FD-350 clipping: Rick Anderson, 'Dan Who?' on FBI's revised sketch and alias change
Document date 28 December 1972
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Id: Cooper-Part-53:009-011
Subject: Cooper Files: Cooper-Part-53:009-011 Document: FD-350 clipping: Rick Anderson, 'Dan Who?' on FBI's revised sketch and alias change Id: Cooper-Part-53:009-011 Page: https://cooper.theunsolved.net/documents/Cooper-Part-53%3A009-011 What is wrong (title, date, type, which pages belong together, copies)? What does the scan show?
A person reads every report. Corrections are made by hand, to the data — titles, dates, names, which pages belong together — never to the scans, and they can take a while to appear.
FBI 164-81, Vault Part 53 pp. 9–11 (DB Cooper-2234, DB Cooper-22348, DB Cooper-22349), News clipping, dated 28 Dec 1972 — cooper.theunsolved.net/documents/Cooper-Part-53%3A009-011
FD-350 (Rev. 7-16-63)
(Mount Clipping in Space Below)
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Dan Who?
BY RICK ANDERSON
The FBI, after 13 months of looking, has given up its man-hunt for the first and most fa-mous folk hero of air piracy, D. B. Cooper.
Apparently the problem was, there isn't any D. B. Cooper. Federal agents, according to this month's FBI Bulletin, are now running around after somebody named Dan Cooper.
And the new Cooper, suspect-ed of hijacking Flight 305 on Thanksgiving evening here last year and parachuting into his-tory with $200,000, doesn't look much like good ol' D.B.
In fact, Dan Cooper fits the role better, more rugged, dash-ing. If he has a look alike, it might be a young John Payne.
D. B.
Payne once starred in a move with actor Ben Cooper, and remember, you read it here first.)
Dan Cooper has more hair than D.B., the hairline starting farther down the forehead. The hair is combed differently, from the front swept back neatly to the right. D.B.'s hair was thin, curly, and was seemingly finger-combed straight across like a slightly balding bank teller.
The new Cooper has a wider, thinner mouth, turned down more prominently at the corners.
His cheek lines are deeper, the chin rounder, the forehead broader and creased slightly and, unlike D.B., Dan Cooper appears in new FBI sketches with AND without the infamous wrap-around sun glasses, reveal-ing "possibly brown" eyes.
The FBI in Seattle won't talk about the new Coop-er, or why one alias was replaced with another, if that is in fact true, and why suddenly there is, in effect, a new suspect in the world's first successful skyjacking.
"If you want to write a news story about it," said an FBI spokesman, "then I have no comment."
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(Indicate page, name of newspaper, city and state.)
p.Al Seattle Post- Intelligencer Seattle, Wash.
Date: 12/28/72 Edition: Final Author: Rick Anderson Editor: Dick Lyall Title:
NORJAK
Character: or Classification: 164-81 Submitting Office: Seattle
☐ Being Investigated
COPY SENT TO BUREAU
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DB Cooper-2234/
16 V-81- Sub B
SEARCHED.......... INDEXED.......... SERIALIZED........FILED.....[illegible]......
JAN 3 1973 FBI—SEATTLE
The FBI has been in the past going on the theory Cooper-is-dead, having been killed during his dramatic plunge from the low-flying 727 jet possibly in Southwest Washington, where major search efforts have centered.
Previous theories about how the hijacker got the name of D.B. Cooper were mainly that he may have selected it at random from the telephone directory in Portland, where he boarded his dream flight Thanks- giving afternoon, 1971.
There was, and still is, a Dan Cooper listed in the Portland book. There wasn't, and still isn't, a D.B. Cooper listed. (Seattle's 1971 directory had one Dan and two D.B.'s.)
Cooper, who at 3:22 p.m. on Northwest Orient Air- lines flight No. 305 en route to Seattle, pulled out a supposedly bomb-rigged briefcase, demanded $200,000 ransom for the 36 passengers and went on to become a folk hero in absentia — inspiring D.B. Cooper T-shirts and a ballad even — is now described by the FBI as speaking:
"Low . . . intelligently (with) no particular accent, possibly from the Midwest section of the United States."
The FBI also says he was "very polite at all times," as anyone with a bomb and a $200,000 gift might be.
Federal agents also now are looking for a new Cooper that is at least an inch shorter than the pre- viously reported height of 6-1; he's now 5-10 to 6-0.
