The money, which has not appeared in circulation in fifty-plus years, is consistent with death (the money went with him and was lost) but also consistent with an extreme and sustained decision not to spend it.
**How did the Tena Bar bills get there?**
The bills were at a river location on the Columbia, downstream from the general area where Cooper was believed to have landed. The most straightforward explanation is that the money entered the Columbia River system at some point and was deposited at Tena Bar by river action. But the intact packet structure, the rubber band preservation, and the diatom evidence suggesting the bills entered the water months after the hijacking complicate this story.
The alternative explanations—that someone moved the money, that the landing point was near the Columbia directly, that the river transport mechanism was different from what the simple story assumes—each require additional assumptions that cannot be verified.
**What was in the briefcase?**
The apparent bomb that Cooper showed to Florence Schaffner was described as eight red cylinders with wires and a battery. The briefcase was never recovered. No functional explosive device connected to the Cooper case has ever been found. Whether what he showed was a functional bomb, a convincing prop, or something else entirely is not known.
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## The Case as a Document of Its Time
The D.B. Cooper hijacking is also a historical document of a specific moment in American aviation and American law enforcement.
In 1971, you could buy a plane ticket with cash, under an assumed name, without showing identification. There were no metal detectors at airport entrances. There was no systematic screening of carry-on baggage. The assumption of the commercial aviation system was that the people who boarded planes were legitimate paying customers, and the processes for boarding were designed around convenience, not security.