1 00:00:15,475 --> 00:00:17,560 We all have this desire to be free, 2 00:00:17,643 --> 00:00:21,022 but there's one force that keeps us trapped all our lives, 3 00:00:21,105 --> 00:00:22,231 and that's gravity. 4 00:00:24,067 --> 00:00:27,153 D.B. Cooper did something that all of us sort of yearn to do, 5 00:00:27,236 --> 00:00:28,488 even though we don't know it… 6 00:00:30,031 --> 00:00:31,616 and that is to become an individual. 7 00:00:33,618 --> 00:00:35,578 To stand up against gravity, 8 00:00:36,454 --> 00:00:38,247 against the system. 9 00:00:40,541 --> 00:00:43,419 It's the classic American mystery story, 10 00:00:43,503 --> 00:00:46,005 that we're still watching 50 years later. 11 00:00:46,089 --> 00:00:49,926 And yet, there are elements of it out there that anybody with a laptop 12 00:00:50,009 --> 00:00:53,387 can look into and feel like they're investigating now. 13 00:00:55,264 --> 00:00:58,893 In that way, it's a great mystery for the Internet age. 14 00:01:01,437 --> 00:01:03,481 It's beautiful in its purity. 15 00:01:06,567 --> 00:01:08,736 I call it the James Bond component. 16 00:01:08,820 --> 00:01:12,156 The dapper gentleman who shows up with the suit, the tie, 17 00:01:12,240 --> 00:01:15,243 orders the bourbon seven, and jumps out of a damn jet 18 00:01:15,326 --> 00:01:18,454 in the middle of the night. There's something badass about that. 19 00:01:19,956 --> 00:01:22,875 He never hurt anybody. He let everybody off the plane. 20 00:01:22,959 --> 00:01:26,546 He got the $200,000, and he… jumped out. 21 00:01:26,629 --> 00:01:27,755 In a storm. 22 00:01:29,173 --> 00:01:31,801 And he got away with it. Pretty slick, ain't he? 23 00:01:33,177 --> 00:01:36,305 Cooper satisfied a lot of people's inner wish 24 00:01:36,848 --> 00:01:39,767 to get $200,000 and disappear. 25 00:01:40,852 --> 00:01:43,146 I think the case will live forever. 26 00:02:31,360 --> 00:02:33,946 This investigation was a difficult period. 27 00:02:34,030 --> 00:02:35,990 We spent a lot of our own money, 28 00:02:36,073 --> 00:02:40,494 and I spent five years tightening it up and selling it to History Channel. 29 00:02:40,578 --> 00:02:42,538 It was quite a journey to get to that point. 30 00:02:44,457 --> 00:02:48,336 It was an exciting moment when Tom finally sold it to History, 31 00:02:48,419 --> 00:02:52,089 because there's just so much money you can pour into a project 32 00:02:52,173 --> 00:02:54,175 without anything coming back. 33 00:02:55,593 --> 00:02:59,722 The History Channel wanted Tom and I to be a part of the storytelling. 34 00:03:01,474 --> 00:03:03,100 Okay, convince us. 35 00:03:03,184 --> 00:03:04,769 -Let's go for it. -All right. 36 00:03:08,064 --> 00:03:12,777 We would present this case, and try to convince Tom Fuentes, 37 00:03:12,860 --> 00:03:15,154 longtime FBI executive, 38 00:03:15,238 --> 00:03:16,113 now retired, 39 00:03:16,864 --> 00:03:18,449 and a crime writer. 40 00:03:22,078 --> 00:03:25,998 Tom Fuentes gave a phenomenal description of our case, saying, 41 00:03:26,082 --> 00:03:30,002 "This is fantastic. It's probably him. It's nine out of ten." 42 00:03:39,095 --> 00:03:40,554 But within six months, 43 00:03:41,305 --> 00:03:42,556 everything changed. 44 00:03:44,016 --> 00:03:47,144 I thought all the evidence that they were uncovering 45 00:03:47,228 --> 00:03:49,563 in the History Channel was pretty compelling, 46 00:03:49,647 --> 00:03:51,274 but talking to Tom, 47 00:03:51,357 --> 00:03:55,361 I think he was told one thing about what they were going to do, 48 00:03:55,444 --> 00:03:57,530 and then it went into a different direction. 49 00:03:57,613 --> 00:03:59,657 We're here to bring you up to date 50 00:03:59,740 --> 00:04:03,369 on some of the latest work that we've done in this case. 51 00:04:05,454 --> 00:04:06,747 We were bushwhacked. 52 00:04:09,083 --> 00:04:12,712 In the second episode, the FBI arranged 53 00:04:12,795 --> 00:04:14,880 for the key flight attendant 54 00:04:15,673 --> 00:04:18,884 to come and view, on-camera, 55 00:04:18,968 --> 00:04:23,597 a photo array of potential D.B. Cooper suspects. 56 00:04:24,181 --> 00:04:26,434 I remember going, "This is weird." 57 00:04:26,517 --> 00:04:31,439 This woman had not given an interview for ever. 58 00:04:34,567 --> 00:04:37,611 Does he look like this could be the guy you were sitting next to? 59 00:04:37,695 --> 00:04:38,988 No, I don't think so. 60 00:04:39,822 --> 00:04:40,823 I don't think so. 61 00:04:40,906 --> 00:04:42,700 In the end of the episode, 62 00:04:42,783 --> 00:04:46,954 she looks at the photo array with the FBI and Fuentes there. 63 00:04:47,038 --> 00:04:48,664 And she crushes it. 64 00:04:48,748 --> 00:04:51,542 Crushes the entire theory of the case. 65 00:04:52,668 --> 00:04:57,506 When that happened, I could feel the deflation to my right. 66 00:04:58,632 --> 00:05:01,886 Eyewitnesses, as we know, are really unreliable. 67 00:05:01,969 --> 00:05:03,637 And 40-plus years later, 68 00:05:03,721 --> 00:05:07,683 and not seeing him as she saw him there on the plane, 69 00:05:07,767 --> 00:05:09,769 I never expected her to say yes. 70 00:05:09,852 --> 00:05:12,521 And if she did, I would have been blown away, frankly. 71 00:05:13,439 --> 00:05:15,274 Trial attorneys will tell you that 72 00:05:15,358 --> 00:05:17,151 when you have an actual witness 73 00:05:17,735 --> 00:05:20,154 they're maybe 50% accurate at best. 74 00:05:20,237 --> 00:05:22,573 You know, four people can see an incident 75 00:05:22,656 --> 00:05:25,701 and every one of them will describe it differently. 76 00:05:25,785 --> 00:05:27,745 And it's not just their perceptions 77 00:05:27,828 --> 00:05:28,996 that they're reporting. 78 00:05:29,080 --> 00:05:30,581 It's also their biases. 79 00:05:30,664 --> 00:05:33,250 I am convinced Rackstraw is not Cooper. 80 00:05:34,794 --> 00:05:39,090 For the History Channel documentary, we had 93 pieces of evidence. 81 00:05:39,173 --> 00:05:41,133 We had cracked codes, 82 00:05:41,217 --> 00:05:44,845 we had witnesses, we even had the perfect skill sets. 83 00:05:44,929 --> 00:05:47,306 We thought they were all really convincing. 84 00:05:47,390 --> 00:05:52,228 Are one of those 93 pieces of evidence money or the parachute? 85 00:05:52,812 --> 00:05:56,148 No, Billy, we know that's not in there. This is circumstantial. 86 00:05:56,732 --> 00:05:58,818 Of the 93 pieces of information, 87 00:05:58,901 --> 00:06:01,695 there's nothing in here that puts him on the plane. 