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In 1971, a mysterious hijacker parachuted out of a plane with $200,000 and vanished. This man is suing the FBI to get potential new clues

Published

2 months ago

September 30, 2023

Andrew Mathon

An artist's rendering of D.B. Cooper, who hijacked Northwest Orient Flight 305 out of Portland, Oregon, and demanded $200,000 in ransom. - CNN

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Eric Ulis was only 5 when a dapper man in a suit and sunglasses boarded a commercial flight in Portland, Oregon, ordered a bourbon and soda from his seat in 18E and then handed a flight attendant a handwritten note saying he had a bomb.

It was November 24, 1971, and the unidentified man, who later became known as D.B. Cooper, had a one-way ticket on the flight to Seattle.

Cooper opened his carry-on bag to reveal a jumble of wires and red sticks and demanded four parachutes and $200,000 in cash. After the plane landed in Seattle he swapped three dozen passengers for the cash and parachutes, then ordered the pilot to fly to a new destination: Mexico City.

But soon after takeoff, Cooper did something incredible: With the money strapped to his waist, he parachuted out of the rear of the plane and into the night, vanishing over the vast wilderness of the Pacific Northwest.

Cooper has not been seen or heard from since. His audacious stunt made him a folk hero, triggered an FBI investigation, led to tightened security at airports and inspired dozens of books and TV documentaries. It remains the only unsolved hijacking in US aviation history.

An artist’s rendering of D.B. Cooper, who hijacked Northwest Orient Flight 305 out of Portland, Oregon, and demanded $200,000 in ransom. – CNN

When decades passed without any solid new leads, the FBI officially closed the case in 2016.

But Ulis is still searching for clues. Now in his 50s, he says he’s spent countless hours scouring tens of thousands of FBI documents on Cooper for any details federal agents may have missed.

Cooper’s story resonates with a lot of people because it has a “James Bond-esque element to it,” Ulis says.

“It’s real. He was real. This is not a … Bigfoot legend,” he says. “No one was physically harmed. Of course, the crew endured some stress, but even they admit he was quite polite, all things considered. He exhibited grace under pressure.”

Ulis keeps a notebook next to his bed in his Phoenix, Arizona, home, just in case a new thought about the case strikes him in the middle of the night.

In the meantime, he’s pursuing a lead – related to Cooper’s clip-on necktie, which was left behind on the plane – he believes could possibly help amateur sleuths like himself figure out who Cooper was.

And to gain access to the necktie, he’s suing the FBI.

Ulis runs a CooperCon and is leading a search in the woods

For decades, law enforcement and amateur investigators alike have wondered: Who was the mysterious hijacker? Did he survive the plunge? Was his name really Dan Cooper, as his boarding pass indicated, or was that an alias inspired by a French Canadian comic book hero – as the FBI later speculated?

Even Cooper’s name added to the intrigue. A journalist at the time mistyped it as D.B. instead of Dan, and the name stuck.

“For 52 years, everybody’s continued to call him D.B. Cooper. D.B. is just a more badass name than Dan,” Ulis says. “Back then, you didn’t have to go through a metal detector at the airport. You didn’t have to be checked. You didn’t have to provide a driver’s license to get an airplane to get a ticket. You could give a fake name.”

Ulis describes himself as a crime historian and aviation geek. For the past decade, he has devoted much of his time to seeking answers to the many questions surrounding D.B. Cooper.

He took part in a 2022 Netflix series titled, “D.B. Cooper, Where Are You?” and has hosted a History Channel show on the hunt for evidence about Cooper. He’s also written an e-book, “Silver Bullet: The Undoing of D.B. Cooper,” one of nearly 40 books on the elusive hijacker.

The hijacker's plane ticket had his name as Dan Cooper, but authorities think that may have been an alias. - FBI — The hijacker’s plane ticket had his name as Dan Cooper, but authorities think that may have been an alias. – FBI

Since 2018, Ulis also has held an annual CooperCon, at which fans of the hijacker gather to discuss elements of the case in granular detail.

And next month he’ll lead a team of volunteer searchers to explore an area near Tena Bar, a stretch of beach along the Columbia River in Washington state where $5,800 of Cooper’s ransom money was found in 1980.

Ulis says he has spent a lot of time in the area, trying to figure out how close the ransom money was to where Cooper may have landed. He’s viewed old news footage, studied FBI photos and familiarized himself with landmarks so he can guide searchers to specific areas.

He hopes to find important clues, including the parachute Cooper used that night.

“I firmly believe that D.B. Cooper’s parachute is lying in that area somewhere. It’s stashed away somewhere under some blackberry bushes or a thicket of trees or something of that nature,” he says. “It’s been sitting there for 52 years.”

