Tom Kaye and DB Cooper

[DocsMachine]

Anyone remember a while back when Tom Kaye got into helping try to solve the DB Cooper case, after the FBI officially released the files?

Among other things, he used an XRF gun (X-Ray fluoresence spectroscopy) to analyze particles from Cooper's tie. Among other things, he found flecks of titanium- a common enough metal today, but back in 1971, that was damn near a classified military secret.

There was an open website discussing all this, though that's long since been taken down.

But, on Hackaday, it would seem there's more info, along with a possible new suspect. (Who unfortunately passed away over twenty years ago.)

(Just for my own sake, I'll say, just from that article, that I'm not so sure. The fellow shown looks like an older gent, in his 50s in the 50s, and the hijacking was twenty years later. The original description of the suspect estimated his age as the mid-forties, rather than in the mid-seventies.)

Doc.

[$L!mBo]

please dont tell Mr. Automag that it was me and my time machine

[bored383]

my favorite conspiracy theory about who DB Cooper is states that its David Lynch - and he used the money to finance his first movie

its not as good as the conspiracy theory that NASA faked the moon landings by hiring Stanley Kubrick to do it ... but Kubrick being Kubrick went and filmed it on location

[jpdgas]

Tom is in the Netflix documentary for a bit, interesting stuff.

[minimag03]

Anyone remember a while back when Tom Kaye got into helping try to solve the DB Cooper case, after the FBI officially released the files?

Tom Kaye did this to throw us off the trail of the real culprit: Tom Kaye

[Trbo323]

Anyone remember a while back when Tom Kaye got into helping try to solve the DB Cooper case, after the FBI officially released the files?

Among other things, he used an XRF gun (X-Ray fluoresence spectroscopy) to analyze particles from Cooper's tie. Among other things, he found flecks of titanium- a common enough metal today, but back in 1971, that was damn near a classified military secret.

I heard about that last week and was wondering if Tom was involved.

I know it's not the sexy escape story everyone wants to hear but Cooper is dead. He either died that night or soon after. I'm pretty sure his planning ended with him jumping out of that plane because he certainly wasn't equipped for anything after that.

The biggest thing though is when he jumped he had a 50/50 chance of dying, not including weather or anything else. The FBI brought him 4 parachutes that they (ironically) "procured" from a local skydiving facility. They didn't know that one of them was a training chute and was non functional. Cooper unpacked 2 chutes on the plane to make sure they were not obvious fakes or tempered with and the training chute was not one of them.

Beyond that, let's say he strapped on the good chute. He had no way of knowing exactly where he was so any attempt at a precise landing zone is out the window. That's not even counting the storm pushing him off course. It's night in a Pacific Northwest storm which I think people really underestimate. I live in the area, fairly close to where they think he came down. (although he would have been way out in the woods)

If by some miracle he made it down, he is already soaked in windy cold conditions while wearing a business suit and loafers and likely miles away from any help while also likely not knowing which direction to even go.

ALL that aside, remember, some of the money has been found. Kind of a bad criminal if you leave the money behind. Unless you know, you're dead.

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[The Hobbit]

Buzzkill lol

[DocsMachine]

I know it's not the sexy escape story everyone wants to hear but Cooper is dead. He either died that night or soon after. I'm pretty sure his planning ended with him jumping out of that plane because he certainly wasn't equipped for anything after that.

-I gotta agree with that. They found some money, loose, but buried up stream, and in a condition that showed it had been deliberately moved there.

But, that said, two things are against that scenario: One, why did no one then file a missing person's report that might have corresponded with Cooper? 'Cooper' doesn't show up for work the next week, there's pictures on the TV that kind of look like somebody's Uncle Frank, put two and two together, etc.

Lot of things could explain that, of course- he was a loner, unmarried, no kids, may have quit his job, had some nowhere job like a door-to-door salesman, etc. May have told his family he was going away to Cancun for a month, and nobody reported him missing 'til months later, etc.

Second, why was no body or parachute found? People combed the areas extensively. That's not to say that people can't 'just disappear', but they mounted a huge manhunt for him.