88 00:06:01,779 --> 00:06:05,032 There's nothing in here that even puts him in Portland that day. 89 00:06:05,116 --> 00:06:09,745 Regardless of where you want to fall, "Is Rackstraw D.B. Cooper or not?", 90 00:06:10,246 --> 00:06:14,667 this is a disingenuous, unfair portrayal 91 00:06:15,167 --> 00:06:17,086 of what the evidence is. 92 00:06:17,169 --> 00:06:20,464 And that was just infuriating me at the time. 93 00:06:20,548 --> 00:06:21,715 And still does. 94 00:06:24,218 --> 00:06:27,138 I'll never forget, the director said to me, 95 00:06:27,221 --> 00:06:29,557 "Don't you owe an apology to Rackstraw now?" 96 00:06:31,767 --> 00:06:35,813 I said, "I have nothing to apologize for, and I stand with my team." 97 00:06:36,981 --> 00:06:41,944 Tom was being set up as one of the conspiracy nuts that are out there, 98 00:06:42,027 --> 00:06:46,031 instead of the methodical investigator that he had been his entire life. 99 00:06:46,991 --> 00:06:50,494 I just felt bad for Tom because he had done years of work 100 00:06:50,578 --> 00:06:51,745 in a legitimate way. 101 00:06:51,829 --> 00:06:55,624 And to be discredited like he was, wasn't good for his reputation. 102 00:06:55,708 --> 00:06:57,960 Not only that, it was just wrong. 103 00:07:00,588 --> 00:07:02,173 -How are you doing? -I'm doing fine. 104 00:07:02,256 --> 00:07:05,634 My conclusion was… I believe Tom asked me this on camera. 105 00:07:06,385 --> 00:07:07,887 He said, "So you don't think it's him?" 106 00:07:09,180 --> 00:07:11,098 I said, "No, I don't." 107 00:07:11,182 --> 00:07:14,602 'Cause they have access and information within the FBI 108 00:07:14,685 --> 00:07:15,561 that we don't. 109 00:07:16,270 --> 00:07:17,271 It's that simple. 110 00:07:19,565 --> 00:07:20,691 Tom and I, 111 00:07:20,774 --> 00:07:23,819 um, we didn't really communicate after that. 112 00:07:27,364 --> 00:07:31,327 At the very end of the documentary, they slam the door on him. 113 00:07:32,328 --> 00:07:33,579 They shut the case down. 114 00:07:38,876 --> 00:07:40,461 Following one of the longest 115 00:07:40,544 --> 00:07:42,838 and most exhaustive investigations in our history, 116 00:07:42,922 --> 00:07:45,382 the FBI will be redirecting resources 117 00:07:45,466 --> 00:07:48,427 allocated to the 45-year-old D.B. Cooper case. 118 00:07:48,511 --> 00:07:51,388 It was the same week that the documentary aired, 119 00:07:51,472 --> 00:07:53,265 the FBI closed the case. 120 00:07:53,349 --> 00:07:54,850 So is this case closed? 121 00:07:56,310 --> 00:07:57,811 Administratively, yes. 122 00:07:58,395 --> 00:08:01,232 In my view, the FBI colluded with the show. 123 00:08:01,815 --> 00:08:05,945 And the day after it broadcast, there's the FBI at the microphone, saying… 124 00:08:06,028 --> 00:08:08,739 Everything that has come in, we've taken a look at it. 125 00:08:08,822 --> 00:08:12,618 "We looked at Colbert's information and there was nothing new." 126 00:08:13,202 --> 00:08:14,870 There isn't anything new out there. 127 00:08:31,053 --> 00:08:33,847 Did he get away with it? Did he die trying? 128 00:08:33,931 --> 00:08:37,101 It's now safe to say we'll probably never know. 129 00:08:39,395 --> 00:08:42,815 After 45 years, why did they close the case? 130 00:08:43,566 --> 00:08:45,234 Ha! That's a good question. 131 00:08:47,319 --> 00:08:48,779 I can't give you that answer. 132 00:08:49,613 --> 00:08:53,492 There's clearly something fishy going on. 133 00:08:54,827 --> 00:08:56,870 Yeah, and I don't have a fishing pole either. 134 00:08:59,248 --> 00:09:02,209 When somebody tells you, "There's nothing you can do," 135 00:09:02,293 --> 00:09:03,294 that is just… 136 00:09:03,919 --> 00:09:06,839 That's what's motivating everyone on this team. 137 00:09:06,922 --> 00:09:09,216 I want to talk about the stonewalling, 138 00:09:09,758 --> 00:09:13,262 the disinformation, the lies that have come out 139 00:09:13,762 --> 00:09:16,682 to stumble this investigation after seven years. 140 00:09:18,434 --> 00:09:22,354 Colbert's group should start accepting what the evidence shows, 141 00:09:22,438 --> 00:09:25,774 all of which indicates that Rackstraw was not D.B. Cooper. 142 00:09:26,984 --> 00:09:30,863 For the one thing, all the witnesses that saw D.B. Cooper 143 00:09:30,946 --> 00:09:32,865 said he looked in his mid-40s. 144 00:09:33,365 --> 00:09:36,327 But Robert Rackstraw was only 28 years of age 145 00:09:36,410 --> 00:09:39,163 at the time of the skyjacking, which is a very big problem. 146 00:09:39,246 --> 00:09:42,833 With Colbert's group, instead of accepting reality, 147 00:09:42,916 --> 00:09:45,794 it's easier to head down a certain path 148 00:09:45,878 --> 00:09:49,632 which implicates the FBI and others in some grand conspiracy. 149 00:09:49,715 --> 00:09:52,092 Because there has to be an explanation 150 00:09:52,176 --> 00:09:55,179 for why they haven't been able to pin it on Rackstraw, 151 00:09:56,305 --> 00:09:59,892 and the explanation has to be conspiratorial in nature. 152 00:10:00,976 --> 00:10:04,355 We're not here to question those that keep us safe in the shadows, 153 00:10:04,438 --> 00:10:08,484 but we're here to question ones that have multiple identities, 154 00:10:09,026 --> 00:10:10,653 various criminal titles, 155 00:10:11,362 --> 00:10:14,490 and when they're arrested, he has a get-out-of-jail card 156 00:10:14,573 --> 00:10:16,200 because he was a CIA pilot. 157 00:10:20,663 --> 00:10:24,166 The story was that Rackstraw worked for the CIA. 158 00:10:24,249 --> 00:10:28,879 And because of the things that he did for the CIA, 159 00:10:28,962 --> 00:10:32,091 they did not want that information to come out. 160 00:10:32,174 --> 00:10:36,136 So they cut a deal with the FBI to give him a pass. 161 00:10:36,220 --> 00:10:37,930 That's the rumor I had. 162 00:10:38,013 --> 00:10:40,891 I got nothing for facts on that. 163 00:10:40,974 --> 00:10:44,353 FBI would just pounce on everybody about things like that. 164 00:10:44,436 --> 00:10:48,357 When I saw that Rackstraw interview, he talked like a Navy SEAL. 165 00:10:49,191 --> 00:10:52,820 Specialist in underwater explosives, demolitions, underwater operations. 166 00:10:52,903 --> 00:10:54,071 Air, sea, land. 167 00:10:54,863 --> 00:10:57,116 He'd talk like a ex-military guy. 168 00:10:57,199 --> 00:10:59,451 He didn't talk like a CIA guy. 169 00:10:59,535 --> 00:11:01,787 A CIA guy with those experiences 170 00:11:01,870 --> 00:11:04,373 wouldn't just spill them out to you anyway. 171 00:11:04,456 --> 00:11:06,792 I mean, we don't spill out stuff. 172 00:11:08,627 --> 00:11:10,504 I said, "If the FBI's turning us down, 173 00:11:10,587 --> 00:11:11,839 I'm gonna call the team." 174 00:11:11,922 --> 00:11:15,801 We're thinking, "Why are you hiding this?" We didn't know about the CIA. 175 00:11:17,636 --> 00:11:19,430 Stop. Stop. Stop. 176 00:11:20,889 --> 00:11:23,350 The FBI and the CIA are covering it all up? 177 00:11:23,434 --> 00:11:25,310 Would you stop with this? 178 00:11:25,394 --> 00:11:28,814 If the FBI and the CIA and space aliens 179 00:11:28,897 --> 00:11:31,692 went in together and cover up something, 180 00:11:31,775 --> 00:11:36,321 do you think they'd really cover up something as fundamentally inconsequential 181 00:11:36,989 --> 00:11:39,908 as a hijacking in the Pacific Northwest 182 00:11:39,992 --> 00:11:41,618 in 1971 183 00:11:42,119 --> 00:11:46,498 that didn't even raise enough money for you to buy an Arby's franchise? 