If what you say is true and there is a truly effective system in place that would have identified bills from the ransom loot before they were destroyed, and if it is true that none were ever found, then I think we must assume that Cooper’s corpse and most of the money remain undiscovered and by now decomposed past recognition in the Pacific Northwest.
Also, Cooper may have survived the jump but he might have had two broken legs or a broken pelvis, and may have landed a tremendous distance from any road. And he would have had to survive alone in the Rocky Mountains of the Pacific Northwest in late November and early December! Not great odds for survival.
There is only one fly in the ointment here. We are assuming that the FBI and the Treasury are telling us the truth when they say that no bills ever turned up in circulation or were identified prior to routine destruction. I think Americans are by now used to the idea that the government often lies to them “for the public good”.
Why would they lie? Perhaps because Cooper is the only unsolved airline hijacking in American aviation history, and therefore an embarassment to the FBI. There is also the fact that Cooper became a sort of folk hero, which definitely would have alarmed law-enforcement authorities. Finally, the idea that it WAS possible to “get away with it” would have encouraged copy-cats.
So, would the FBI and the Treasury have admitted that bills from the loot had been regularly turning up for destruction from about 1972 to 1980, thus proving that Copper had gotten away with it and was laughing at them?
Because it would be a stupid, stupid thing to lie about because it would be trivial for them to be caught in the lie.
Let’s say the FBI did have confirmation from the Treasury that D. B. Cooper bills were showing up on the destruction logs. Unless they managed to verify every single one that was known missing – which is unlikely in the extreme – then they know that D. B. Cooper bills are still out there, in circulation, and that the list of serial numbers is likewise also public. Further, you also have people in the government itself aware of it – e.g. the people in the Treasury. The more people, the more complex the coverup.
Combined with a lack of an actual tangible benefit to the FBI to create such a cover-up, I feel you’ve veered too far into ‘conspiracy theory’ territory here. All the evidence that we have is that D. B. Cooper bills were never spent, which tends to strongly imply that D. B. Cooper died before making it back to civilization. Considering that some bills were found, I don’t find it implausible to think that there are many other such bundles spread throughout a large enough area to make it implausible that we’ll ever find them, along with a lonely skeleton.
I think his sketch looks remarkably like Lee Harvey Oswald. I’m not the only one, either. Just the only one to admit it. <- D B Cooper smilie
Seriously, Val, I am thinking the odds of him surviving his leap into the cold, rainy darkness in the Pacific Northwest are extremely remote. But for the sake of argument, let’s say he did survive. He didn’t jump during the day over a big open field. He jumped out of a 727, flying fairly low, correct? That means the plane is moving at, what… 500mph or so? He has absolutely NO idea where he would land. None. So, even if he survived the landing, he had one hell of a hike to the nearest truck stop.
my computer was dying and I couldn’t get to the wiki page (or any page) to confirm the plane speed or alt.
Also, I believe this was not only the only successful hijacking of a US airliner, but it was the first. The airlines weren’t even remotely set up to handle the hijacking, and neither was the FBI. After Cooper, no one else has been successful at hijacking a plane for money. So, I don’t think they were worried about copy cats.
Even if someone else DID copy it, how many people would have the balls to jump out of a 727?
I think Hoover was worried more about people finding out about his personal dressing habits than hijacking airliners.
There is another argument in favour of the thesis that he never made it out alive. Human beings have very little idea how tiny we are on this Earth. Modern air travel has made us forget.
Take the state of Oregon as an example. It is a square roughly 500 km. by 500 km., for a total surface area of about 250,000 square km. This means that it contains an incredible **250 BILLION square metres **(roughly the same as a square yard).
The state has a population of about 3.8 million. That means that if everyone in Oregon stood together in a loosely packed crowd with everyone occupying a square metre/square yard, they would occupy only **one one thousandth of one per cent **of the state’s total surface area. In other words, they would be a tiny dot barely visible on a state map. The other 99.999 per cent of the state, 249,999,620,000 square metres/yards, would be devoid of humans. Just bears, mountains, trees, lakes etc.
Most people are surprised by such statistics. Most of us assume that since the US has over 300 million people, it must be covered with roads, villages, cities anywhere and everywhere. In point of fact, in areas such as the rocky mountains of the Pacific Northwest, the chances are that you would land very far from a road, a village or any other place where you could get food, help and transportation.
Cooper did not seem to have a tent or survival equipment with him, and he landed in the Rockies in late November. Parhaps he did land unharmed. But is it possible that his biggest mistake was his failure to understand how unlikely he was to find any form of civilization besides maybe an unused logging road?
You have brought up another point I did not think of. He jumped on a rainy, cloudy night. Very unlikely that there were any lights under him, and if there were, would he see them through the rain? Would he have any way of judging how high up he was, or how fast the ground was coming at him? Plus, most skydivers will tell you that landing in a forested area is dangerous. Branches just waiting to spear you, blind you. Yet, the terrain there is very heavily forrested.
The more I think about it, the more I think his landing was the part of his plan that needed more work.
Do I detect a little hostility towards ole D.B.? Think if he died it was pretty much what he deserved?
To you his jumping to a lonely violent death is not sad, okay, to me it is.
However…
Having followed one of the links to read more about Cooper, he didn’t jump out over the Rocky Mountains (as one message stated). In fact later estimates of where he jumped would place him 10-15 miles east of downtown Portland Oregon. It’s still pretty desolate country but he wouldn’t have been dependent on finding a logging road. If he wasn’t too badly hurt on the jump he could have hiked out by morning.
