By Tim Binnall
An enterprising D.B. Cooper researcher recently reenacted what he believes was the skyjacker's 11-mile-long escape route on the ground in Washington state. The lengthy trek was reportedly undertaken last week by Eric Ulis, who has spent over a decade doggedly pursuing the legendary 1972 cold case. Of the opinion that the still-yet-to-be-identified Cooper survived parachuting from the plane and ultimately wound up landing on a beach where some of the ransom money was later found, the researcher's rather inventive fact-finding mission began with that premise and featured a commendable commitment to authenticity.
To that end, Ulis began approximately one mile from the beach where the money was discovered and he walked to the location with a briefcase similar to the one that Cooper claimed contained a bomb, a 20-pound bag to replicate the $200,000 in cash that the skyjacker had received as ransom, and parachutes akin to those provided by authorities during the caper. All told, the researcher carried around 60 pounds of gear to the burial spot where, he theorizes, Cooper would have ditched nearly all of that material before walking around 10 miles to a Greyhound terminal in the nearby town of Vancouver, Washington, where the skyjacker presumably boarded a bus and vanished into history.
Although Ulis did not find any new evidence as to Cooper's identity while reenacting the route, he mused that the "investigative value" of the endeavor centered around "putting myself in his shoes and getting an idea of what he experienced." Specifically, he noted that the "first sign of civilization" after the walk began just so happened to be the location of a company which owned the beach where the money was buried. Ulis observed that this would seem to explain why the cash may have been hidden there, since an out-of-place Cooper would need a landmark to use later when he ostensibly went back to retrieve the money. Beyond that, the researcher joked that that the 11-mile-journey served to "prove that I'm as tough as D.B. Cooper as far as the walk is concerned."