D.B. Cooper

I had never heard of this man before, until recently when some new speculation cropped up. I saw this sketch and the sketch of him in sunglasses, but thought nothing of it until I saw it referenced online somewhere. So I wikied him. I find this story fascinating. For those who aren't in the know, in 1971 a man calling himself Dan Cooper (a media misunderstanding confused Dan Cooper with a suspect's name, D.B. Cooper and since then the moniker has stuck) boarded a 727 in the Northwest, hijacked it using a bomb as a threat, demanded and received $200,000 and four parachutes, and after a refueling stop, opened the aft stairs and jumped out of the motherfucking plane.

He's never been found again. No body, no evidence aside from a little over $5,000 found in a river in Washington state. How it got there is a highly debatable topic, as is the very possibility of him surviving such a fall. There are several suspects, the more interesting of the lot being Kenneth Christiansen, mostly because his brother, after watching a TV special on the hijacking, became convinced that Kenneth was D.B. Cooper.

I find this utterly fascinating. I pored over the wiki page here and became completely captivated. And while I'm not into people feeling as if one is above the law, I really hope he made it. Apparently none of the money has been located aside from that $5,000, leading people to either believe he died, or survived and just dumped the money once he realized the serial numbers had been released in order to track the money's whereabouts.

It's the only unsolved hijacking case in US history and for that reason I find it absolutely stellar. So I guess I'm calling this post a rave, because while he sucks for breaking the law and endangering lives, you have to admit: he's got/had balls.