At 2 p.m., on Thanksgiving Eve, 1971, a tall, slim, middle-aged man walked into the Portland International Airport. Outside a blizzard was raging. He was carrying an attache case and dressed in a light-brown trench coat, a dark business suit and a black tie. He identified himself as Dan Cooper. He paid $20 for a one-way ticket to Seattle with a departure time at 2:50 p.m.

Onboard Boeing 727, Cooper ordered a drink. As the stewardess handed him the beverage, he slipped her a note. He paused, opened his briefcase to expose a nest of wires and added, “I have a bomb.”

Cooper demanded $200,000 in unmarked bills, a money sack and four backpack parachutes. He stressed that if his demands were not met, he would destroy the plane. The FBI complied and acquired the items Cooper had requested. He then instructed the pilot to refuel the plane and fly toward Mexico.

At 8:11 p.m., 10,000 feet over a blizzard-stricken Cascade mountain range near Ariel, Washington the red light on the pilot’s console indicating a dramatic change in cabin pressure went off. Cooper had jumped!

A search was assembled. A reporter covering the crime incorrectly referred to Cooper as D.B. Cooper. The name stuck.

Subsequently, no trace of Cooper was ever recovered—no parachute, no body, nothing. In 1980, a boy found $5,800 washed up on a sandbar of the Columbia River. Ralph Hammelsbach, the former head of the FBI’s search for Cooper until his retirement in 1983, concluded Cooper had probably died in the mountains and then been swept up by a mountain stream.

Many people disagreed with Hammelsbach’s assessment of the case.

For Dona Elliott, owner of Ariel Store and Tavern in Ariel, the answer is obvious.

“I bet he’s still alive,” Elliott said.

Elliott, 61, is one of Ariel’s many staunch Cooper supporters. She also oversees “D.B. Cooper Days,” the annual festivities that pay homage to Mr. Cooper.

“We’ve had between 300 to 500 people here,” Elliott said.

For Elliot, Cooper’s appeal stems from the mystery of his motives.

“He had a reason only he knows,” Elliott said.

Despite all the ballyhoo surrounding D.B. Cooper, Ariel hardly looks like a place where you would find a major festival.

Ariel is a tiny logging town 10 miles east of Woodland and roughly seven miles west of Mount St. Helens. It is home to about 200 people-mostly loggers.

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