There's all sorts of scenarios. He could have taken the bad chute and augered in. He could have taken the good chute but it folded in the bad weather. He could have had a good open, but landed in dense trees and was killed falling onto and through all the branches.

But, my favorite pet scenario: Somebody, whether part of the manhunt, or a regular hunter, or just a random hiker, finds him maybe days or weeks later. Killed on impact, maybe broke his neck whacking a tree on the way down. There's the suitcase, with most of the $200K. The finder furtively stuffs it all into his own backpack, wads up the remnants of the chute, buries everything under moss and pine boughs, heads for home.

He then proceeds to quietly spend it for the rest of his life, never living lavishly or calling attention to himself.

But yeah, the sad fact is, we'll never know.

Doc.

[Toestr]

Someone is living out a facsimile of the plot to 1998's A Simple Plan.

[Psycho91]

I mean that's what I would do, maybe atleast call the authorities and tell them I found him, they don't need to know about no money 😂

[JeepDVLZ45]

But, my favorite pet scenario: Somebody, whether part of the manhunt, or a regular hunter, or just a random hiker, finds him maybe days or weeks later. Killed on impact, maybe broke his neck whacking a tree on the way down. There's the suitcase, with most of the $200K. The finder furtively stuffs it all into his own backpack, wads up the remnants of the chute, buries everything under moss and pine boughs, heads for home.

He then proceeds to quietly spend it for the rest of his life, never living lavishly or calling attention to himself.

But yeah, the sad fact is, we'll never know.

Doc.

🤔…..…how did you say you got the start-up capital for your airsmithing business again?

[Trbo323]

-I gotta agree with that. They found some money, loose, but buried up stream, and in a condition that showed it had been deliberately moved there.

But, that said, two things are against that scenario: One, why did no one then file a missing person's report that might have corresponded with Cooper? 'Cooper' doesn't show up for work the next week, there's pictures on the TV that kind of look like somebody's Uncle Frank, put two and two together, etc.

Lot of things could explain that, of course- he was a loner, unmarried, no kids, may have quit his job, had some nowhere job like a door-to-door salesman, etc. May have told his family he was going away to Cancun for a month, and nobody reported him missing 'til months later, etc.

It was the early 70s, not like today with everyone being tracked all the time. Even if he had a job and didn't show up it's no guarantee that a boss would file a missing persons report.

Second, why was no body or parachute found? People combed the areas extensively. That's not to say that people can't 'just disappear', but they mounted a huge manhunt for him.

There's all sorts of scenarios. He could have taken the bad chute and augered in. He could have taken the good chute but it folded in the bad weather. He could have had a good open, but landed in dense trees and was killed falling onto and through all the branches.

2 things, 1) it's the Pacific Northwest. There is TONS of underbrush and stuff grows so quickly that it easily conceals stuff on the ground. (Which also assumes he made it to the ground and didn't get stuck in a tree) As a kid I did model rockets, I lost at least a half dozen of them in the woods and that was while knowing a very small area of where they went in and for them most part being bright colors.

Hell I play disc golf today and still lose a disc here and there and that's something that can only be within a few hundred feet at the absolute most of where I am. I'm not surprised at all that a search group trying to cover a massive area (and assuming that's the correct area) could miss him. BlackBerry growths alone can easily be 6 to 10 feet tall and cover a very large area. If he fell in one of those it's very likely nobody would find him.

2) the plane track and his jump points are estimates. The was no gps. They are estimating his jump point based on the bump the pilots felt. If that bump wasn't him leaving the plane, or if the plane wasn't exactly where they thought, that jump point is miles off.

But, my favorite pet scenario: Somebody, whether part of the manhunt, or a regular hunter, or just a random hiker, finds him maybe days or weeks later. Killed on impact, maybe broke his neck whacking a tree on the way down. There's the suitcase, with most of the $200K. The finder furtively stuffs it all into his own backpack, wads up the remnants of the chute, buries everything under moss and pine boughs, heads for home.

He then proceeds to quietly spend it for the rest of his life, never living lavishly or calling attention to himself.

