Ingram has remained, over the decades, the most direct human connection to the case’s most significant physical discovery. He was there when the bills came out of the sand. His family made the decision to take them to the FBI rather than spending or concealing them. His cooperation with the FBI—and the speed with which his family brought the bills in—is the reason the Tena Bar discovery was properly documented and authenticated rather than disappearing into private hands.
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## The Questions That Have Never Been Answered
More than five decades of investigation, public interest, private research, and scientific analysis have not resolved the Cooper case. The questions that were present at the beginning are still present now, and it is worth being explicit about what they are and why they have proved so resistant to resolution.
**Who was Dan Cooper?**
The alias tells us nothing about the man’s real name or identity. The physical description from witnesses gives us a type but not an individual. The tie’s DNA profile is too partial for a conclusive match. The microscopic particles on the tie suggest a possible background but do not identify anyone. The behavioral profile points toward experience with military parachuting and aviation knowledge, but this describes a very large population of American men of the relevant generation.
After more than 1,000 serious suspects, none has been conclusively identified as Dan Cooper by the FBI.
**Did he survive the jump?**
The conditions argued against survival. The terrain was dangerous. The equipment was not optimal. The night jump into unknown terrain in a business suit at near-freezing temperatures was extremely hazardous. Most investigators who have studied the case believe survival was unlikely. But there is no physical evidence of death—no body, no confirmed personal effects, no verified report of a death matching Cooper’s description in the jump zone in the weeks and months after November 1971.