know, I do these agents working
on it. And so it'll be cool. I have no idea when
it's gonna come out because it's already written.
So maybe they can print it quickly. I mean, I
would like for it to be out by November because
that's we have Cooper Con every year. And this
year in Vancouver, Washington, last year was
in Seattle. But we go back and forth. And I'd
like for it to be out by the time that Cooper
Con comes around and the anniversary of it. So
hopefully it will be. Yeah, that would be awesome.
And we do occasionally. more than occasionally
do book reviews on our podcast. So that would
definitely be one that we would like to do a
book review on. Maybe we can have you back on
and talk about that. I would love that. I really
enjoyed this, guys. And I really appreciate you
letting me babble on as y 'all smoke cigars because
I can paddle on for hours on this. This was so
enjoyable. This was so fun. It's great hearing
from somebody who has a lot more knowledge in
something than I do. And being able to learn
and listen and you very clearly have a passion
for it and know a lot. about it. So thank you
very much. All right. Well, thank you guys. And
y 'all have a good night and hopefully we can
talk again soon. Okay. Yep. That sounds great
to all our listeners. Thanks for listening. Bye
guys. Be safe. Have fun.