Over the years, the names of more than one thousand “DB Cooper” suspects have been provided to law enforcement agencies, including my former agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Each “suspect” was believed by someone, family, friend, neighbor, etc., to have been the infamous unidentified airline skyjacker known as “DB Cooper”.
To date, there has not been one solid piece of “direct” evidence linking any of the suspects to the November, 1971 skyjacking of Northwest Orient Flight 305. The only evidence, if any, has been “circumstantial” evidence. In simple terms, circumstantial evidence can often be thought of as being coincidental in nature. This type of evidence would lead a prudent person to reasonably infer that a “fact” is proven based upon certain events or circumstances. For example, an individual matching the vague description of a person seen in the neighborhood in which a crime had been committed, is merely circumstantial evidence.
On the other hand, “direct” evidence typically stands on its own merit. Examples of direct evidence can be: a corroborated confession; a clear surveillance photo; possession of the weapon used in the crime; eyewitness account, etc. One aspect of direct evidence is known as “physical” evidence. The physical evidence in the DB Cooper case is very limited. The best physical evidence would be the eight cigarette butts from the Raleigh cigarettes Cooper smoked during the skyjacking. Modern technology and DNA analysis could possibly identify surviving family members of Cooper. Unfortunately, the cigarette butts have been lost over time. The second-best physical evidence would be bills from the $200,000 ransom the skyjacker had at the time he parachuted from the airliner. The bills, any one of the ten thousand $20 bills US currency, would be excellent evidence if connected to a suspect. There has been the recovery of $5,800 of the ransom, but that recovery did not link to any particular suspect. The money was found in 1980 by a young boy when his family was picnicking along a river bank. That location was over 20 miles away from the area authorities believed DB Cooper parachuted into.
Perhaps the simplest way for a non-law enforcement person to understand my perspective in the hunt for DB Cooper, would be to understand that I was looking for someone who was the best “candidate”, not the best “suspect”. To borrow from an old saying that “once everything is an emergency, nothing is an emergency”, I have adapted that to the DB Cooper case as, “once everybody is a suspect, nobody is a suspect”. Simply look at the case being similar to reviewing multiple employment applications. Ask yourself which candidate application has the most compelling background (circumstantial) evidence to be DB Cooper? There have been a few strong candidates over the years but none of them will have the vast amount of compelling circumstantial evidence as my candidate (suspect) has.
As a result of my research since 2012, I identified one individual that is the most likely person to be DB Cooper. I have referred to this person as “Mr. A” during the investigation; his true identity and descriptive information will be revealed towards the end of this book. It will be less distracting for the reader if I continue using “Mr. A” as his identifier. I will state that his background addresses many of the checklist boxes that investigators and researchers have theorized about Cooper. The following information is a partial description of “Mr. A’s” background:
In 2012, when I became involved in the legend of DB Cooper, I knew very little other than the basic information regarding the skyjacking. I was certainly a “Johnny come lately” among the many, many investigators and researchers over the years. My investigation was conducted well over forty years after the airliner was skyjacked; it was a very cold case. In this reading you will follow my footsteps from 2012 until the original publication of this book in 2022. On occasion during this journey, we will travel back to 1971 to look at the skyjacking from the perspective of an investigator of that era.
What separates my research from the rest is the fact that I look at the skyjacking as being conducted as a military operation rather than a traditional criminal act. This unique approach results in many of the never fully explained “loose ends” of the crime to be nicely packaged into the most plausible, simple and practical theory. The single, most significant aspect of this investigation is the use of a military “Operation Plan” (Op Plan) as the template for my breakaway theory; the new theory was then used as a roadmap to identify DB Cooper.
In this investigation you will follow me as I embark on the quest to identify the phantom figure known as DB Cooper. You will see how I drew from my varied life’s experiences to cast an effective “small net” and further narrowed the search down to one individual, “Mr. A”.
24 November 1971
It was a dark and stormy November night; the Boeing 727 airliner was traveling at approximately 180 miles per hour, flying at 10,000 feet in elevation. In the darkness of the night, the lone occupant in the passenger compartment of the airliner slowly made his way down the rear stairs of the plane. The speed of the airplane prevented the stairs from lowering all the way down into a locked position. As the lone passenger slowly went down the stairs step by step, the stairs lowered a little more under his weight. A few steps down and he was able to turn his body around so that he was facing the direction the plane was flying. The combination of the wind blast, known as “slipstream” and the three jet engines located just feet away, made a deafening sound. The wind turbulence one would expect on the staircase was not going to be a factor. As the staircase lowers, there is a section of the outer fuselage that lowers with the stairs. Though not by design, this section of fuselage attached to the stairs acts as a windblast shield. This results in very little turbulence on the stairs while the plane is flying. Now facing forward and holding on to the handrails with a steel grip, he continues his slow descent to the bottom of the stairs.