He’s also focusing on a clip-on tie the hijacker left behind

Before he became a D.B. Cooper expert, Ulis says he was a professional blackjack player, a skill he says helps him focus on facts and avoid conspiracy theories.

“That’s the world I came from. And it actually played a big part of shaping how I think,” he says. “Because that’s a world where you’re really just focused strictly on the math. You try to remove emotion as much as possible.”

Some friends consider his fascination an “eccentric hobby,” he says, but he tries not to bombard them with minutia on the case. He saves that for when he’s around like-minded people at CooperCon and other events.

Ulis says Cooper’s cigarette butts were initially recovered but later disappeared – a crucial piece of lost evidence that may have been useful given today’s advancements in DNA technology, he says.

But he has recently zeroed in on another piece of evidence: A clip-on necktie from JCPenney that Cooper left behind before he jumped off the plane nearly 10,000 feet over southern Washington.

The FBI has said it used DNA from items Cooper left behind to see whether it matched DNA from potential suspects. - FBI — The FBI has said it used DNA from items Cooper left behind to see whether it matched DNA from potential suspects. – FBI

The tie and the found ransom money are the key pieces of physical evidence in the case, Ulis says. While the FBI has already tested the tie for traces of DNA, Ulis believes the tie knot has a metal spindle that may still have undiscovered DNA on it.

In March of this year, Ulis filed suit against the FBI for access to the tie, which he says is being stored at FBI headquarters in Washington, DC. In his suit, Ulis asks that he and a DNA expert be allowed to collect swabs from the spindle.

Ulis says he would enter any DNA found into genealogy databases in the hopes of finding a match that would help unravel Cooper’s identity.

“That’s all I’m trying to get – access to that spindle to open it up. Have the DNA expert kind of swab it, and let’s just see what we come up with,” he says.

The FBI has not responded to CNN’s repeated requests for comment on Ulis’ request.

Larry Carr, a former FBI agent who worked on Cooper’s case, tells CNN he doesn’t believe the FBI took the spindle apart to process it. But whatever DNA found on the tie may be compromised, he says.

“The tie was never collected and handled by today’s standards. It was collected and handled by standards in 1971. And so who knows whose DNA is actually on the tie,” says Carr, a speaker at this year’s CooperCon event in Seattle in November. “That’s still another hurdle we have to jump because we don’t know if that, in fact, is Cooper’s DNA.”

However, he adds, “anything’s possible.”

Armchair criminologists have speculated about the case for decades

Cooper’s story has spawned a community of armchair criminologists who have spent five decades trading theories and speculating about his identity.

The FBI’s public bewilderment about the mystery has only fueled interest.

The bureau considered hundreds of potential suspects. Was it Richard McCoy, a man who hijacked a plane a year later and parachuted over Provo, Utah, with $500,000 in ransom money? No, he was home with his family around the time of Cooper’s hijacking, the FBI later found out. Was it Duane Weber, who claimed on his deathbed to be Cooper? Federal authorities used DNA evidence to rule him out.

Carr, the former FBI agent, lists several reasons why he believes Cooper didn’t survive the jump. He didn’t appear to be an experienced skydiver and didn’t know where he was when he jumped because he never asked the pilots for a location update or gave them a flight path. It also was dark, stormy and cold – poor conditions for skydiving.

Carr said the Cooper case is one of the most popular cases he worked on and he still thinks about it today.

“It’s a great story. And the story remains untold. And so everybody wants to know what the final chapter is,” he says. “We’ve all read the book to the final chapter, and it’s blank. And that’s what drives people nuts. Drives me nuts. I want to know what the final chapter is, just like everybody else.”

This lack of a resolution continues to drive Ulis and other amateur investigators. Since the FBI ended its investigation, its files about the case are now available to the public online, and Ulis says he’s reviewed about 35,000 pages of FBI documents.

He says he’s determined to find out who Cooper was within the next few years. And he suspects the truth is within reach.

“I try to keep it as fact-based and as simple as possible,” he says. “I apply Occam’s razor to the situation – the simplest explanation is usually the closest to the truth.”

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12 Nintendo Switch tips and tricks you probably didn’t know (but definitely should)

Published

3 weeks ago

November 17, 2023

Epic Times

A screenshot of one of the best Nintendo switch tips

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Regardless of how long you’ve owned your system, there are certain Nintendo Switch tips and tricks that you might not have known about (if you haven’t already, the Black Friday deals on the Switch might be the opportunity you’ve been waiting for). In this post, we’ll try to correct that by summarizing some of the features that have enhanced our personal use of the gadget.

There exist numerous tips and tricks to enhance your usage of Nintendo’s entertaining and portable system, such as customizing your Switch or remapping buttons to save space or even locate misplaced Joy-Cons. Though in this article we’re only going to talk about items you can customize with the Switch consoles themselves, so there’s no need to buy anything else, you might also want to have a look at some of the greatest Nintendo Switch accessories.

