These are not criticisms of the witnesses or the FBI. They are inherent features of the situation, and they mean that any composite drawn from those memories is an interpretation rather than a reproduction.
The sketch has been used in thousands of suspect comparisons over more than fifty years. The general description—white male, mid-forties in 1971, approximately five feet ten to six feet, dark hair—was used to screen or exclude candidates. Suspects who clearly did not match were eliminated. Suspects who were consistent with the description received further attention.
But the description’s very generality is a limitation. A middle-aged white man of average height with dark hair is not a narrow category. In 1971, this description encompassed millions of American men. Without more specific distinguishing features—a scar, an unusual physical characteristic, a very distinctive appearance—the composite becomes a type rather than an individual, useful for exclusions but not sufficient for identifications.
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## The Dan Cooper Comics Connection
The theory that the alias “Dan Cooper” was drawn from a French-language Belgian comic book has circulated in Cooper research for several decades. The comics in question were published by the Belgian publisher Le Lombard, beginning in the 1950s, and featured a fictional pilot named Dan Cooper who flew for the Royal Canadian Air Force.
The connection is superficially intriguing: the fictional Dan Cooper was a military aviator associated with Canada, and in at least one comic issue, the character was depicted parachuting from an aircraft. The comics were never published in English and were not widely known in the United States.