The FBI logged the serial numbers on the $200,000. Then a hijacker vanished with the cash

They wrote the numbers down first.

On November 24, 1971, agents with the FBI recorded the serial numbers of $200,000 in $20 bills before the money was handed over on Northwest Orient Flight 305.

The man who took it called himself Dan Cooper.

He had passed a note to a flight attendant, claiming he had a bomb, and demanded the cash, four parachutes, and a fuel truck waiting in Seattle.

The money was delivered on the ground there.

Then Cooper directed the crew toward Mexico City, low altitude, slow speed.

Somewhere over southwestern Washington, likely near the Columbia River, he opened the rear stairway of the Boeing 727 and jumped with the cash.

He was never found.

He was never identified.

The serial numbers were the only traceable link to the payoff.

That is what the record shows.

A theory circulating online holds that Cooper survived and spent the money.

Whether Cooper survived the jump is not established by the record.

The record shows only that a portion of the logged bills surfaced years later.

Not because the jump was survivable.

Not because it was not.

Because the record ends at the serial numbers.

The man vanished with $200,000, and the FBI was left holding a list.

THE NOTE AND THE DEMANDS

The note was a single sheet, folded once.

The flight attendant took it without reading it at first, thinking it was a phone number.

Then she saw the briefcase, and the wires that looked like a bomb.

The note claimed a bomb was in the briefcase.

It demanded $200,000 in cash.

It demanded four parachutes.

It demanded a fuel truck waiting in Seattle.

She was the primary witness to his appearance and demeanor.

She remembered him as calm, polite, and precise.

He sat in the back of the cabin, 18C, and ordered a bourbon and soda.

The plane landed in Seattle.

Passengers were released.

The ransom and parachutes were delivered.

The FBI had already logged the serial numbers of the $20 bills before the handover.

Every bill, every number, written down in a record that would outlast the man who took them.

Then Cooper gave new instructions.

Fly toward Mexico City.

Low altitude.

Slow speed.

He wanted the cabin depressurized.

He wanted the rear stairway down.

The exact contents of the note beyond the demands are not in the record.

No one has ever produced the full text.

No one has ever confirmed what else he wrote.

The flight attendant reported the demands, and that was enough.

That was always enough.

THE JUMP OVER WASHINGTON