184 00:11:51,962 --> 00:11:52,838 $2.99? 185 00:11:52,921 --> 00:11:56,800 I got nothing against conspiracy theories. They're fine for crazy people. 186 00:11:56,884 --> 00:12:02,639 But the idea that these are people who just deny provable facts 187 00:12:02,723 --> 00:12:06,351 that are right in front of us, just… It drives me crazy. 188 00:12:08,228 --> 00:12:09,980 NBC Sports presents… 189 00:12:12,232 --> 00:12:14,443 the 1970 Rose Bowl Game. 190 00:12:16,111 --> 00:12:18,530 I know that people think I could be crazy, 191 00:12:19,281 --> 00:12:22,201 but to understand how I tick, 192 00:12:22,284 --> 00:12:25,329 you have to go back to January of '70. 193 00:12:25,412 --> 00:12:26,955 I was watching the Rose Bowl, 194 00:12:27,790 --> 00:12:31,043 and, suddenly, something was happening to me. 195 00:12:31,710 --> 00:12:33,587 My eyes are going on and off. 196 00:12:33,670 --> 00:12:35,422 Going in is Mike Oldham. 197 00:12:35,506 --> 00:12:36,507 Third and eight. 198 00:12:40,886 --> 00:12:43,013 Heavy gonging in my head. 199 00:12:43,096 --> 00:12:46,767 And my dad, who's an MD, psychiatrist, and my mom said, 200 00:12:46,850 --> 00:12:49,102 "We're gonna take you to St. John's in Santa Monica." 201 00:12:50,479 --> 00:12:53,190 And in the elevator, I fell into a coma. 202 00:12:55,943 --> 00:12:59,488 The doctors gave me a death sentence. They said, "There's nothing we can do." 203 00:13:00,072 --> 00:13:01,532 Mom went out and got a black dress. 204 00:13:04,409 --> 00:13:06,495 And then suddenly my eyes opened. 205 00:13:09,289 --> 00:13:11,416 They said, "We don't know why you're here." 206 00:13:11,500 --> 00:13:13,710 And moments later, 207 00:13:13,794 --> 00:13:17,923 Dad came back and said, "You need to find out why you're here." 208 00:13:18,423 --> 00:13:22,386 We're a very spiritual family, and that was quite a marching order. 209 00:13:23,554 --> 00:13:24,888 I was 11 years old, 210 00:13:25,597 --> 00:13:28,976 and I had to learn to walk and talk and read all over again. 211 00:13:30,269 --> 00:13:32,855 The thing that saved me was newspapers. 212 00:13:32,938 --> 00:13:34,606 Dad was always at the table, 213 00:13:34,690 --> 00:13:36,859 looking at the headlines. We all remember that. 214 00:13:37,943 --> 00:13:40,779 It was basically because of those newspapers every day, 215 00:13:40,863 --> 00:13:44,157 I went into news, I went to CBS, I went to Paramount. 216 00:13:44,241 --> 00:13:47,286 Ever since that day, my folks were over me, saying, 217 00:13:47,369 --> 00:13:50,080 "You gotta find out why." This is why I'm here. 218 00:13:50,664 --> 00:13:51,915 And so on History, 219 00:13:51,999 --> 00:13:53,667 when they came back and told us… 220 00:13:53,750 --> 00:13:56,044 There is no possibility of getting a conviction, 221 00:13:56,128 --> 00:13:58,422 when the best witness says, "Not him." 222 00:13:59,006 --> 00:14:01,425 "…it's not him. We're not gonna look at the case." 223 00:14:01,508 --> 00:14:05,512 "We're moving the file to the Raiders of the Lost Ark warehouse." 224 00:14:07,139 --> 00:14:08,307 "And it's over." 225 00:14:09,016 --> 00:14:12,185 It made us steadfast that, "We know who the enemy is now." 226 00:14:12,686 --> 00:14:15,022 So right after the first documentary, 227 00:14:15,105 --> 00:14:17,316 we got an attorney in DC to sue. 228 00:14:21,737 --> 00:14:24,990 A lawsuit that's now being filed in DC 229 00:14:25,073 --> 00:14:28,744 says the D.B. Cooper case is not unsolved. 230 00:14:33,081 --> 00:14:35,709 Tom Colbert, he and his attorney 231 00:14:35,792 --> 00:14:38,545 have made a significant contribution 232 00:14:38,629 --> 00:14:40,672 by suing the FBI. 233 00:14:40,756 --> 00:14:43,508 The lawsuit compels the FBI 234 00:14:43,592 --> 00:14:46,678 to release its entire investigative file. 235 00:14:47,804 --> 00:14:49,389 It took a half year to sue. 236 00:14:49,473 --> 00:14:52,184 The judge agreed with us. We got the full file. 237 00:14:53,268 --> 00:14:56,605 We've been getting monthly releases from the FBI 238 00:14:56,688 --> 00:15:00,359 of at least 500 pages of new information 239 00:15:00,442 --> 00:15:03,487 that people have never seen outside of the FBI. 240 00:15:05,781 --> 00:15:09,618 When Tom Colbert opened up all that FBI data, 241 00:15:09,701 --> 00:15:12,788 I ended up reading about 25,000 pages worth 242 00:15:12,871 --> 00:15:15,666 of original FBI files, with respect to the case, 243 00:15:15,749 --> 00:15:17,834 learned information about the tie, 244 00:15:17,918 --> 00:15:19,795 learned information about the cigarette butts, 245 00:15:19,878 --> 00:15:21,463 what happened to that stuff. 246 00:15:22,297 --> 00:15:24,424 It's like a document blizzard. 247 00:15:24,508 --> 00:15:26,510 Some of it's newspaper clippings. 248 00:15:27,094 --> 00:15:29,096 Some of it is interoffice memos. 249 00:15:29,179 --> 00:15:32,808 Some of it's letters to the FBI or from the FBI. 250 00:15:33,809 --> 00:15:37,813 There were a few diamonds in there, and the diamonds primarily revolved 251 00:15:37,896 --> 00:15:41,775 around the witness testimony from the flight attendants and others. 252 00:15:41,858 --> 00:15:45,070 And some of the actual analysis that the FBI had done 253 00:15:45,153 --> 00:15:47,614 in terms of specific suspects and things, 254 00:15:47,698 --> 00:15:51,743 which actually provided an awful lot of valuable information 255 00:15:51,827 --> 00:15:53,412 and insight and so forth. 256 00:15:54,413 --> 00:15:56,206 That's really kind of how I got sucked into it, 257 00:15:56,289 --> 00:15:59,126 you know, having it get kicked to the next level 258 00:15:59,209 --> 00:16:00,752 as far as interest. 259 00:16:03,880 --> 00:16:07,009 The FBI couldn't crack the case, but now scientists think 260 00:16:07,092 --> 00:16:09,219 they've narrowed the search for the suspect 261 00:16:09,302 --> 00:16:12,055 with evidence found in his necktie. 262 00:16:12,723 --> 00:16:16,435 A group of scientists calling themselves amateur sleuths 263 00:16:16,518 --> 00:16:19,187 have identified more than 100,000 particles 264 00:16:19,271 --> 00:16:21,273 of rare-earth elements… 265 00:16:21,356 --> 00:16:24,609 Names like strontium and yttrium and cerium. 266 00:16:24,693 --> 00:16:26,987 …coating D.B. Cooper's tie. 267 00:16:27,487 --> 00:16:29,948 These days, when it comes to D.B. Cooper, 268 00:16:30,032 --> 00:16:33,160 a lot of good research is being done by private citizens. 269 00:16:33,785 --> 00:16:38,123 There are a handful of people that are in the orbit and contribute, 270 00:16:38,206 --> 00:16:42,544 you know, applying science to this, combing through the FBI files, 271 00:16:43,128 --> 00:16:46,173 putting boots on the ground, actually searching. 