He vanished into a freezing November rain over the Pacific Northwest, trailing two parachutes and a bag stuffed with $200,000 in twenty-dollar bills. We don't have his real name. We don't have his DNA—at least, nothing that isn't a degraded mess from a clip-on tie. What we do have, and what has fueled a half-century of obsession, are the pictures of DB Cooper.
But here is the thing: they aren't actually pictures.
Not in the way we think of them today. There are no high-res selfies from the back of Flight 305. There are no grainy security feed captures from the Portland International Airport terminal. In 1971, you couldn't just whip out a smartphone. Instead, the visual legacy of the world’s most famous skyjacker relies almost entirely on the memories of a few flight attendants and a handful of composite sketches that have become iconic pieces of American folklore.
The Face That Launched a Thousand Dead Ends
When people search for pictures of DB Cooper, they usually land on "Composite B." You know the one. It’s the black-and-white sketch of a man who looks remarkably nondescript. He’s wearing dark wrap-around sunglasses. His hair is short, styled in a classic late-60s or early-70s businessman’s crop. He looks like your dad’s accountant or a guy waiting for a bus in downtown Seattle.
That’s exactly why it’s so frustrating.
The FBI worked with witnesses like Florence Schaffner and Tina Mucklow to create these images. They sat in rooms for hours, trying to recall the slope of a nose or the width of a jawline while under immense pressure. Imagine trying to describe a guy who just told you he had a bomb in his briefcase. You’d be shaky, too.
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The first sketch, Composite A, looks a bit more "rough." It shows a man with more prominent ears and a slightly different brow. But Composite B is the one that stuck. It’s the image that launched the hunt for Richard McCoy, Sheridan Peterson, and Robert Rackstraw. If you look at a photo of Robert Rackstraw from 1971 and put it next to that sketch, the resemblance is honestly uncanny. The hairline matches. The stare matches. Yet, the FBI couldn't bridge the gap between a drawing and a conviction.
Why We Don't Have a Real Photo
It feels weird in the digital age. We’re used to seeing every criminal’s face on a Ring doorbell camera within twenty minutes of a porch piracy. But back on November 24, 1971, the world was analog.
Cooper—or "Dan Cooper" as he signed his ticket—was smart. He stayed in his seat, 18C. He wore dark sunglasses most of the time. He didn't cause a scene that would make a passenger reach for their Kodak Instamatic. By the time the authorities realized they were dealing with a hijacking, the plane was already back in the air, headed toward Reno after a stop in Seattle to swap passengers for cash.
The only "real" pictures of DB Cooper we have are actually photos of his stuff. We have photos of the tie he left behind. A J.C. Penney clip-on. It’s been analyzed by everyone from the FBI to the "Cooperites" (the hardcore amateur sleuths). They found particles of titanium on it. Specifically, pure titanium. In 1971, that stuff was rare. It was used in specialized chemical plants or aerospace facilities like Boeing. This led people to believe Cooper wasn't just some random thug, but maybe an engineer or a lab tech who had been laid off during the "Boeing Bust."
The Bingara Money and the T-6 Lines
In 1980, a young boy named Brian Ingram was digging in the sand at Tina Bar, a spot along the Columbia River. He found three bundles of cash. It was the Cooper money. The FBI confirmed the serial numbers.
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The photos of that money are haunting. The bills are degraded, rotted by years of exposure to water and sediment. They look like old, wet leaves. These photos are the closest thing we have to a "crime scene" image from the actual jump. They tell a story of failure—either Cooper’s failure to survive the jump, or his failure to hold onto his loot.
Geologists and researchers like Tom Kaye from the Citizen Sleuths project have spent years looking at these "pictures" of the evidence. They looked at diatoms—tiny silica-shelled algae—found on the bills. The diatoms on the money were "spring" diatoms. But Cooper jumped in November. This suggests the money didn't wash up immediately. It sat somewhere else and arrived at the riverbank much later. This kind of detail is why the case never dies. Every time we look at a "picture" of the evidence, we find something that contradicts the original timeline.
The Suspects and the "Almost" Matches
Since there is no "real" photo of the man, the hobby of Cooper hunting basically involves finding old military or employee ID photos of men from the 70s and comparing them to the sketch.
- Sheridan Peterson: He was a smokejumper. He worked at Boeing. He was in Nepal around the time of the hijacking. If you look at pictures of Peterson, he has the same "look" as the sketch. Even his own kids thought it might be him.
- Robert Rackstraw: A former Army paratrooper with a chest full of medals and a history of check fraud. When reporters asked him if he was Cooper, he would give a sly grin and say, "I told you I’m not." He never explicitly denied it in a way that felt believable.
- Richard McCoy: He actually pulled off a "copycat" hijacking less than a year later. He looked just like the sketch. He was killed in a shootout with the FBI. Case closed? Not quite. The flight attendants didn't think he was the guy.
The problem with relying on pictures of DB Cooper (the sketches) is that the human brain is wired to find patterns. If you look at a sketch long enough, you can find a dozen men in your own neighborhood who look like him. It’s the "Everyman" face.
The New Age of Digital Forensics
Lately, people have tried to use AI to "colorize" or "photorealistically enhance" the 1971 sketches. You've probably seen them on Reddit or YouTube. They take the line drawing and turn it into something that looks like a high-school yearbook photo.
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While these are cool, they aren't evidence. They are interpretations of an interpretation.
The real breakthrough might come from "pictures" we can't see with the naked eye. DNA sequencing is getting better. If the FBI ever manages to pull a clean profile from that tie, we won't need a picture. We’ll have a name. Until then, we are stuck staring at a man in sunglasses who doesn't exist outside of a charcoal drawing.
What You Can Actually Do With This Information
If you’re fascinated by the visual history of this case, don't just look at the sketches. Dig into the technical photos.
- Study the Flight Path: Look at the "Yellow Line" photos of the flight path between Seattle and Reno. It shows exactly where the aft stairs were lowered.
- Examine the Money Photos: Search for the high-resolution scans of the Tina Bar bills. Look at the way the rubber bands had snapped but were still present. It tells you a lot about how long that money was submerged.
- Look at the Tie Particles: The Citizen Sleuths website has electron microscope "pictures" of the particles found on Cooper’s tie. This is the real "DNA" of the case. It points to someone who worked in a very specific type of metal fabrication environment.
Honestly, we might never see a real photo of Dan Cooper. He was a ghost in a suit, a man who stepped out of a 727 and into a permanent mystery. But the lack of a photo is exactly why we can't stop looking. We want to be the one to finally put a real face to the name.
The best way to stay updated isn't by waiting for a new sketch. It's by following the scientific analysis of the physical evidence. Groups like the Cooper Research Group continue to hold symposiums where they dissect every "picture" of the evidence available. If you're ever in Washington or Oregon, visiting the Washington State Historical Society can provide a firsthand look at some of the artifacts that have been photographed a million times over. Seeing the real thing changes your perspective on the sketches entirely.
Ultimately, the search for the man is a search for a ghost. But as long as those sketches exist, the hunt will never truly be over.
Actionable Insight: If you want to dive deeper into the visual evidence, visit the FBI Vault and look at the "Evidence" folders. They contain the original, unedited crime scene photos of the aircraft and the items recovered. It is the only place to find factual, non-interpreted visual data on the case.