Some similarities between D.B. and Dan remain — age in the middle 40's, white, male, complexion of "Olive, Latin appearance, medium smooth," and he is, or was, a "heavy smoker of Raleigh filter-tip ciga- rettes," the ones with the bonus coupons.
Last seen, Cooper was cuddling up to $200,000 in marked $20-bills and four parachutes in the rear of the 727 heading slowly towards Reno, where, the FBI Bulle- tin explains:
". . . When the plane landed, it was determined that Cooper, two parachutes, and the ransom money, had disappeared."
Which is to say he jumped.
Into history, maybe into hiding, possibly into his grave.
Whatever, it was his big moment. And somebody messed up on the name.
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DB Cooper-22348
BY RICK ANDERSON
The FBI, after 13 months of looking, has given up its manhunt for the first and most famous folk hero of air piracy, D. B. Cooper.
Apparently the problem was, there isn't any D. B. Cooper. According to this month's FBI Bulletin, Federal agents are now running around after somebody named Dan Cooper.
And the new Cooper, suspected of hijacking Flight 305 on Thanksgiving evening here last year and parachuting into history with $200,000, doesn't look much like good ol' D.B.
In fact, Dan Cooper fits the role better, more rugged, dashing. If he has a look alike, it might be a young John Payne,
Page A-8, Column 1
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RICK ANDERSON
Dan Who?
From Page A-1
(Payne once starred in a move with actor Ben Cooper, and remember, you read it here first.)
Dan Cooper has more hair than D.B., the hairline starting farther down the forehead. The hair is combed differently, from the front swept back neatly to the right. D.B.'s hair was thin, curly, and was seemingly finger-combed straight across like a slightly balding bank teller.
The new Cooper has a wider, thinner mouth, turned down more prominently at the corners.
His cheek lines are deeper, the chin rounder, the forehead broader and creased slightly and, unlike D.B., Dan Cooper appears in new FBI sketches with AND without the infamous wrap-around sun glasses, revealing "possibly brown" eyes.
The FBI in Seattle won't talk about the new Cooper, or why one alias was replaced with another, if that is in fact true, and why suddenly there is, in effect, a new suspect in the world's first successful skyjacking.
"If you want to write a news story about it," said an FBI spokesman, "then I have no comment."
The FBI has been in the past going on the theory Cooper is dead, having been killed during his dramatic plunge from the low-flying 727 jet possibly in Southwest Washington, where major search efforts have centered.
Previous theories about how the hijacker got the name of D.B. Cooper were mainly that he may have selected it at random from the telephone directory in Portland, where he boarded his dream flight Thanksgiving afternoon, 1971.
There was, and still is, a Dan Cooper listed in the Portland book. There wasn't, and still isn't, a D.B. Cooper listed. (Seattle's 1971 directory had one Dan and two D.B.'s.)
Cooper, who at 3:22 p.m. on Northwest Orient Airlines flight No. 305 en route to Seattle, pulled out a supposedly bomb-rigged briefcase, demanded $200,000 ransom for the 36 passengers and went on to become a folk hero in absentia — inspiring D.B. Cooper T-shirts and a ballad even — is now described by the FBI as speaking:
"Low . . . intelligently (with) no particular accent, possibly from the Midwest section of the United States."
The FBI also says he was "very polite at all times," as anyone with a bomb and a $200,000 gift might be.
Federal agents also now are looking for a new Cooper that is at least an inch shorter than the previously reported height of 6-1; he's now 5-10 to 6-0.
Some similarities between D.B. and Dan remain — age in the middle 40's, white, male, complexion of "Olive, Latin appearance, medium smooth," and he is, or was, a "heavy smoker of Raleigh filter-tip cigarettes," the ones with the bonus coupons.
Last seen, Cooper was cuddling up to $200,000 in marked $20-bills and four parachutes in the rear of the 727 heading slowly towards Reno, where, the FBI Bulletin explains:
". . . When the plane landed, it was determined that Cooper, two parachutes, and the ransom money, had disappeared."
Which is to say he jumped.
Into history, maybe into hiding, possibly into his grave.
Whatever, it was his big moment. And somebody messed up on the name.
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SEARCHED _____ INDEXED _____ SERIALIZED [illegible] FILED [illegible] DEC [illegible] FBI — SEATTLE
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Sub B [guess: LA] file 166-81-Sub B
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DB Cooper-22349
Serials: SE 164-81