What this means, if anything, for the identity of Cooper is unestablished. The tie could have picked up these particles from any number of environments and any number of people. The connection between the particles and the person who wore the tie is not direct and scientific; it is a chain of inference that begins with the assumption that the tie’s last extended wearer was Cooper, that the particles on the tie came from Cooper’s environment, and that the specific particles point toward a specific kind of environment.
Each link in that chain is reasonable but not certain. The particles are an intriguing lead, not a conclusion.
—
## The Anniversary of an Absence
Every year on or near November 24, the D.B. Cooper case resurfaces in news coverage. The anniversary of the hijacking has become one of those recurring news pegs that remind the public that the case exists, that it remains unsolved, and that the FBI has no answer to offer.
By now, if Cooper jumped into those dark Washington woods in 1971 and survived, he would be at least in his late eighties or older, assuming he was indeed in his mid-forties at the time of the hijacking. Most investigators who have studied the case believe Cooper is almost certainly dead, whether from the jump itself or from the passage of more than fifty years since.
The people who were on Flight 305 have mostly aged through and past their own accounts of the evening. Tina Mucklow, the flight attendant who spent the most time with Cooper and was the last known person to see him, largely withdrew from public discussion of the case after giving her initial testimony. Florence Schaffner spoke about the case more openly in later years. Captain William Scott and the other crew members gave extensive statements to the FBI.