True story: I love a good mystery. As a kid it was reading Tom Swift & the Hardy Boys & watching Twilight Zone reruns. Later it was Sherlock Holmes & Agatha Christie novels & faithfully watching Unsolved Mysteries & the X-Files. I, like so many, find myself regularly intrigued by the missing pieces. An incomplete story. The unexplainable curiosities of our world & existence. Lockness. JFK. Area 51. The Bermuda Triangle. Atlantis. The ocean depths. Extraterrestrials. After death??
There’s a deep fear that comes with ambiguity & non-closure. Many of us are quite uncomfortable with these scenarios in life. I think that’s why mysteries are so fascinating for us. We hear these tales & learn about off-putting events that offer no clarity as to why they occurred. Worse when we can’t understand how they occurred. Ancient civilizations discerned it was the wrath of Gods when an earthquake hit, typhoons raged, volcanoes erupted or solar eclipses transpired. An obvious reaction to something they didn’t understand. The obvious answer to these unpredictable & terrifying events had to be their all-powerful deities expressing dissatisfaction with their mortal subjects. There was a need to make sense of it. To have a way to control the fear. We obviously know different now because, through science, we have since gathered enough of the missing pieces to help us make practical sense of those events.
Isn’t that precisely what we’re looking for in every case of the inexplicable? Some element, fact, a thing that –once exposed –can make the rest of the story suddenly fall into order? The “ah-ha!” moment? Because in that discovery, we’re suddenly enlightened & reaffirmed that the rules of the natural world, the universal laws that govern our existence, have not been betrayed. Reassurance that the rules we believe dictate our existence remain intact. & a confidence that we don’t have to live in fear of the current unknown situation.
Control. The ultimate illusion of humanity.
Today marks the 48th anniversary of the hijacking of Northwest Orient Airlines flight 305 by D.B. Cooper. The only unsolved case of air piracy in history. Short version: a man boards a passenger plane & proceeds to hijack the flight armed with a note & reportedly a bomb. He gets the crew to land the plane in Seattle, Washington to collect his requested bounty ($200,000 or over $1 million by today’s standards), then, after the plane takes off, he apparently jumps out with a parachute & the money.
While there is a short-list of suspects developed by the FBI, no arrest was ever made. The case remained active for 45 years, closed as unsolved in 2016.
Some believe D.B. Cooper didn’t survive the jump; but neither his remains nor his parachute nor the money were ever found. Essentially, D.B. Cooper disappeared. & all traces of evidence along with him. He’s become a part of folklore & legend all because we may never know what really happened to him.
That’s the kind of story that always makes for great entertainment on pages, on the screen & around the campfire because not knowing is always unsettling. Except for the person who knows something but ain’t telling. In this case, you, Mr. Cooper.