But the serial numbers of the cash have never turned up. So if that did happen that person has been sitting on that cash and not spending it. This is also one of the bigger reasons why I believe he is dead. Besides that small amount that was found in the river (also what was that about deliberate movement? I've never heard that theory) none of the cash has ever shown up. What's the point in doing the hijacking if you can't spend the cash?





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[DocsMachine]

…..…how did you say you got the start-up capital for your airsmithing business again?

-I have an airtight alibi: A birth certificate dated to a number of years after the hijacking.

But the serial numbers of the cash have never turned up. So if that did happen that person has been sitting on that cash and not spending it.

-I seem to recall there was some part of Cooper's speech that hinted he wasn't American. Like he referred to it as "$200,000 in American Money" or something like that. It's entirely possible he was from Canada or even had European connections. Meaning it's possible that, if he survived the landing and escaped, he took the money with him back to wherever he came from. You could spend US dollars in all sorts of countries back then, even as you can today.

Don't get me wrong, I kind of agree he probably didn't stick the landing, so to speak, which is a lot closer to an Ockham's Razor explanation for the lack of the money turning up, it's just worth noting that's not the only possible explanation.

Besides that small amount that was found in the river (also what was that about deliberate movement? I've never heard that theory) none of the cash has ever shown up.

-The old discussion board that Kaye was using, as mentioned in the OP, gave several bits of info that wasn't then widely known, since it was, technically, still an active FBI case at the time. One of which was that a wad of money was found buried in a riverbank significantly up stream from where it's assumed that Cooper jumped. It was also held with a rubber band, and it was found years after the hijacking.

Kaye and his assistants did some empirical testing, and found that the rubber band would have long since degraded in that time period, which, given with the location it was found, showed pretty solidly that the money had been moved, rebanded and buried several years after the hijacking.

Unfortunately, that's another case where there's not enough info to say with any certainty what happened. All we know is somebody had some amount of the hijacker's money, at some point after the hijacking, and very likely deliberately buried it near a river.

One movie-esque scenario is that Cooper landed, walked out of the woods, hit a road, got picked up as a hitchhiker, and maybe did something like bought the driver's car from him for a big wad of cash. ($5,800 was the price of a pretty nice NEW car back in those days.) He then drives back to Canada, or even just to Sea-Tac, hops another plane, and vanishes.

Overall, I kind of agree, I doubt he made it, but an imaginative person can think of dozens of scenarios where he did, what happened when he didn't, what happened to the money in either case, etc.

Doc.

[Trbo323]

-I have an airtight alibi: A birth certificate dated to a number of years after the hijacking.

A likely story. I imagine a fake birth certificate can be purchased with enough money!

-I seem to recall there was some part of Cooper's speech that hinted he wasn't American. Like he referred to it as "$200,000 in American Money" or something like that. It's entirely possible he was from Canada or even had European connections. Meaning it's possible that, if he survived the landing and escaped, he took the money with him back to wherever he came from. You could spend US dollars in all sorts of countries back then, even as you can today.

But it's the same problem, the money still hasn't turned up going on 50 years. That money eventually would have had to make it's way to an exchange or a bank assuming someone wanted to actually use it and been taken out of circulation because it's an older style. That would assume a country like Canada DOESN'T have any kind of a system that would automatically flag it in order to cooperate with a FBI investigation

Don't get me wrong, I kind of agree he probably didn't stick the landing, so to speak, which is a lot closer to an Ockham's Razor explanation for the lack of the money turning up, it's just worth noting that's not the only possible explanation.

Oh yeah I'll fully admit, there is an explanation that fits the facts and allows him to walk away so to speak but the odds in my mind are along the lines of being hit by lightning 3 separate times

I don't really understand why people can believe that Cooper made it but the 3 guys who escaped alkatraz are commonly believed to have died

-The old discussion board that Kaye was using, as mentioned in the OP, gave several bits of info that wasn't then widely known, since it was, technically, still an active FBI case at the time. One of which was that a wad of money was found buried in a riverbank significantly up stream from where it's assumed that Cooper jumped. It was also held with a rubber band, and it was found years after the hijacking.