On the flight deck, the captain notices the nose of the aircraft is slowly pitching to a downward position. He provides slight back pressure on the yoke to raise the nose back to level flight and adjusts the trim accordingly. As he is doing this, the first officer is aware of the captain’s actions and comments about it. The captain states that he believes their passenger is descending the stairs, increasing drag causing the nose of the aircraft to slowly drop from level flight.
The lone passenger reaches the bottom stair; the staircase is now at the most lowered point it can reach at this airspeed. Though not fully extended, the staircase has dropped down enough to allow the passenger to stand in a semi-erect position. He continues to hold tightly to the handrails and remains there for a few minutes. From this position he can look down, as well as around the sides of the windblast shield. He can see breaks in the rain clouds below him, each break briefly allowing him a glimpse of the forests approximately a mile and a half below. The passenger then “checks six” and looks behind him to see if he can see the lights of any aircraft trailing the airliner; he doesn’t see any sign of being followed by a chase plane. While facing the direction of flight and holding tightly to the handrails, he begins to slowly jump up and down in an attempt to make the stairs move up and down. This is being done in a similar fashion as a person jumping on a diving board or on a trampoline, using stored energy to make the next bounce slightly greater than the one before. After a few up and down oscillations of the stairs, he climbs the stairs upward step by step, an easier process going up than it was coming down. Once back in the plane, the stairs returned to an almost but not quite closed position.
On the flight deck the captain notes the oscillation of the nose of the plane; it is now slowly rising. Moments later he determines the nose of the aircraft has risen above level flight; he corrects the plane’s attitude and trims the aircraft appropriately.
The lone passenger now tries to enter the passenger compartment and encounters the closed bulkhead door. He is on one side of the door at 10,000 feet elevation, the passenger compartment on the other side has been automatically increasing the atmospheric pressure in the passenger cabin to the 6,000 feet level. He struggles with the door for a few moments before finally getting it open. In an instant, the atmospheric pressure in the passenger compartment and the flight deck drops to that of the plane’s altitude of 10,000 feet.
On the flight deck, the crew experiences the sudden atmospheric change in pressure in their ears. The first officer comments to the others that the oscillation of the nose of the aircraft combined with the sudden change in atmospheric pressure, a “pressure bump”, most likely means their passenger has left the plane.
The lone passenger returns to his seat in the last row on the starboard side of the aircraft. He sits and wonders if his diversion to make the aircrew believe he has parachuted from the plane has worked. He removes his parachute rig and the twenty-five-pound canvas bag holding the ransom of $200,000 in twenty-dollar bills. Knowing he has about two hours and forty-five minutes before the plane lands at the refueling destination of Reno, Nevada, he begins to “tidy up” the crime scene. He wipes down everything he has touched, glasses, magazines, arm rests, bathroom door handle, bulkhead door and handle as well as other items.
On the flight deck, the crew discusses the possibility of their passenger no longer being on the plane. Keeping in mind that the passenger had threatened to blow up a bomb he claimed to have and showing it to a flight attendant early on, the crew decided to follow the passenger’s earlier orders. The captain instructs the flight crew to not go back beyond the first-class curtain during the remainder of the flight to Reno, Nevada.
In the passenger compartment, the man who earlier in the day boarded the airliner under the fictitious name of “Dan Cooper”, and later given the moniker of “DB Cooper” by the news media, sits down for a quick rest, contemplating what still lies ahead on this flight.
The book includes a “behind the scenes” chapter of the author's appearance on the television show EXPEDITION UNKNOWN, hosted by Mr. Josh Gates. This television episode is about the legendary DB Cooper skyjacking. It includes the author's new breakaway theory that the skyjacking was conducted as a military operation, not merely as a criminal act.
The information in this book reflects the research conducted by the author, a retired FBI special agent. The information, opinion and conclusions are those of the author, not those of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
There is no classified information contained in this book.
Gregory Hall, reserves all rights to “Phantom Figure Unmasked” and this website. No part of the book or this website may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means including; electronically, mechanically, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of the author/publisher.
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