A group of amateur detectives may have discovered a key component behind the mystery of the only unsolved skyjacking in U.S. history.
In 1971, a man in a suit known as "D.B. Cooper" took control of a Northwest Orient flight and demanded $200,000 in exchange, eventually fleeing the plane by jumping out the back with a parachute. Neither he nor the money were ever found, nor was he ever positively identified.
Now a group called Citizen Sleuths claims to have uncovered new evidence, The Washington Post reports, that points to Cooper being an aerospace engineer or a manager, based on particle analysis of a clip-on tie he wore on the plane.
"A tie is one of the only articles of clothing that isn't washed on a regular basis," their website reads. "It picks up dirt and grime just like any other piece of clothing, but that accumulation never truly gets ‘reset' in the washing machine.
"Each of those particles comes from something and somewhere and can tell a story if the proper instruments like electron microscopes are used."
Using an electron microscope, the researchers claim they found 100,000 particles of titanium, Cerium and Strontium sulfide.
"These are what they call rare earth elements. They're used in very narrow fields, for very specific things," Tom Kaya, lead researcher for Citizen Sleuths, told King 5 News.
"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," Kaye said.
At that time, Boeing was developing a Super Sonic Transport plane with those elements.
"Titanium was a rare metal in 1971 and this makes it extremely unlikely it is a post-event contamination," Citizen Sleuths wrote. "Its presence constrains Cooper to a limited number of managers or engineers in the titanium field that would wear ties to work."
Despite the new evidence, the FBI is unlikely to reopen the case.
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