Your favorite unsolved mystery

[Dick Whitman]

The family and I watch as how each week on the Travel Channel called "Expedition Unknown." The host, a real charismatic guy named Josh Gates, explores some unsolved mystery in history each week, filming on location. He's searched for the Arc of the Covenant, Blackbeard's treasure, Robinhood's grave, Lasseter's gold, the Lost Colony of Roanoke, and so on and so forth. It's a really fun show, and the kids love it, too.

This is a lead-up to the fact that last night we watched an episode in January on the D.B. Cooper skyjacking. The case has always fascinated me, ever since singer-songwriter Todd Snider wrote a song about the case nearly two decades ago. I've spent many a night going down the D.B. Cooper rabbit hole. And even if you don't think he survived the jump, we still don't know who he was. (In January, with the show's help, some amateur sleuths were able to analyze the clip-on tie that Cooper left behind. People now theorize that he worked in an industry that worked with the manufacture of cathode tubes, perhaps as a manager, because a line worker would have taken off his tie before heading to line each shift.)

D. B. Cooper - Wikipedia

What's your favorite?

 

[CD Boogie]

The family and I watch as how each week on the Travel Channel called "Expedition Unknown." The host, a real charismatic guy named Josh Gates, explores some unsolved mystery in history each week, filming on location. He's searched for the Arc of the Covenant, Blackbeard's treasure, Robinhood's grave, Lasseter's gold, the Lost Colony of Roanoke, and so on and so forth. It's a really fun show, and the kids love it, too.

This is a lead-up to the fact that last night we watched an episode in January on the D.B. Cooper skyjacking. The case has always fascinated me, ever since singer-songwriter Todd Snider wrote a song about the case nearly two decades ago. I've spent many a night going down the D.B. Cooper rabbit hole. And even if you don't think he survived the jump, we still don't know who he was. (In January, with the show's help, some amateur sleuths were able to analyze the clip-on tie that Cooper left behind. People now theorize that he worked in an industry that worked with the manufacture of cathode tubes, perhaps as a manager, because a line worker would have taken off his tie before heading to line each shift.)

D. B. Cooper - Wikipedia

What's your favorite?

My favorite unsolved mystery: Why can't writers and editors proofread stuff being printing?
You favorite unsolved mystery

Second-favorite unsolved mystery: UFOs.

 

[swingline]

Jimmy Hoffa
Jon Benet
Where the **** my other sock went

 

[Dick Whitman]

Jon Benet

Are most people about 99 percent sure the parents did it?

Seems nearly O.J.-ish to me.

 

[User 149557]

Any narrated by Robert Stack and introduced by that creepy-ass music.

The one I'd most like to know the entire truth about is probably the JFK assassination. I'm open to a lone gunman, inside job, Soviets, the mob, all of it. I don't care what actually happened. I'd just like to know.

 

[swingline]

Are most people about 99 percent sure the parents did it?

Seems nearly O.J.-ish to me.

That was used to set up the unsuccessful joke. I don't give a **** about any of those "mysteries." Therein lies conspiracy theories and before you know it you're a 9/11 truther and looking askance at the Sandy Hook victims.

 

[Dick Whitman]

That was used to set up the unsuccessful joke. I don't give a **** about any of those "mysteries." Therein lies conspiracy theories and before you know it you're a 9/11 truther and looking askance at the Sandy Hook victims.

I reject the premise that being fascinated by D.B. Cooper or JonBenet leads to Infowars-ism.

That said, that's what the movie "Zodiac" was kind of about.

In my prior job, we've talked about it on here, I spent a year investigating some murders from the summer of 1993. It was the most fun I ever had at a job, going down that rabbit hole every day. It was a way better story than "Serial" or "Making a Murderer."

 

[Vombatus]

Mysteries, from the "Where are they now?" department:

1) where's o_t and what's been going on with him since 8NOV?
2) where's Vers,
3) IJAG,
4) Mizzou
5) who here has double identities and how many of you got banned?

 

[Dick Whitman]

Mysteries, from the "Where are they now?" department:

1) where's o_t and what's been going on with him since 8NOV?
2) where's Vers,
3) IJAG,
4) Mizzou
5) who here has double identities and how many of you got banned?

I think that there's a better than even chance that manky_jimmy is Boom.

 

[QYFW]

Bears quarterbacks.

 

[Evil ... Thy name is Orville Redenbacher!!]

Dylatov Pass mystery

 

[swingline]

Damned if "Unsolved Mysteries" isn't on Lifetime right now. With Dennis Farina as the host. I'm pretty sure he's dead -- and they never even investigate that on the show! Suspicious ...

 

[Songbird]

How Fort Sumner beat Hagerman in the 2001 New Mexico 1A semifinals.

 

[Dick Whitman]

These things drive people nuts because there is a right answer. Someone was D.B. Cooper. Something happened to him. Lee Harvey Oswald did or did not act alone. There's a right answer. And my journalistic instincts are still alive enough that it tends to drive me - and plenty of others - crazy thinking that there has to be some way to get at these right answers.

 

[CD Boogie]

Are most people about 99 percent sure the parents did it?

Seems nearly O.J.-ish to me.

I've always suspected it was the son, but the parents covered it up.

 

[CD Boogie]

These things drive people nuts because there is a right answer. Someone was D.B. Cooper. Something happened to him. Lee Harvey Oswald did or did not act alone. There's a right answer. And my journalistic instincts are still alive enough that it tends to drive me - and plenty of others - crazy thinking that there has to be some way to get at these right answers.

Yes, you die and then all the answers are made available to you. Which leads me to another unsolved mystery: life after death?

 

[CD Boogie]

These things drive people nuts because there is a right answer. Someone was D.B. Cooper. Something happened to him. Lee Harvey Oswald did or did not act alone. There's a right answer. And my journalistic instincts are still alive enough that it tends to drive me - and plenty of others - crazy thinking that there has to be some way to get at these right answers.

By the way, I read recently that they were doing chemical analysis on the tie he left behind. Using technology not available at the time, they're hoping to determine if the tie picked up particular elements -- a combination of which could point to certain Boeing plants and allow investigators to pinpoint possible places where Cooper was employed.

 

[Dick Whitman]

By the way, I read recently that they were doing chemical analysis on the tie he left behind. Using technology not available at the time, they're hoping to determine if the tie picked up particular elements -- a combination of which could point to certain Boeing plants and allow investigators to pinpoint possible places where Cooper was employed.

Yeah, I talked about that on the initial post of this thread.

 

[CD Boogie]

Yeah, I talked about that on the initial post of this thread.

TL; DR

 

[DanOregon]

What's surprising about the Hoffa thing is that a mob hit is usually pretty public. Did they disappear him because there would be more pressure to investigate a Hoffa killing than your average mob hit.

Some "mysteries" get built up over time. The time leads to increased speculation that lead to theories that are more involved and elaborate to "justify" the fact that they haven't been solved. (Big conspiracy/cover-up, powerful people don't want something solved). I think some of these "cover-ups" have more to do with initial investigations covering up sloppy early police work that derail things more than anything else.

The Jon Benet thing was weird. I can imagine the investigators suddenly besieged by press without warning. The missing young women stories that cable TV became addicted to were bizarre.