5A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 8, 2018
Cooper: Some believe they know skyjacker’s identity
COOPER’S CODES
Continued from Page 1A
Cracked by Rick Sherwood, an
Army Security Agency veteran who
lives in Indiana.
‘Smoking gun’ and
‘confession’
The two typed letters surfaced
within the past year through a Free-
dom of Information Act request filed
by Colbert.
The first letter was sent to the
Seattle Times, Los Angeles Times,
New York Times and Washington
Post shortly after the jump. Each copy
included a mishmash of alphabetical
letters and numbers that a member
of the investigative team, Rick Sher-
wood, recognized as Army “code
speak” used during the Vietnam War.
Sherwood, of Indiana, is an Army
Security Agency veteran who once
served as Rackstraw’s air traffic
controller.
Upon decoding the text, Sherwood
said the hidden messages name the
three military units that Rackstraw
served in during the war: the Army
Security Agency, the 371st Radio
Research Unit and the 11th General
Support Company.
According to retired Col. Ken
Overturf, Rackstraw is the only per-
son known to have joined all three
units, two of them top secret until the
1980s. It was Overturf’s old Army
code book that was used to verify
Sherwood’s decryption.
Colbert has called this letter,
which included information that only
the hijacker would know, “the smok-
ing gun.”
“The fact that you have things in
the letter that say it’s Cooper, defin-
itively, and you have Rackstraw’s
units, definitively, being the only
ones (mentioned) — and he being the
only one that would know those units
to put them down — what does that
tell you?” Colbert asked. “Cooper is
Rackstraw.”
The Oregonian letter, mailed sev-
eral months later, is the one Colbert
calls the “confession.”
Sherwood’s deciphering of odd,
repetitive phrases yield “I’m Lt. Rob-
ert W. Rackstraw” and the act he
committed: “hijacking one jet plane.”
“Rackstraw is definitely D.B.
Cooper,” Sherwood said. “There’s no
doubt in my mind.”
Astoria connection
Is Cooper a romantic folk hero
who, with one bold act, bucked the
system and gave the U.S. govern-
ment, then embroiled in Vietnam,
a lesson in humility? A smug low-
life seeking vengeance and infamy?
The anonymity of the slickly dressed
outlaw — who wore a dark suit and
sunglasses, smoked a cigarette and
spoke calmly as he threatened the
lives of the passengers and crew —
has allowed him to be whatever Coo-
perites want him to be.
In his narrative of the skyjacker’s
whereabouts before the dive, Col-
bert suspects that Rackstraw, now a
Letter No. 5
Letter No. 5 was sent to the Seattle
Times, Los Angeles Times, New
York Times and Washington Post.
The FBI confiscated all but the
Washington Post’s copy. Sherwood
broke the code using the Post code
and a recovered code from the LA
Times.
The letter points to Rackstraw’s
three military units in Vietnam: Army
Security Agency, the 371st Radio
Research Unit and the 11th General
Support Company.
The Washington Post copy came
with a few codes.
Sherwood said Letter No. 5 was the
“key to the code itself.”
First: “CCCCCCC”: C(3) x 7 = 21
ASA = A(1)+S(19)+A(1) = 21
“ASA” = Army Security Agency
Second, the paper’s name was
condensed to “Wash Post.” W(23)+
a(1)+s(19)+h(8)+P(16)+o(15)+s(19)
+t(20) = 121
Top Secret = T(20)+o(15)+p(16)+
S(19)+e(5)+c(3)+r(18)+e(5)+t(20)
= 121
Finally, the code 717171684*
42 + *(if * is 8) = 50
371st = 11+s(19)+t(20) = 50
Photos by Thomas Colbert
D.B. Cooper letter No. 2.