12 helpful hints for the Nintendo Switch

Remap your buttons if you’d like. Want to obtain extra saves? Our best Nintendo Switch advice and techniques are included here.

Recently, there has been a lot of interest in dark mode, in part due to the perception that it could aid with eye strain and, in part, because it looks cool. There is, in fact, a dark mode for the Nintendo Switch. Just select Basic Black from the Themes menu under System Settings. This will alter the background of the menu pages and home screen to black; the games will remain unchanged.

2. Modify the avatar on your Nintendo Switch profile

Upon initializing your Nintendo Switch, you will be prompted to select an avatar and establish a profile. You can, however, always alter your avatar afterwards. Simply tap your symbol in the top-left corner to access your profile page, and then select User Settings > Edit symbol.

3. Remap the buttons on a Nintendo Switch
a picture of one of the top Nintendo Switch tutorials

Remapping the buttons on your controller is something you might not be aware of if you’ve owned your Nintendo Switch for a while, as it was only made possible via an update released in April 2022. Navigate to Controllers and Sensors > System Settings > Change Button Mapping.

On the Nintendo Switch, buttons for both Joy-Cons and the Switch Pro Controller can be remapped. You may adjust the purpose of each button and the joystick’s orientation by simply choosing a controller. It is possible to adjust the Joy-Con inputs for both horizontal and vertical gaming.

Although the Nintendo Switch is incredibly portable, its usefulness when traveling without a power source may be limited by its short battery life. Although a battery charge typically lasts three to four hours, there are a few strategies you can take to extend its life.

One of the most obvious solutions is to lower the brightness of the panel. This is by default set to automatic. To adjust the brightness to a fixed lower level, navigate to the settings page. Disabling controller vibration under ‘Controllers and Sensors’ is an additional choice. Additionally, you can lower the volume and enter flight mode.

To monitor battery life more closely, you can enable the battery percentage display option (System Settings > System). Of course, a portable power bank can be a wise purchase if you plan to use your console for an extended period of time without access to electricity.

Have you lost your Joy-Cons? No worries, the Switch comes equipped with a feature that allows you to find controllers (so long as they are in the same area; it won’t work if they are at someone else’s house). To view the controllers connected to your console, navigate to Controllers > Find Controllers.

If the missing controller has fallen behind the sofa or under the bed, you can locate it by highlighting it and pressing the L or R button on the one you have. If not, it should vibrate. To make both Joy-Cons vibrate in case you lose them, tap the touch screen.

We adore the Nintendo Switch, but if you primarily use digital downloads, you may quickly run out of space once you’ve accumulated a library of games due to the device’s lackluster hard drive capacity. Archiving games that you aren’t playing right now is one way to solve the problem. While maintaining game saves, this frees up space.

Simply select Manage Software > Archive Software after highlighting the game and pressing +. System Settings > Data Management is another way to archive. Choose Quick Archive to receive recommendations based on file size and playtime recently. Select the software you wish to archive by clicking Manage Software.

Naturally, there’s a good risk that your hard drive will eventually run out of capacity, especially if you have the original Switch or Switch Lite, which only have 32GB of space (the 64GB OLED model doubles that). The truth is, you will most likely need to buy a MicroSD card at some point. Third-party choices are supported by the consoles, and Black Friday is frequently a good time to locate deals.

You can move game data between the microSD card and the console if you’re using one (System Settings > Data Management > Move Data Between System / microSD Card). Click Move Data after choosing your destination and the games you wish to transfer. One advantage of purchasing physical games—which are frequently less expensive if you discover a deal at a store like Amazon—is that they don’t take up as much room.

Finding out that a game only supports one save file and that you have to erase the old one in order to create a new one or restart the game can be annoying at times.Making several user profiles is an easy way to get around this. Since every profile has its own save data, you can make a save for every profile you have. Go to System Settings > Users > Add Users to establish a new profile. When you launch a game after that, you’ll be able to select from your many profiles

On the Switch, you can’t record very long gameplay videos, but you can at least snap screenshots and record brief gameplay clips of the previous 30 seconds. You may now transmit screenshots from the Switch to your phone instead of the very restrictive Facebook or Twitter option that was previously the sole way to share images.

Press ‘A’ to bring up the Sharing and Editing options when you open the screenshot on your Switch, and then choose Send to Smartphone. To establish a wireless connection between the devices, you must first use your phone to scan one QR code. After that, you must scan a second code to view an image on a web page. You are free to use the image however you see fit after saving it to your phone.

Using friend codes, you can connect and play games with other Switch users. By accessing your user profile, you may see your code—a 16-digit code that will show up next to your icon. The majority of online multiplayer games, including Fortnite, require a Nintendo Switch Online subscription, although some do not. To play online against your trusted pals, you’ll need to add them.