272 00:16:47,215 --> 00:16:48,091 You've got me. 273 00:16:48,592 --> 00:16:52,304 You've got Tom Kaye, who's the scientist. 274 00:16:52,387 --> 00:16:57,976 There's a gentleman who goes by the name "Anonymous," 275 00:16:58,060 --> 00:17:01,605 who put forward a suspect called William J. Smith. 276 00:17:01,688 --> 00:17:04,232 There's another gentleman named Marty Andrade, 277 00:17:04,316 --> 00:17:08,195 who has done some really solid research on the survivability 278 00:17:08,278 --> 00:17:10,447 of jumping with a parachute. 279 00:17:11,323 --> 00:17:15,494 Probably the most enjoyable place that the public can go to 280 00:17:15,577 --> 00:17:19,331 for D.B. Cooper is the Cooper Vortex podcast. 281 00:17:19,831 --> 00:17:21,333 I think about, all the time, 282 00:17:21,416 --> 00:17:24,252 "What was it like when his boots hit the ground?" 283 00:17:24,336 --> 00:17:27,422 "What did he see? What were his first thoughts?" 284 00:17:27,506 --> 00:17:30,801 And the idea that I might never get to know those answers 285 00:17:31,301 --> 00:17:32,427 drives me crazy. 286 00:17:33,220 --> 00:17:36,306 One of the biggest appeals for the Cooper case to me 287 00:17:36,389 --> 00:17:38,683 is just that unsolved heist. 288 00:17:38,767 --> 00:17:41,228 Like, seeing myself in his shoes. 289 00:17:41,311 --> 00:17:46,399 Like, "I planned this and I executed it, and I got away with it." 290 00:17:46,983 --> 00:17:49,319 Good morning, everyone. I'm Tom Colbert. 291 00:17:49,402 --> 00:17:51,530 And then you have Thomas Colbert, 292 00:17:51,613 --> 00:17:54,199 who is a strange character in his own right. 293 00:17:55,075 --> 00:17:57,160 Tom Colbert's one of the heroes, 294 00:17:57,244 --> 00:18:00,413 in the sense that he opened up all that FBI data, 295 00:18:00,497 --> 00:18:04,084 which is spectacular, but then there's this other part 296 00:18:04,167 --> 00:18:06,336 where I just think they've gone a little sideways. 297 00:18:09,047 --> 00:18:12,134 Tom is so convinced and remains so convinced, 298 00:18:12,217 --> 00:18:14,261 which is something I respect. 299 00:18:15,512 --> 00:18:17,639 A problem with being that convinced 300 00:18:17,722 --> 00:18:20,350 is that there's the possibility 301 00:18:20,433 --> 00:18:23,728 that you turn every shred of evidence in your favor. 302 00:18:23,812 --> 00:18:25,981 It is a smorgasbord of evidence. 303 00:18:26,565 --> 00:18:27,983 The Colbert story, 304 00:18:28,066 --> 00:18:31,027 I followed it closely, like everything with D.B. Cooper. 305 00:18:31,111 --> 00:18:34,322 And when it first came out, I thought it was really interesting. 306 00:18:34,406 --> 00:18:37,200 But Tom, I think, has transitioned more 307 00:18:37,284 --> 00:18:40,912 from proving his theory to selling it. 308 00:18:40,996 --> 00:18:42,622 Most people that I know 309 00:18:42,706 --> 00:18:45,667 think, basically, that Colbert's push 310 00:18:45,750 --> 00:18:49,796 to make the world think that Robert Rackstraw is D.B. Cooper 311 00:18:49,880 --> 00:18:53,091 is nothing but a Hollywood ploy for fame and fortune. 312 00:18:53,592 --> 00:18:56,970 But Colbert has become the underground conduit, 313 00:18:57,053 --> 00:18:59,306 the guy that a lot of things go to. 314 00:18:59,806 --> 00:19:02,017 And then in turn, he gives them to Cooper people. 315 00:19:03,393 --> 00:19:04,936 I never was a Cooperite. 316 00:19:06,188 --> 00:19:09,733 I've never engaged the blogs. They're on there arguing with each other. 317 00:19:09,816 --> 00:19:11,318 "It's my guy, your guy, this guy." 318 00:19:12,110 --> 00:19:13,111 They're obsessed. 319 00:19:14,196 --> 00:19:17,908 In the Cooper case, the perfect storm was the Internet. 320 00:19:20,035 --> 00:19:23,330 A fragmented group of people had a means 321 00:19:23,413 --> 00:19:25,457 to communicate with each other. 322 00:19:26,625 --> 00:19:31,796 And like anything else, you're full of facts being misrepresented, 323 00:19:32,297 --> 00:19:33,381 crazy theories. 324 00:19:33,965 --> 00:19:36,927 Inside job, black op situation. 325 00:19:37,469 --> 00:19:40,847 I don't know, D.B. Cooper was from Mars and he got zapped up by a UFO. 326 00:19:40,931 --> 00:19:43,058 That's the direction it goes. 327 00:19:43,141 --> 00:19:48,855 We are in such a conspiracy-driven modality right now. 328 00:19:49,731 --> 00:19:52,150 Trying to discern truth 329 00:19:52,234 --> 00:19:57,155 is now a major occupation of the American public. 330 00:19:58,907 --> 00:20:04,621 And the Cooper case is a tiny piece of that dynamic. 331 00:20:06,706 --> 00:20:10,502 On many of the Cooper forums, as one hunter wrote to another, 332 00:20:10,585 --> 00:20:12,420 "You're seeing Jesus in the toast." 333 00:20:12,504 --> 00:20:15,590 Linda Lowe says she's looking at an image of Jesus 334 00:20:15,674 --> 00:20:16,841 in melted cheese. 335 00:20:16,925 --> 00:20:21,763 It just… There's a sweetness on this particular image 336 00:20:21,846 --> 00:20:25,558 that just makes me want to smile when I look at it. 337 00:20:26,142 --> 00:20:28,770 In a way, everyone in this story is seeing Jesus in the toast. 338 00:20:28,853 --> 00:20:31,731 We all see what we want to see. We're projecting our selves. 339 00:20:31,815 --> 00:20:35,610 As humans, we look to make connections between different things. 340 00:20:35,694 --> 00:20:39,823 And sometimes when things align, we declare those connections truth. 341 00:20:40,490 --> 00:20:42,367 So whether it's Jesus in the toast, 342 00:20:42,450 --> 00:20:44,494 or your brother in Bing Crosby's face, 343 00:20:44,577 --> 00:20:45,829 that's what Cooper does. 344 00:20:45,912 --> 00:20:48,290 In the gaps and alleys between information, 345 00:20:48,373 --> 00:20:50,375 the mind comes in and puts belief systems 346 00:20:50,458 --> 00:20:53,211 onto this information and onto the suspects we want. 347 00:20:57,465 --> 00:20:59,843 In the online Cooper research community, 348 00:20:59,926 --> 00:21:02,512 most people have strongly held opinions. 349 00:21:04,723 --> 00:21:07,892 The environment online can be a little toxic, 350 00:21:07,976 --> 00:21:11,062 and not particularly inviting for new people to enter. 351 00:21:12,272 --> 00:21:15,567 You're getting hundreds of comments a day, 352 00:21:15,650 --> 00:21:18,278 and it got mean and angry real quick. 353 00:21:19,321 --> 00:21:23,241 I've been subjected to cyberattacks. I had files stolen. 354 00:21:23,325 --> 00:21:26,828 It affected my computer. Everything had to be cleaned out. 355 00:21:26,911 --> 00:21:28,204 And they were quite vicious. 356 00:21:28,288 --> 00:21:32,792 Some of them came, apparently, from other D.B. Cooper investigators. 357 00:21:35,337 --> 00:21:38,548 I had someone post on a picture of my family 358 00:21:38,631 --> 00:21:40,425 that my wife and kids were ugly. 359 00:21:40,508 --> 00:21:42,302 I mean, it just got wild, 360 00:21:42,385 --> 00:21:46,181 people trying to defend the information that they had. 361 00:21:50,810 --> 00:21:52,312 My name is Tim Evans. 