D.B. Cooper

On November 24, 1971, a man calling himself Dan Cooper hijacked Northwest Orient Flight 305, extorted $200,000 (approximately $1.5 million in 2026 dollars), and parachuted into the darkness over the Pacific Northwest. He was never found. The FBI investigated for 45 years — the longest unsolved case in their history — before officially closing it in 2016. Only $5,800 of the ransom was ever recovered (found by a boy on a riverbank in 1980). Over 1,000 suspects have been investigated. Cooper's real identity remains unknown, and he became a folk hero: the only unsolved American hijacking.