New clues in D.B. Cooper case

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More than four decades later, three amateur scientists think they may have found evidence that would narrow down Cooper’s identity to that of an aerospace engineer or a manager.

To the naked eye, the piece of fabric was a nondescript black tie from J.C. Penney. But to the modern-day scientists, the tie was an “incredibly fortunate” piece of evidence in the investigation.

“A tie is one of the only articles of clothing that isn’t washed on a regular basis,” reads a section on the Citizen Sleuths website devoted solely to the tie. “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 a powerful electron microscope, the scientists say they have identified more than 100,000 particles of “rare earth elements” on the tie, including Cerium, Strontium sulfide and pure titanium, according to the Associated Press. Of those, titanium was the most notable.

“Titanium was a rare metal in 1971 and this makes it extremely unlikely it is a post-event contamination,” Citizen Sleuths notes on its site, which lays out in painstaking detail all of the findings from the case. “Its presence constrains Cooper to a limited number of managers or engineers in the titanium field that would wear ties to work.”

At the time, they noted, the element was used extensively by the military in aircraft and helicopters.

Scientists think he may have worked at Boeing, which at the time happened to be developing a Super Sonic Transport plane that used those elements, Tom Kaye, a lead researcher with Citizen Sleuths, told King 5 News.

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