362 00:21:52,395 --> 00:21:54,773 I'm an investigative reporter at the Indianapolis Star. 363 00:21:56,066 --> 00:22:00,236 In 2018, the newspaper got a call from Tom Colbert pitching a story. 364 00:22:00,320 --> 00:22:02,947 And somebody said, "Well, that'd be a good story for Tim." 365 00:22:03,031 --> 00:22:04,491 And I got on the phone, 366 00:22:04,574 --> 00:22:07,327 and Tom was very eager to get his story out. 367 00:22:07,410 --> 00:22:09,871 He was very confident that he had a great story. 368 00:22:09,954 --> 00:22:12,791 He had a smooth demeanor, complimenting me on my prior work. 369 00:22:12,874 --> 00:22:15,752 He'd done at least a little homework and knew something I'd written before. 370 00:22:15,835 --> 00:22:18,880 Kind of schmoozing me a little bit, drawing me in. 371 00:22:19,839 --> 00:22:22,801 Tom said, "You're the guy I want to share the story with." 372 00:22:22,884 --> 00:22:26,346 Um, I know he went to other papers, so I'm not sure how sincere that was, 373 00:22:26,429 --> 00:22:28,306 but he was active in following up regularly. 374 00:22:28,390 --> 00:22:30,600 "Are you making progress? Have you talked to so-and-so?" 375 00:22:30,683 --> 00:22:32,811 Much more aggressive and persistent 376 00:22:32,894 --> 00:22:34,729 than the typical source that I would deal with. 377 00:22:34,813 --> 00:22:37,482 Most of the people I talk to, I have to pry things out of them, 378 00:22:37,565 --> 00:22:39,818 and he was kind of like drinking from a fire hose. 379 00:22:41,903 --> 00:22:44,489 Tom has a lot of energy toward the case, 380 00:22:44,572 --> 00:22:46,950 and he's got a lot invested. 381 00:22:47,575 --> 00:22:50,036 And he needs for it to turn out well. 382 00:22:52,080 --> 00:22:54,207 Tom wanted to drive as much as he could 383 00:22:54,290 --> 00:22:55,667 how the story was going to be done, 384 00:22:55,750 --> 00:22:58,211 who I would talk to, but that's not the way I work. 385 00:22:58,294 --> 00:23:01,256 You know, I appreciated his help and in pointing me to sources, 386 00:23:01,339 --> 00:23:03,633 but I need to research and get my facts, 387 00:23:03,716 --> 00:23:05,969 and find out if Rackstraw actually was Cooper or not. 388 00:23:10,723 --> 00:23:12,016 This is Bob. 389 00:23:12,100 --> 00:23:14,352 Yeah, Mr. Rackstraw, my name is Tim Evans. 390 00:23:14,436 --> 00:23:17,147 I'm a reporter with the Indianapolis Star newspaper. 391 00:23:17,230 --> 00:23:19,065 I'm sorry to call you out of the blue like this, 392 00:23:19,149 --> 00:23:21,985 but I've been contacted by a guy named Colbert. 393 00:23:22,068 --> 00:23:24,404 He's alleging that you are, uh, 394 00:23:24,487 --> 00:23:27,073 the guy who did the D.B. Cooper hijacking and-- 395 00:23:27,157 --> 00:23:29,993 I have no idea. But Colbert has been attacking me 396 00:23:30,076 --> 00:23:31,536 for a number of years, 397 00:23:31,619 --> 00:23:34,581 resulting in a big massive lawsuit. 398 00:23:34,664 --> 00:23:38,460 So now what he's doing is he's sending out six pages of information 399 00:23:38,543 --> 00:23:41,463 to a whole bunch of small-town newspapers, 400 00:23:41,546 --> 00:23:43,965 and then we'll do the old Nazi Blitzkrieg 401 00:23:44,048 --> 00:23:46,176 and hammer Rackstraw once again. 402 00:23:46,259 --> 00:23:47,927 So that's where it is. 403 00:23:48,011 --> 00:23:49,888 And have you filed a lawsuit against him? 404 00:23:51,431 --> 00:23:53,641 -It's coming. -It's coming? Okay. 405 00:23:53,725 --> 00:23:56,144 Do not print anything about me. 406 00:23:56,227 --> 00:23:58,104 -I will sue the crap out of you. -Mm-hmm. 407 00:23:58,188 --> 00:24:00,148 So are you, are you not… 408 00:24:00,231 --> 00:24:02,984 Are you denying that you're-- what he's saying is true? 409 00:24:03,985 --> 00:24:07,405 Don't get to the bottom line. That's a $40 million question. 410 00:24:07,489 --> 00:24:10,241 -Let him answer it. What did he say? -He says you are, 411 00:24:10,325 --> 00:24:13,036 and that's why I'm trying to give you an opportunity to say you're not. 412 00:24:13,536 --> 00:24:16,915 Well, opportunity to dig into whether he's telling the truth. 413 00:24:17,499 --> 00:24:19,209 During my interview with Rackstraw, 414 00:24:19,292 --> 00:24:22,629 I gave him at least four opportunities to say, "I'm not D.B. Cooper." 415 00:24:22,712 --> 00:24:24,631 "I'm not the person responsible for that." 416 00:24:24,714 --> 00:24:27,509 And he continued kind of teasing people 417 00:24:27,592 --> 00:24:30,553 that maybe he is, "Maybe I know more than I'm telling." 418 00:24:30,637 --> 00:24:33,264 And I felt like he liked being considered Cooper, 419 00:24:33,348 --> 00:24:35,558 keeping that mystery alive, being a part of it. 420 00:24:35,642 --> 00:24:37,685 And he knew, certainly, what Colbert was doing. 421 00:24:37,769 --> 00:24:40,438 He knew the schedule Colbert was working on. 422 00:24:40,939 --> 00:24:44,526 That also was intriguing. You know, how did he know that much? 423 00:24:44,609 --> 00:24:47,779 Were they part of a team, or were they really adversaries? 424 00:24:47,862 --> 00:24:48,947 Or what was really going on? 425 00:24:50,615 --> 00:24:53,243 Were they involved together in selling the story? 426 00:24:54,035 --> 00:24:57,789 You know, if they could have put something together, 427 00:24:57,872 --> 00:25:01,000 I think Rackstraw would've definitely been into that. 428 00:25:01,084 --> 00:25:06,464 I think the only thing holding him back was, you know, confessing to the crime. 429 00:25:07,048 --> 00:25:09,968 But I've heard rumors that Colbert offered him some money to… 430 00:25:10,468 --> 00:25:11,553 to confess to it. 431 00:25:12,845 --> 00:25:15,098 We're here to tell you that there's good news. 432 00:25:15,181 --> 00:25:18,935 And it starts with a $20,000 cashier's check 433 00:25:19,018 --> 00:25:21,020 to get you to tell your true story. 434 00:25:21,104 --> 00:25:25,024 It was an interesting relationship, I can tell you that. 435 00:25:26,192 --> 00:25:28,820 Rackstraw was a narcissistic sociopath. 436 00:25:28,903 --> 00:25:30,321 He really was. 437 00:25:30,405 --> 00:25:31,823 He tried to engage us, 438 00:25:31,906 --> 00:25:34,534 but we never responded after the ambush. 439 00:25:35,118 --> 00:25:37,245 I never spoke to Rackstraw again. 440 00:25:37,328 --> 00:25:40,915 I stayed focused on gathering the evidence for the investigation. 441 00:25:41,791 --> 00:25:45,628 Do you know anything about the guy in Indiana that he had supposedly 442 00:25:45,712 --> 00:25:48,131 decoded the messages, or…? 443 00:25:48,214 --> 00:25:50,800 Yeah. His name is Sherwood, is that it? 444 00:25:50,883 --> 00:25:52,260 Yeah, I think. Yeah, yeah. 445 00:25:52,343 --> 00:25:56,055 It was a hurrah moment, I guess, eureka moment for Colbert, 446 00:25:56,139 --> 00:25:57,807 grasping at the last straw. 