There are many quirks of Pacific Northwest history that I grew up with, stories that feel mundane to me, like a sweater tucked in my drawer that I only remember when I’m looking right at it. The tale of DB Cooper is one such forgotten gem. I’ve heard different versions of events over the years, different guesses at the culprit, different places to look for the money from a variety of amateur sleuths. It’s an unsolved mystery I’m always happy to revisit—one where no one gets hurt and the puzzle seems more intriguing each time. 

For those of you unfamiliar with the story of Dan “DB” Cooper’s 1971 pre-holiday revelry, the basics are this: the day before Thanksgiving 1971, a man who gave his name as Dan Cooper passed a note to a flight attendant aboard a Boeing 727 en route from Portland to Seattle. He claimed to have a bomb tucked neatly in his briefcase, and demanded $200,000 (close to a million in today’s money) and four parachutes be made ready for him at SeaTac. 

The crew somehow kept the passengers calm and unaware of the hijacking until they landed, where law enforcement provided Cooper—by now erroneously reported to be “DB” Cooper—with the cash and getaway gear. Cooper, the pilots, and flight attendants took off for Reno. Allegedly, Cooper jumped from the plane somewhere over the forest along the border of Oregon and Washington, escaping without a trace. In 1980, just less than $6,000 was recovered on the beach near Vancouver, WA, but no remnants of the parachute—or Cooper himself—were ever found for certain. Though there have been many suspects over the years, the case remains unsolved. 

I have always been one for puzzles, from jigsaw puzzles to murder mysteries, but can almost never face the True Crime so popular today. Somehow fictionalizations, no matter how realistic, give me a chance to rationalize away a scary situation. True crime, on the other hand, especially the unsolved stuff, always seems to make me lose sleep in the worst way. 

The case of DB Cooper is a notable outlier. Maybe it’s because he was publicly viewed as a hero at the time. Maybe it’s because some theories point to the French-Canadian comic book hero Dan Cooper, who para-trouped to the rescue. Maybe it’s just because his crime seems to me, in retrospect, a pretty harmless one. Or maybe I just like the puzzle. 

Many others are certainly puzzle-enthusiasts; there’s a CooperCon where folks get together and share theories and evidence and suspects. Dozens of books have been written by investigative journalists and amateur researchers, documentaries, podcasts, and chat rooms dedicated to one of the only remaining unsolved aircraft hijackings. After over 50 years of digging, no one can definitively say who DB Cooper was. 

That phenomenon, in itself, is fascinating to me. That we, people, see something unexplained and want to know the answer. It’s a unique trait of humanity to wonder at what came before and what might be next. It makes us ask questions like “why do we fall down, and not up?” It wonders about theology and the nature of humanity, and gave us the most clear pictures of space in human history from the James Webb telescope. 

It’s that same basic principle that led me down a YouTube rabbit hole this week to learn how to do my own plumbing, and makes me curious about the lives of people around me. It leads others to investigate other cryptids in the PNW, like sasquatch (who I choose to believe in) or glowing algae in the sand (which I’ve seen first-hand). 

Though many days it seems like the world is unraveling into more and more unanswerable questions, some days I sit and watch a documentary on DB Cooper and blissfully imagine how the story played out, knowing that I’ll never have the answer to that particular puzzle, and that’s okay. 

Like all Northwesterners, I do have my own pet theory about the Cooper case. With almost no research, and certainly no evidence to speak of, my theory is this: Cooper never existed. Have you seen the picture of the guy? The most generic white businessman of all time, typical on flights back then. 

I would like to think that Cooper was not a man at all, but a woman. Or a group of women: stewardesses were notoriously mistreated in those days, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they got fed up with it. No one ever saw Cooper get off the plane, and by the time any of the passengers even knew of the hijacking they had landed, so their descriptions are iffy at best. 

The flight attendants did it all: they shepherded the passengers to the front of the plane without anyone guessing something was wrong, they accepted the parachutes and cash on Cooper’s, behalf, they communicated with the cockpit and the ground crews to relay Cooper’s orders, and they even gave the description that resulted in the now-famous sketch. Is it so hard to believe that a handful of smart women did not also plant some evidence, drop a few thousand dollars to be found later, and squirrel away the rest for themselves? 

If you never have before, I’d encourage you to do a little digging into the Cooper case. The case and the people around it are both a fascinating microcosm of society, and a pleasant distraction from your daily news feed. 

1 Comment

1. 

   Geneva Langeland on July 19, 2022 at 9:59 am

   If you ever want to venture into the true crime podcast world *without* getting freaked out that a murderer lurks behind every friendly face, I’d recommend Criminal (hosted by Phoebe Judge). It leans more charming or poignant than shocking or gory, and the crimes in question often aren’t murders. Episodes cover topics like whiskey theft, illegal horse training tactics, cheating at the lottery, and police divers recovering evidence in the La Brea tar pits. It’s been a consistent favorite of mine for the better part of a decade!

   Reply

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