Kaye and his assistants did some empirical testing, and found that the rubber band would have long since degraded in that time period, which, given with the location it was found, showed pretty solidly that the money had been moved, rebanded and buried several years after the hijacking.

Unfortunately, that's another case where there's not enough info to say with any certainty what happened. All we know is somebody had some amount of the hijacker's money, at some point after the hijacking, and very likely deliberately buried it near a river.

But they took the landing zone as a fact? I might have to look into this more. Just seems really odd to me that someone as smart as Tom would take the landing zone as a fixed spot and then wrap the river money position around that rather than thinking the river money might hint at a different landing zone.

Or hell, maybe the river money left Cooper as soon as he jumped. He was using a parachute as a make shift duffle bag to hold it. Money lands in one spot, Cooper lands in another... Hard

One movie-esque scenario is that Cooper landed, walked out of the woods, hit a road, got picked up as a hitchhiker, and maybe did something like bought the driver's car from him for a big wad of cash. ($5,800 was the price of a pretty nice NEW car back in those days.) He then drives back to Canada, or even just to Sea-Tac, hops another plane, and vanishes.

To me nothing explains the missing money though. From my understanding one of the FBI agents that got the money basically photocopied it or wrote down the serial numbers on more of a whim, it wasn't standard practice then. So Cooper could not have known that and then would have had to decide to not spend it at all after the hijacking or at least guessed correctly that the serial numbers would be looked for.

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[RAZRBAKK]

But they took the landing zone as a fact? I might have to look into this more. Just seems really odd to me that someone as smart as Tom would take the landing zone as a fixed spot and then wrap the river money position around that rather than thinking the river money might hint at a different landing zone.

Or hell, maybe the river money left Cooper as soon as he jumped. He was using a parachute as a make shift duffle bag to hold it. Money lands in one spot, Cooper lands in another... Hard

You're missing the detail that the rubber bands holding the money found on the river bank would have long since degraded, thus the riverbank money had to have been placed there much more recently.

He almost certainly didn't land where this money was found.

[Trbo323]

I'm not missing that, more questioning it and the process that was used to determine that because that is the one thing that if true I can't 100% explain

It also doesn't make much sense if true. Why go through the whole hijacking if the only thing any of the money has ever been used for is to come back, bury some and hope someone finds it?

Regardless, none of the theories fit all the evidence so something has to be wrong anyway

1) he died on impact or soon after reaching the ground. Money may be with him or was dropped on the way down. I really don't think the lack of a body is a problem with this idea because of the area

Problem- the one rubber band

2) lost money in the fall, survived, escaped

Problem- the one rubber band

3) successful, survived, escaped

Problem- no money has ever been found outside of the stuff by the river, but again why bother doing the hijacking at all if the only use of the money is coming back to bury that and just hope it's found?

So I settle on the theory that has the least holes, here it is in a nutshell

Cooper straps on the non functional chute and jumps. The plane is not exactly where they think it is when he jumps, even a difference of a few minutes can make a very large difference in the area. Cooper pulls the rip cord, finds that nothing is happening and maybe tries to untie the chute he used to tie the money to himself dropping some in the process, makes a hard landing, maybe in water, maybe in blackberry bushes. Bigfoot comes by and pisses on him.

As for the money and rubber band, it floats down river, the rubber band stays damp or wet, as it's buried by sediment which helps preserve it much more than expected.

As I have no idea what testing Tom did on 70s era rubber bands I will fully admit that I have no idea if maybe they tried that, not sure how they would replicate the time passage though.

What about you guys? What's your theory?


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[fullofpaint]

-I seem to recall there was some part of Cooper's speech that hinted he wasn't American.

My favorite conspiracy theory is DB Cooper is Tommy Wiseau of "The Room" fame.

[Trbo323]

Seems Tom isn't done

https://www.the-sun.com/news/10176979/db-cooper-dna-anaylsis-skyjacking-unsolved-mystery/

Not sure how they know they have coopers DNA with "100% certainty" and not say, any investigator who has ever handled the evidence but hell, test that, see what comes of it!

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