447 00:26:04,522 --> 00:26:07,609 It was December of 2017 448 00:26:08,234 --> 00:26:09,485 when I was on the Internet, 449 00:26:09,569 --> 00:26:13,823 and I actually seen a letter that D.B. Cooper wrote 450 00:26:13,906 --> 00:26:14,907 to newspapers. 451 00:26:16,451 --> 00:26:18,578 In the aftermath of the skyjacking, 452 00:26:19,245 --> 00:26:22,165 an individual purporting to be D.B. Cooper 453 00:26:22,665 --> 00:26:28,087 was sending letters, essentially taunting the FBI. 454 00:26:28,671 --> 00:26:29,505 "Ha, ha." 455 00:26:29,589 --> 00:26:31,132 "You can't catch me." 456 00:26:31,883 --> 00:26:35,053 And whoever the person was, was providing information 457 00:26:35,136 --> 00:26:37,555 that only the skyjacker 458 00:26:37,639 --> 00:26:39,515 conceivably would have known. 459 00:26:40,808 --> 00:26:45,480 Some of these letters were made known contemporaneously. 460 00:26:45,563 --> 00:26:49,859 But we found out there had been other letters that had been received, 461 00:26:49,942 --> 00:26:52,278 and intentionally not released. 462 00:26:53,321 --> 00:26:56,824 So we got access to these letters that had been unpublished 463 00:26:56,908 --> 00:27:00,787 through the FOIA lawsuit, the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. 464 00:27:00,870 --> 00:27:02,413 So I called Tom. 465 00:27:02,497 --> 00:27:05,875 I said, "What's this about the numbers that nobody could ever figure out?" 466 00:27:05,958 --> 00:27:08,252 He goes, "Yeah, the FBI couldn't break her." 467 00:27:08,753 --> 00:27:11,464 I used to work with codes, so I said, "Send me the letter." 468 00:27:12,298 --> 00:27:13,549 I said, "Humor me." 469 00:27:15,134 --> 00:27:19,514 So he sent it to me, and I spent, I don't know, eight, ten hours a day, 470 00:27:19,597 --> 00:27:22,100 seven days a week, about two weeks. 471 00:27:23,142 --> 00:27:24,977 I used everything I could think of, 472 00:27:25,061 --> 00:27:28,147 threw all the codes and everything that I was trained on. 473 00:27:28,815 --> 00:27:30,149 I got to the point where I said… 474 00:27:32,652 --> 00:27:34,195 "If this is Rackstraw," 475 00:27:34,278 --> 00:27:37,407 I said, "I have to know, 'What does he think like?'" 476 00:27:37,490 --> 00:27:38,741 "'What makes him tick?'" 477 00:27:41,244 --> 00:27:43,788 I kept looking at that one set of numbers we had. 478 00:27:44,539 --> 00:27:47,291 "Why'd he put 71 three times on there?" 479 00:27:47,375 --> 00:27:48,376 Wait a minute. 480 00:27:48,459 --> 00:27:51,713 371? I said, "Man, that was my unit in Vietnam." 481 00:27:53,089 --> 00:27:56,092 And Rackstraw wanted to be with the unit back then. 482 00:27:58,469 --> 00:28:02,306 So, I wrote down everything that we did in 'Nam, 483 00:28:02,890 --> 00:28:05,518 and started putting numbers to everything. 484 00:28:06,352 --> 00:28:09,313 And at the top of that letter has seven Cs. 485 00:28:11,065 --> 00:28:12,775 Seven Cs, that's 21. 486 00:28:14,068 --> 00:28:15,319 Army Security Agency, 487 00:28:15,987 --> 00:28:18,281 which all our units were a part of. 488 00:28:18,865 --> 00:28:20,742 ASA, 21. 489 00:28:21,576 --> 00:28:23,786 I'm going, "Whoa, there it is." 490 00:28:24,662 --> 00:28:25,538 Bingo. 491 00:28:28,958 --> 00:28:31,544 Rick Sherwood used a technique 492 00:28:31,627 --> 00:28:34,630 that could be called simple English gematria. 493 00:28:35,214 --> 00:28:38,634 Taking the letters and converting them to numbers. 494 00:28:38,718 --> 00:28:41,888 A equals one, B equals two, and so forth. 495 00:28:42,388 --> 00:28:45,057 What you do in gematria is you add them up. 496 00:28:45,141 --> 00:28:48,936 If two phrases add up to the same value, 497 00:28:49,020 --> 00:28:51,355 then somehow they're supposed to be related. 498 00:28:52,148 --> 00:28:55,985 For example, George W. Bush and John F. Kerry, 499 00:28:56,068 --> 00:29:00,156 these, of course, are the candidates in the 2004 US presidential election. 500 00:29:00,656 --> 00:29:03,034 Do they have some sort of mystical connection? 501 00:29:03,117 --> 00:29:05,995 Uh, I think it's just a coincidence. 502 00:29:06,746 --> 00:29:08,623 Because Dennis Rodman, 503 00:29:09,499 --> 00:29:11,918 if you add up the letters, also 130. 504 00:29:13,878 --> 00:29:16,172 I'm not a conspiracy theorist or anything like that. 505 00:29:16,672 --> 00:29:19,425 You know, for me to be the one that broke it… 506 00:29:21,719 --> 00:29:23,679 that's only because I was in that unit. 507 00:29:26,599 --> 00:29:30,436 371st, which was Radio Research Unit, 508 00:29:31,187 --> 00:29:34,065 Army Security Agency, which we were part of, 509 00:29:34,982 --> 00:29:38,152 and our top secret helicopters flew out of 11th GS. 510 00:29:39,529 --> 00:29:42,949 So us, in entirety, 511 00:29:43,991 --> 00:29:45,827 was top secret. 512 00:29:48,496 --> 00:29:52,959 All four of them things would add up, and they all were my unit, 513 00:29:54,377 --> 00:29:55,545 that he wanted to be in. 514 00:29:55,628 --> 00:29:58,297 That he was, temporarily, for six weeks. 515 00:30:00,633 --> 00:30:02,051 What's the odds of that? 516 00:30:03,678 --> 00:30:05,763 There was a correlation between 517 00:30:05,847 --> 00:30:08,266 what he used in Southeast Asia 518 00:30:08,349 --> 00:30:09,809 and then what was found 519 00:30:09,892 --> 00:30:11,811 and decrypted 520 00:30:11,894 --> 00:30:14,480 from the D.B. Cooper letters. 521 00:30:14,564 --> 00:30:16,607 That's a pretty strong correlation. 522 00:30:19,694 --> 00:30:24,031 D.B. Cooper is the case where people want the idea 523 00:30:24,782 --> 00:30:27,326 to fit this kind of preconceived notion, 524 00:30:27,410 --> 00:30:31,038 and they will discard the parts of it that don't fit. 525 00:30:31,122 --> 00:30:34,292 They will just find the pieces that fit in the box 526 00:30:34,375 --> 00:30:35,543 and then… 527 00:30:36,127 --> 00:30:39,338 And it's hard to argue with, because those pieces do fit in the box. 528 00:30:39,422 --> 00:30:41,632 But all the stuff that's left on the floor, 529 00:30:42,466 --> 00:30:45,261 never really gets addressed again. 530 00:30:47,221 --> 00:30:48,848 Codes are made not to be broken. 531 00:30:48,931 --> 00:30:49,974 That's why they're codes. 532 00:30:50,808 --> 00:30:53,644 But if you're going to have any chance at all of breaking a code, 533 00:30:54,645 --> 00:30:57,607 you have to know the one that wrote it. 534 00:30:58,816 --> 00:31:01,444 I had a pretty good grasp on Rackstraw. 535 00:31:01,527 --> 00:31:04,447 He was just showing he was smarter than everybody. 536 00:31:05,031 --> 00:31:07,700 It was depicted in everything he wrote. 537 00:31:09,160 --> 00:31:10,620 But the last letter, 538 00:31:11,203 --> 00:31:12,204 that was the key. 539 00:31:12,288 --> 00:31:14,790 That's the one where Rackstraw's name is in it. 540 00:31:16,959 --> 00:31:19,545 Tom says, "I don't think it's him. He's talking about his uncle." 