Since the Nintendo Switch is not region-locked, you can purchase games from retailers across the globe in addition to those in your home nation. The drawback is that it can be a little tricky to obtain a digital code from another nation. The code requires you to set up a profile in the nation where it was obtained, however this is a simple and free process.a

Navigate to System > User settings. Select an icon and a nickname for the profile by tapping Add New User. Following that, you’ll need to register as a new user online. Simply follow the instructions, making sure to select the correct nation for your profile and provide a second email address for verification. When you’re finished, you can use your profile to log into the eShop (you’ll notice the currency is different) and use the sidebar menu to redeem your voucher.

You can use any of your profiles to play the game after downloading it. But, if you remove the newly made profile, you won’t be able to access it.

Your Nintendo Switch home screen allows you to customize the wallpaper and rearrange the icons as you see fit. By selecting Custom, you have the option to design your own background color and pre-made themes. You’ll need a microSD card to transfer an image to your Switch in order to add a custom wallpaper. Proceed to System Settings > Themes > Change Theme after that. After selecting Custom, choose the desired image to use.

Once you have more than 12 titles, you may additionally group Switch software. Scroll all the way to the right from the Home Menu and choose “All Software.” In order to examine your software by groups, press the L button. “Select Create new group,” check the titles you wish to include, organize them as you see fit, and give the group a name. It is possible to establish up to 100 groups, each with 200 titles.

12. Understand how to perform a Nintendo Switch hard reset.

The Nintendo Switch could occasionally freeze on you, just like any other electrical gadget. Hard resets are typically able to remedy this. The console should reset if you hold down the system’s power button for up to 15 seconds. In more severe situations, you can conduct a full factory reset by deleting the memory by heading to System Settings > System > Formatting Options > Initialize Console.

If you’re still in the market for a Nintendo Switch system, check out our guide to the top Nintendo Switch bargains or the prices shown below for your area. We also have a post about the top games for the Nintendo Switch.

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Maria Menounos Saw Signs of Pancreatic Cancer a Year Before Her Diagnosis — Here’s What Doctors Missed

Published

3 weeks ago

November 17, 2023

Epic Times

Maria Menounos Saw Signs of Pancreatic Cancer a Year Before Her Diagnosis — Here’s What Doctors Missed

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8 teens face murder charges in deadly beating near Las Vegas high school

Published

3 weeks ago

November 17, 2023

Epic Times

8 teens face murder charges in deadly beating near Las Vegas high school

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After the attack, Jonathan Lewis, 17, passed away, according to the Clark County coroner’s office. It was stated that complications from numerous blunt force injuries were the cause of his death. Homicide was recorded as the cause of his death.

The ages of all eight are thirteen to seventeen. The teenagers’ names were withheld for a while due to their age. In Nevada, a case involving a 16- or 17-year-old accused of murder is immediately sent to the adult court system. We call this procedure “certification.” Although it is not always the case, judges have the authority to certify minors over 14 as adults for any type of felony offense, including murder.

The incident took place on Wednesday, November 1st, close to Rancho High School on the 1900 block of Searles Avenue.

LVMPD Lt. Jason Johannson stated at a press conference on Tuesday that all 10 individuals involved were Rancho High School students. Johannson declared that there was insufficient evidence to classify the occurrence as a hate crime and called the footage “void of humanity.”

Eight of the ten had been recognized by police as of Tuesday, according to Johannson. All eight were taken into custody by police and the FBI early on Tuesday.

According to Johannson, Lewis was not defending himself and was lying on the ground when he passed out. The altercation was allegedly about a vape pen and some stolen wireless headphones.

The father of the younger Lewis, Jonathan Lewis, revealed to 8 News Now that his 17-year-old son passed away on Tuesday, Nov. 7, due to the wounds. Lewis, an out-of-state resident, expressed his hope that the passing of his son would spark a discussion about youth violence in the Las Vegas area.

In a statement to 8 News Now after the arrest, he stated, “We all must be held accountable for our choices.” “In our community, we should be able to live in harmony and experience love! For me, justice is just now beginning to be understood. For me as a father, a big part of justice is identifying the real reasons why, at this age, our kids choose violence—the underlying causes, the fear of ongoing resource conflict and reliance on a dysfunctional system—and creating our own self-regulated riches and health instead!

Two persons who were still unidentified were requested to be identified by police. As of Tuesday afternoon, neither of the two’s photos had been made public.

It is suggested that anyone with information get in touch with the LVMPD Homicide Section via email at [email protected] or by phone at 702-828-3521. Call Crime Stoppers at 702-385-5555 or use their website to remain anonymous.

“Instead of enslaving yourselves to anger, rage, and cowardly violence, I’m calling on the youth to use their collective mob voice to demand change, create a deep sense of community, and do something with your power,” stated the older Lewis.