SKYJACK SECRET
DB Cooper ransom money found buried near river fell into the water MONTHS after infamous skyjacking, scientist claims
A NEW scientific revelation has reignited the nearly 50-year-old mystery of DB Cooper, a hijacker whose elusive identity has flummoxed generations of law enforcement officials and FBI agents.
By scanning microscopic algae deposits called diatoms found on a cache of $20 bills money discovered in 1980, scientist and director of the Tom Kaye may have debunked the longstanding theory that part of the money fell into the Columbia River when Cooper leapt from a Seattle-bound plane with $200,000 on the day before Thanksgiving in 1971.
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“The diatoms that we found [on the Cooper money] are a spring species," Kaye told . "They bloom in the spring. They do not bloom in November when Cooper jumped.”
The man who called himself Dan ‘DB’ Cooper became a criminal legend after he boarded the plane in Portland and, after takeoff, announced he had a bomb and was hijacking it.
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After the plane landed, Cooper received $200,000 and then ordered it to take off toward Mexico. After takeoff, he parachuted out into the evening sky over the wilderness of the Northwest, never to be seen again. It remains the only unsolved hijacking in US history.
In 1980, a young boy digging a fire pit on Tena Bar, 18 miles away from the drop site, discovered a bundle of bills from Cooper’s ransom haul.
This led to the “Washougal Washdown Theory,” which held that the money fell in the Columbia River and washed downstream.
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The Seattle FBI first asked Kaye to take a look at the bills 12 years ago but utilizing diatoms to determine a timeline was a recent idea. explains that samples from a Cooper bill were compared to samples from bills soaked in the river during November.
“Suddenly, the light bulb came on and we wondered if we could use these different species of diatoms that we found on the Cooper bills a long time ago to determine when the money got wet and when the money landed on [Tena Bar],” Kaye explained.
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The Cooper case was officially closed by the FBI in 2016, after over a dozen suspects were probed over the years. .
Last year, a longtime suspect named Robert Rackstraw died. Rackstraw had extensive military training, and codebreakers who looked at a taunting letter sent by someone who claimed to be Cooper believed that a hidden confession was encoded in the note.
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Although Kaye's findings can be used to discredit many theories, the question of how the money entered the water months after the hijacking still remains.
Kaye said the tantalizing new clue shows the enigmatic case still has the power to captivate - and baffle.
“Cooper is still messing with us” he said.
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