541 00:31:20,880 --> 00:31:23,090 I said, "Tom, he's not talking about his uncle." 542 00:31:23,174 --> 00:31:24,800 I said, "He's talking about Uncle Sam." 543 00:31:25,843 --> 00:31:29,931 I read this thing twice. I said, "That's Rackstraw's MO." 544 00:31:30,014 --> 00:31:31,807 I said, "That's D.B. Cooper." 545 00:31:32,808 --> 00:31:34,268 And that last line there, 546 00:31:34,352 --> 00:31:37,980 "Please tell the lackey cops D.B. Cooper's not my real name." 547 00:31:38,689 --> 00:31:42,360 I said, "I wonder if he actually put his full name in there." 548 00:31:43,069 --> 00:31:46,948 So, I just took that section out and it come up 269. 549 00:31:48,491 --> 00:31:50,826 Robert W. Rackstraw, he had it all written down. 550 00:31:50,910 --> 00:31:54,372 I said, "He was a lieutenant, right?" He said, "Yep." There's "LT." 551 00:31:54,455 --> 00:31:55,373 And "I'm." 552 00:31:56,207 --> 00:31:58,334 From your letters to numbers… 553 00:32:00,086 --> 00:32:00,962 equals… 554 00:32:02,046 --> 00:32:04,256 269. 555 00:32:10,596 --> 00:32:12,723 So, he actually put his name 556 00:32:13,683 --> 00:32:14,600 in there. 557 00:32:15,101 --> 00:32:17,895 That was pretty much an "aha" moment there. 558 00:32:20,690 --> 00:32:22,358 When you look at something, you say, 559 00:32:22,441 --> 00:32:24,610 "There's got to be some sort of cryptic message in here," 560 00:32:24,694 --> 00:32:27,154 you have an infinite number of possibilities. 561 00:32:27,238 --> 00:32:30,533 You can make these documents say anything you want them to say. 562 00:32:30,616 --> 00:32:33,202 It's really a form of confirmation bias. 563 00:32:34,286 --> 00:32:39,375 So in my opinion, the letters are not in any way 564 00:32:40,334 --> 00:32:43,504 material evidence showing that Rackstraw was Cooper. 565 00:32:44,296 --> 00:32:48,259 I worked out that, "I am SpongeBob SquarePants" 566 00:32:48,342 --> 00:32:50,261 has the magic sum. 567 00:32:50,344 --> 00:32:54,390 I don't think that means that D.B. Cooper is SpongeBob SquarePants. 568 00:33:01,272 --> 00:33:04,942 You can come up with SquarePants, SpongeBob, whatever? 569 00:33:05,026 --> 00:33:06,902 Yeah, but is it relevant to it? 570 00:33:08,070 --> 00:33:11,532 Is it foolproof? No, I wouldn't say it's foolproof. 571 00:33:12,033 --> 00:33:15,119 You can come up with different interpretations, 572 00:33:15,619 --> 00:33:19,498 but this is the way Rackstraw communicates and does things. 573 00:33:20,499 --> 00:33:22,501 You know, it's interpretive coding. 574 00:33:23,461 --> 00:33:27,256 Just the way he goes about things in writing, 575 00:33:27,798 --> 00:33:29,175 and knowing about him, 576 00:33:29,258 --> 00:33:32,636 that's how I come up with the solutions. 577 00:33:32,720 --> 00:33:33,846 Interpretive. 578 00:33:35,639 --> 00:33:38,225 Mistaking ideal connections for real connections. 579 00:33:38,309 --> 00:33:41,228 That is a real danger when you are trying to do 580 00:33:41,312 --> 00:33:43,564 any sort of scientific investigation. 581 00:33:43,647 --> 00:33:45,775 You're not actually getting information out of the data, 582 00:33:45,858 --> 00:33:47,902 you're getting information out of your own mind 583 00:33:47,985 --> 00:33:50,071 based on your preconceived notions. 584 00:33:51,697 --> 00:33:54,700 We believe that decoding process was accurate, 585 00:33:54,784 --> 00:33:56,786 and accurately describes 586 00:33:57,703 --> 00:34:01,165 what Rackstraw said himself that he did. 587 00:34:01,916 --> 00:34:04,877 Rackstraw's name is in coded letters. 588 00:34:04,960 --> 00:34:07,922 And these are codes that go all the way back to World War I. 589 00:34:08,547 --> 00:34:14,470 The translations were not only done by a three-time NSA code buster, 590 00:34:15,012 --> 00:34:17,598 but the lieutenant-colonel of Robert Rackstraw. 591 00:34:17,681 --> 00:34:20,518 He also looked at the codes and said, "Those are bona fide." 592 00:34:21,227 --> 00:34:24,688 So I'm not going to argue with a hundred-year-old codebook, 593 00:34:24,772 --> 00:34:28,734 or a lieutenant-colonel, or a three-time NSA man. 594 00:34:28,818 --> 00:34:31,362 When they say the codes matched, they matched. 595 00:34:32,238 --> 00:34:34,907 Is it Rackstraw? Yep, it's him. 596 00:34:35,991 --> 00:34:36,909 It's confirmed. 597 00:34:36,992 --> 00:34:41,288 But don't take it any farther. Get him as the hijacker, that's it. 598 00:34:41,956 --> 00:34:44,291 So this is CIA. I mean, come on. 599 00:34:45,167 --> 00:34:47,044 Was he involved in other things? Yes. 600 00:34:50,047 --> 00:34:51,882 But I'm not at liberty to say. 601 00:35:05,396 --> 00:35:07,231 How disappointed are you 602 00:35:07,815 --> 00:35:10,192 if you can't prove what your case is, 603 00:35:10,276 --> 00:35:13,195 or gain the recognition or acknowledgment of it? 604 00:35:15,281 --> 00:35:18,242 It takes a certain type of person to keep pushing. 605 00:35:32,047 --> 00:35:33,048 Cycle… 606 00:35:36,218 --> 00:35:40,931 We are here today because of Russ and Kristy. 607 00:35:41,515 --> 00:35:45,477 They have new information dealing with his loot and the parachute. 608 00:35:46,520 --> 00:35:49,899 Kristy and Russ came to us right after the first documentary. 609 00:35:50,441 --> 00:35:52,985 Their last name is Cooper. No relations. 610 00:35:53,694 --> 00:35:57,865 So, Kristy told us, "My husband and I mapped the escape route." 611 00:35:58,490 --> 00:36:01,702 "We also know where the parachute may be buried." Really? 612 00:36:02,536 --> 00:36:05,122 When he told me the story and everything was connecting, 613 00:36:05,664 --> 00:36:07,374 I said, "You know, we need to share this." 614 00:36:07,458 --> 00:36:11,503 This was all told at the table, at this small-plane airport. 615 00:36:12,296 --> 00:36:14,423 And according to our source, Russ Cooper, 616 00:36:14,506 --> 00:36:16,675 who was at the table and heard the story, 617 00:36:16,759 --> 00:36:19,178 Wally is the name of the man telling the story, 618 00:36:19,261 --> 00:36:21,472 and he's one of the four that were involved 619 00:36:21,555 --> 00:36:23,432 in the escape of Cooper. 620 00:36:26,143 --> 00:36:29,396 According to Wally, on the night of the skyjacking, 621 00:36:29,480 --> 00:36:33,651 Cooper had landed roughly 1,300 feet from Goheen's airstrip. 622 00:36:34,235 --> 00:36:36,862 There was three gentlemen waiting for him. 623 00:36:37,488 --> 00:36:40,032 And they loaded into a small aircraft, 624 00:36:40,115 --> 00:36:44,328 along with $50,000 of the money and the bomb. 625 00:36:45,412 --> 00:36:50,209 They flew over Vancouver Lake, where they dumped the money and the bomb, 626 00:36:50,793 --> 00:36:54,588 in order to leave a false trail that he had fallen into the lake 627 00:36:54,672 --> 00:36:55,589 and drowned. 628 00:36:56,590 --> 00:37:01,679 And then Cooper changed clothes, changed aircraft at Scappoose Airport, 629 00:37:01,762 --> 00:37:04,932 and he was flown back into Portland International, 630 00:37:05,015 --> 00:37:07,393 where he boarded a flight for Las Vegas. 