Here’s How a Discarded Necktie Could Finally Solve the Mysterious D.B. Cooper Case

Did paleontologist Tom Kaye and his team solve the mystery of D.B. Cooper, which has fascinated professional and amateur investigators for years?

In 1971, an unidentified hijacker took control of a Boeing 727 that was traveling between Portland and Seattle. The man, who purchased his ticket under the alias Dan Cooper, presented a note to a flight attendant that read, “I HAVE A BOMB IN MY BRIEFCASE. I WILL USE IT IF NECESSARY. I WANT YOU TO SIT NEXT TO ME. YOU ARE BEING HIJACKED.”

He allowed the flight to land in Seattle, where he extorted $200,000 in unmarked bills and several parachutes in return for the passengers. He had the pilots take off again and set course for Mexico. However, he parachuted out of the plane in the middle of the flight to an uncertain fate.

After nearly 50 years, the FBI officially closed its investigation in July. However, numerous unofficial investigations are still ongoing in an attempt to either learn D.B. Cooper’s identity or learn what became of him following his jump. It seems that recent findings by one of these groups of amateur scientists may lead to a breakthrough in the investigation. The group, which goes by Citizen Sleuths, is made up of scientists from the state of Washington, where interest in the Cooper case is still high.

The Sleuths recently had a clip-on tie that Cooper left behind on the plane examined under an electron microscope. The test revealed the presence of cerium, strontium sulfide, and pure titanium particles. According to Tom Kaye, a paleontologist from Seattle’s Burke Museum and the team’s chief investigator, these particles are not normally found.

He explained to local Washington station KING-TV that the materials are “…what they call rare earth elements. They’re used in very narrow fields, for very specific things.”

This has lead Kaye and the Sleuths to believe that Cooper worked in the aerospace industry — which dominated the area at the time — possibly for Boeing.

Furthermore, Kaye believes Cooper held a relatively high position within the company.

“The tie went with him into these manufacturing environments, for sure, so he was not one of the people running these (manufacturing machines). He was either an engineer or a manager in one of the plants,” he said.

The group is keeping a running list of the discovered elements on their website, hoping that industry veterans will be able to help them narrow down which Boeing facility the specific elements came from, which would allow them to greatly narrow down their list of potential Cooper suspects.

“Someone may be able to look at those particles and say ‘Oh my gosh. I know what that means having those particles on the tie,” Kaye told KING-TV.

Kaye also spoke exclusively to Your Daily Dish about the findings. He explained exactly how the elements found potentially connect to the aerospace industry. “They are specific to Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) manufacturing. The Boeing connection is that they were getting ready to use a CRT for the first time in an airplane instrument panel.  The media is in error about him being a Boeing employee. The rare earth elements on the tie connect him to CRT’s, the titanium metal on the tie potentially connects to Boeing with the SST project,” he told us.

He also went into why he and the other Sleuths are continuing to investigate the Cooper case.

“We work with evidence not suspects. When there is new evidence that we can actually do science on that gets us moving. In this case the TV series Expedition Unknown provided the opening to have McCrone Associates a major analytical lab in Chicago further analyze the particles from the tie. New findings brought this latest round of interest.”

Our thanks to Tom Kaye for speaking with us. Any tips regarding the tie, or Cooper in general, can be sent to the group through the contact tab on the Citizen Sleuths website.