(2)
(-)
(-)
(6)
(-)
(8)
(9)
(10)
(12)
(13)
(-)
(20)
(-)
(29)
(30)
(31)
(32)
(34)
(35)
(36)
(38)
(39)
(43)
(44)
(45)
(46)
(47)
(48)
(49)
(50)
(51)
(52)
(53)
(54)
(56)
(57)
(58)
(61)
(63)
(64)
(65)
(162)
L
KATU
KOMO
KING
KOIN
KIRO
KGW
KRCW
KOPB
KPTV
KPDX
KCPQ
TBS
KZJO
ESPN
ESPN2
NICK
DISN
FAM
FMC
LIFE
ROOT
FS1
SPIKE
COM
HIST
A&E
TLC
DISC
NGEO
TNT
AMC
USA
FOOD
HGTV
FX
CNN
FNC
CNBC
BRAV
TCM
SYFY
RFD
(2)
(4)
(5)
(-)
(7)
(-)
(3)
(10)
(12)
(-)
(13)
(20)
(22)
(29)
(30)
(31)
(32)
(34)
(35)
(36)
(38)
(39)
(43)
(44)
(45)
(46)
(47)
(48)
(49)
(50)
(51)
(52)
(53)
(54)
(56)
(57)
(58)
(61)
(63)
(64)
(65)
(162)
6 PM
7698QA2753 — can be broken
down thus: 47+Q(17)+A(1) = 65;
11th GS =
11+t(20)+h(8)+G(7)+S(19) = 65
“11th GS” = 11th General Support
Letter No. 6
Letter No. 6, also typed, was sent
to The Oregonian and dated March
28, 1972:
In the sentence “I want out of the
system and saw a way through
good ole Unk,” the phrase “through
good ole Unk” becomes “by hijack-
ing one jet plane”:
D.B. Cooper letter No. 1.
through(97) + good(41) + ole(32) +
Unk(46) = 216
ing that, from then on, it would only
accept the money or the parachute.
Colbert has accused the FBI of delib-
erately ignoring his evidence.
When The Daily Astorian asked
the 74-year-old Rackstraw in an
email exchange if he wrote the typed
Cooper letters, he did not respond
directly. Instead, he mocked the
media and Colbert, and threatened
legal action if his name was used.
“Notwithstanding, you will never
get the truth from me personally,” he
wrote.
While putting the case together,
Colbert brought his proof before
Jack Schafer, formerly with the FBI’s
behavioral analysis program.
Schafer said he was initially a
skeptic because “it was a lot of cir-
cumstantial evidence.”
The codebreak, which in his view
goes beyond circumstantial, changed
his mind. “I’m a believer now that
Rackstraw’s probably Cooper,” he
said.
SCHEDULE
W EDNESDAY E VENING
A
Los Angeles Times:
San Diego area resident, spent time
in Astoria during the summer of ’71
under the alias “Norman De Winter.”
North Coasters remember De
Winter, who claimed to be a Swiss
baron, as a smooth-talking char-
latan who grifted his way through
the social scene, taking people’s
money and promising a holiday trip
to his European estate. Then he, too,
disappeared.
No contemporaneous photo of
the baron has been found, however,
to corroborate Colbert’s claim that
Rackstraw — regardless of whether
he is Cooper — is De Winter.
Colbert does, however, point to
a remark by senior investigator Jon
Campbell of the South Carolina Law
Enforcement Division: The odds of
Rackstraw, De Winter and Cooper —
three master criminals with aviation
training — all operating in the same
general area and seeming to show up
when the others go missing are van-
ishingly small.
The FBI once named Rackstraw a
person of interest in the Cooper inves-
tigation but cleared him. The bureau
closed the case in 2016, announc-
THE DAILY
ASTORIAN
“371st” = 371st Radio Research
Unit
by(27) + hijacking(72) + one(34) +
jet(35) + plane(48) = 216
Also: “And please tell the lackey
cops D.B. Cooper is not my real
name” becomes “I’m Lt. Robert W.
Rackstraw.”
And(19) + please(58) + tell(49) +
the(33) + lackey(57) + cops(53) =
269
I’m(22) + Lt.(32) + Robert(78) +
W.(23) + Rackstraw(114) = 269
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