D.B. Cooper, Bigfoot, and the people with the time to still care

Might a clip-on tie be a clue to the identity of D.B. Cooper?

The Cooper name is attached to the mysterious man who hijacked a Northwest Orient flight in 1971 and then parachuted out of the jet, leaving the clip-on tie on his seat — 18E.

The FBI has given up, closing the case last year. So it’s up to private sleuths to figure out the mystery.

The Washington Post reports today that a group of scientists, calling themselves Citizen Sleuths, has analyzed the tie and found 100,000 rare earth elements (they’re posting them all on a website) — nobody ever washes a clip-on tie — including titanium.

That, one of them says, links him to Boeing, which was using the element in developing a supersonic transport (SST) at the time.

It’s not as if the FBI didn’t try the same thing. It recovered DNA from the tie and was never able to match it to anybody.

Why would people spend so much time on mysteries like this? Who can say.

In North Dakota, the people of Ellendale are convinced Bigfoot walks among them.

“It’s a bigfoot, sasquatch, gigantopithecus, whatever you want to call him,” trapper Christopher Bauer tells WDAY. “He’s a real animal, he’s here and I want people to know.”

He says he tracked Bigfoot after a family friend reported a monster outside her window.

“She described him as a huge, hairy, ugly monster and I guess that kind of describes it, if a Sasquatch is looking through the window at you, that’s how I’d describe him, too,” said Bauer.

The county sheriff says he’s not investigating.

Some mysteries remain a great way to waste time.

(h/t: Bob Hicks)