In fact, the accounts note he gave the flight crew explicit directions on how to fly the plane. Low speed (under 200 mph) and at a low altitude. He seems to have then jumped on his own schedule. Maybe he knew about where he was?
Maybe he did survive.
The oddest feature about the hijacking to me is Cooper not anticipating that the serial numbers of the bills would be recorded. Making them difficult to spend without tipping off the authorities as to where he was.
Why DIDN’T he anticipate that?
Maybe it’s not so surprising. Usually these guys turn out not to be as smart as they’re credited with being, don’t they? More daring and lucky than smart.
Which leads to another conclusion, that after landing safely and returning home, he realized that he couldn’t spend any of the loot without risking discovery, so he never did (or spent very little).
If a part of the loot fell away by accident, or if he planted some near the landing site for whatever reason, that doesn’t make my theory any less likely.
I just don’t feel that the lack of bills returned to the feds means he didn’t survive (although I’ll admit survival was unlikely).
From reading the Wikipedia entry (which is pretty extensive) I didn’t see any mention of an accent. He did interact quite a bit with one of the flight attendants too.
Northwest Orient flight attendant Florence Schaffner said during takeoff when Cooper first passed her the note – she was seated near him in a jump seat – at first she thought he was a “lonely businessman” flirting and she dropped it in her purse unopened. She said he then leaned over and whispered, “Miss you better look at the note. I have a bomb.”
Cooper then requested Schaffner sit next to him, which she did. Then she asked to see the bomb!
Anyway, to answer your question Argent Towers, there was no mention of any kind of accent.
I’ve been waiting for someone else to respond before posting my next message here. However, since I don’t see a rule prohibiting back-to-back messages from the same person in a thread, I’m going to add this.
I have a copy of the D.B. Cooper FBI wanted poster which I’d like to insert but I did find a rule prohibiting images.
Reading from it, the FBI said,
“Complexion - Olive, Latin appearance, medium smooth.”
“Voice - Low, spoke intelligently, no particular accent, possibly from Midwest section of U.S.”
That kind of rules out French-Canadian. Here’s a link to the poster:
What part of that description rules out French-Canadian, pray tell? French Canadians, like Americans, are an amalgam of a core group (the Maritime Provinces of France rather than England) to which were added considerable Indian heritage (the early colony of New France was short of women, so many men married Indian wives) to which was later added huge numbers of Irish Roman Catholics, German Catholics, and English and Scottish. In the 20th century, much immigration to French Canada came from Haiti, north Africa, etc. So a slightly swarthy French Canadian who looks slightly Latino is by no means rare.
Concerning the accent, there are thousands of French-Canadians who speak English so well that you would think it is their native language. I am one of them.
I’m sure you know that a person can speak a language fluently and still have an accent. I don’t think a Canadian accent would be mistaken for a Midwestern U.S. accent, and it wouldn’t be described as ‘no particular accent.’
You know it’s subjective. I looked at the wanted poster drawing and thought yes he could be a French-Canadian. After I read the description, “Latin appearance…no accent,” I just get the feeling he wasn’t French-Canadian.
But I agree he could be. He could be from anywhere.
French-Canadians with no particular accent when speaking English aren’t all that rare. For example,
waves
Hi!
Also, I know wikipediaisn’t really the best cite, but many Canadians are indistinguishable in speech from many Americans. Again, waves hi! In my travels in the USA, the default assumption from pretty much everyone was that I and my family are American until/unless we say otherwise.
Which doesn’t really mean much in the case of DB Cooper.
I am also a French-Canadian, and I also have a “Latin appearance”. I was raised in an English-speaking area of Canada but in a French-speaking family. French is my mother tongue, but everone is convinced I am a native English-speaker when they first meet me.
My English is pretty identical to that of Americans in Ohio, Michigan, Upper New York State, etc.
Besides, the flight attendant with whom he interacted was not an expert on accents and linguistics. If he had spoken English like I do, she would have said he had “no particular accent.”
Come to think of it, I could be Cooper except that I was not in my mid-forties in 1971!
EVERYBODY speaks with an accent if you define “accent” as meaning your particular way of speaking based on where and when you learned a language.
But I heartily disagree with the idea that there is a “Canadian accent” that stands out in the US.
The following is a short list of Canadians who have appeared in US media without viewers detecting their alleged Canadian acccent.
[ul]
[li]Eric McCormack (Will on Will and Grace)[/li][li]Michael J. Fox[/li][li]Matthew Perry (Chandler on Friends)[/li][li]Nathan Fillion (TV’s Castle)[/li][li]Glen Ford[/li][li]Kim Cattrall (Samantha on Sex in the City)[/li][li]Donald Sutherland[/li][/ul]
Do any of these people sound different from Americans when they speak? Any of these persons would be described by a US flight attendant as having “no particular accent”.
Just to add to that list, Peter Jennings, former ABC News anchor.
This has been a fascinating thread for me. I came to it not knowing much about this story. In fact, I had somehow equated D.B. Cooper with the guy who claimed he helped Howard Hughes one night. It’s an intriguing read and a great mystery to ponder.
One point that I don’t think has been brought up yet is Cooper’s demeanour throughout the whole episode. It wasn’t just calm, cool and collected, but courteous and thoughtful as well, like making sure the crew was fed. Is it possible for the FBI to come up with a psychological profile based on that type of behaviour in those circumstances?
<- D B Cooper smilie