631 00:37:09,311 --> 00:37:12,606 The other $150,000 and the parachute 632 00:37:12,690 --> 00:37:16,902 was loaded into a pickup that went to a certain location, 633 00:37:16,986 --> 00:37:20,864 and when Wally described it, I knew this spot. 634 00:37:22,491 --> 00:37:25,995 We made a few trips up there. Got together 13 team members. 635 00:37:28,163 --> 00:37:31,625 We're here to answer questions that thousands of people 636 00:37:31,709 --> 00:37:34,503 have been digging and trying to find the truth on. 637 00:37:36,130 --> 00:37:38,799 -What do you think so far? -I think we're gonna find it. 638 00:37:41,176 --> 00:37:43,429 If it was a buckle or a clip or something, 639 00:37:43,512 --> 00:37:46,056 even within five or six inches, it'd be ringing up. 640 00:37:52,354 --> 00:37:53,522 Look at what she's got. 641 00:37:54,398 --> 00:37:55,691 Whoa! What is this? 642 00:37:55,774 --> 00:37:57,276 -We don't know. -Fabric. 643 00:37:58,027 --> 00:38:00,696 -Damn, that looks like nylon. -A gunnysack. 644 00:38:01,322 --> 00:38:02,781 Uh, or a potato sack. 645 00:38:03,949 --> 00:38:07,411 It could be many things, including a parachute. 646 00:38:08,704 --> 00:38:09,955 It was laying right here. 647 00:38:10,039 --> 00:38:11,040 Oh. 648 00:38:11,123 --> 00:38:13,000 -On the surface? -Yeah. 649 00:38:13,083 --> 00:38:14,710 We'll have to kind of keep looking here. 650 00:38:14,793 --> 00:38:16,587 Yeah, see what else we got here, huh? 651 00:38:18,172 --> 00:38:19,673 -Here we go. -There it is. 652 00:38:20,507 --> 00:38:21,675 There it is. 653 00:38:21,759 --> 00:38:23,177 Piece of pipe or something. 654 00:38:23,886 --> 00:38:25,346 Not part of a parachute. 655 00:38:28,432 --> 00:38:31,018 -Pipe. -You're gonna keep that, right? 656 00:38:31,101 --> 00:38:33,520 -Oh yeah, absolutely. -See what that is. 657 00:38:33,604 --> 00:38:37,191 I mean, that could be part of the outer bag. 658 00:38:38,317 --> 00:38:40,069 Oh, it's hard to tell. 659 00:38:40,152 --> 00:38:41,278 Could be a harness. 660 00:38:47,576 --> 00:38:51,705 I still think we're on the right spot. It's hard to find nylon 661 00:38:51,789 --> 00:38:55,084 with a metal detector. That's what I have to say about it. 662 00:38:55,167 --> 00:38:56,335 And we may have. 663 00:38:56,418 --> 00:38:57,544 And we may have. 664 00:38:57,628 --> 00:39:01,131 We find what we believe to be pieces of the parachute. 665 00:39:01,673 --> 00:39:02,633 A strap. 666 00:39:02,716 --> 00:39:04,885 We brought it to the FBI. 667 00:39:05,844 --> 00:39:08,472 We were tipped the location of the parachute, 668 00:39:09,056 --> 00:39:12,518 we found the parachute, we brought them five materials. 669 00:39:12,601 --> 00:39:14,686 We haven't heard from the FBI since. 670 00:39:14,770 --> 00:39:18,482 Tom sometimes fell into the trap 671 00:39:18,565 --> 00:39:22,277 of, "I wouldn't have seen it if I hadn't believed it." 672 00:39:22,861 --> 00:39:25,322 They found a piece of nylon strap, 673 00:39:25,406 --> 00:39:28,992 and there are statements made like, "We found the strap, 674 00:39:29,076 --> 00:39:31,995 showing that this was the area they buried the parachute." 675 00:39:32,079 --> 00:39:33,539 What? That's a leap. 676 00:39:34,373 --> 00:39:36,500 And things like that disturb me. 677 00:39:37,668 --> 00:39:40,796 That area was a logging area 678 00:39:41,338 --> 00:39:44,341 in which a lot of activity had taken place over the years. 679 00:39:45,676 --> 00:39:49,012 I don't know that the analysis of those items 680 00:39:49,680 --> 00:39:52,141 were conclusive that it was a parachute. 681 00:39:52,641 --> 00:39:53,892 I don't think it was. 682 00:39:54,393 --> 00:39:55,894 Maybe it turned out to be nothing. 683 00:39:56,854 --> 00:39:58,313 Maybe it turned out to… 684 00:39:58,397 --> 00:39:59,773 Who knows what it turned out to be? 685 00:40:00,357 --> 00:40:06,321 Uh, but I would dare say, and wager and willing to bet, 686 00:40:06,822 --> 00:40:11,326 that the FBI never did a damn thing with that parachute. 687 00:40:11,410 --> 00:40:15,789 They have no interest in solving the D.B. Cooper skyjacking. 688 00:40:16,373 --> 00:40:17,499 None whatsoever. 689 00:40:21,462 --> 00:40:24,965 This case is one of the most interesting things 690 00:40:25,048 --> 00:40:27,134 that I participated in in the FBI, 691 00:40:27,217 --> 00:40:29,261 just because it endures. 692 00:40:30,471 --> 00:40:31,972 It's been 50 years. 693 00:40:32,473 --> 00:40:35,142 We're no closer to knowing Cooper's identity. 694 00:40:35,225 --> 00:40:37,269 I mean, we have suspects. 695 00:40:37,352 --> 00:40:40,647 There are new suspects all the time. Suspects fade away. 696 00:40:41,148 --> 00:40:44,109 But really, there's no direct link to any of them. 697 00:40:45,360 --> 00:40:48,947 Now, where we are, at the 50th anniversary of the case, 698 00:40:49,031 --> 00:40:53,619 I cannot say with any certainty who Dan Cooper is or was. 699 00:40:53,702 --> 00:40:57,247 I don't think anybody can, and to do so is just irresponsible. 700 00:40:57,873 --> 00:40:58,874 What I can say is, 701 00:40:58,957 --> 00:41:02,461 I feel like I know a lot more about who he is and was 702 00:41:02,544 --> 00:41:04,338 than last year and the year before. 703 00:41:05,672 --> 00:41:09,009 Every year we know a little bit more, new information comes out, 704 00:41:09,092 --> 00:41:11,553 new clues are analyzed in different ways. 705 00:41:11,637 --> 00:41:14,806 And I don't have a crush on a suspect right now. 706 00:41:15,849 --> 00:41:18,644 But I do have a point of my compass. 707 00:41:19,770 --> 00:41:23,023 And the point of my compass heads north to Canada. 708 00:41:24,608 --> 00:41:27,402 I feel that there are so many clues in Canada 709 00:41:27,486 --> 00:41:29,613 that have never truly been vetted all the way. 710 00:41:30,906 --> 00:41:35,244 The FBI never truly investigated the significant meaning of Dan Cooper. 711 00:41:36,245 --> 00:41:38,539 Dan Cooper was the name of a French comic book hero 712 00:41:39,665 --> 00:41:42,793 who flew airplanes and jumped out of them in conical-shaped parachutes. 713 00:41:43,877 --> 00:41:47,047 If the FBI says something, people truly believe it. 714 00:41:47,798 --> 00:41:50,801 But the real truth is, the FBI are made up of human agents, 715 00:41:50,884 --> 00:41:54,888 and the best work in the case has been done recently by citizen sleuths. 716 00:41:57,474 --> 00:42:00,811 People who have a passion, who have chased down these leads, 717 00:42:00,894 --> 00:42:04,982 who have found French comic books, who have googled their way to the truth. 718 00:42:09,611 --> 00:42:10,612 I would go north. 719 00:42:11,613 --> 00:42:13,490 I wouldn't waste any time in the States. 720 00:42:14,241 --> 00:42:16,201 I would go straight to Canada.