THOUGHTS IN THE VORTEX
Thoughts in the Vortex

Long-form write-ups on Northwest Orient Flight 305, the D.B. Cooper hijacking of November 24, 1971. Every claim is tied to the FBI's own pages, cited as Vault part / PDF page / Bates number, so you can check it yourself.

Latest report
Cover of We're Getting Some Oscillations in My Sanity
Report · October 2026

We're Getting Some Oscillations in My Sanity

Where the F@$# Did He Jump

When Cooper left the plane, where the plane was, and every place the FBI decided he could have landed. The report also tests the "later jump" theory, shows how Cooper's own demands pinned the plane to Victor 23, and rebuilds the drop zone with the 1971 weather-balloon winds.

Jump: 8:11 PM, ±1 minuteHeard live on the company radio and reproduced by the January 1972 sled test.
Drop zone: the 1972 zone holdsEvery 8:11 zone rebuilt with the real 1971 winds falls inside NWA's envelope.
Route: V-23 or bustLow, slow and gear-down left one workable way south.
Reports
Cover of We're Getting Some Oscillations in My Sanity
Report · October 2026

We're Getting Some Oscillations in My Sanity

Where the F@$# Did He Jump

Cover of Two Cards, One Chute
Report · October 2026

Two Cards, One Chute

Reconciling the Cooper Packing Cards

Interactive

Flight 305 Timeline Wheel

The hijacking minute by minute, from the ticket counter in Portland to the FBI's first look inside the empty cabin at Reno: 246 entries, each with the FBI page it comes from.

Open the timeline →
The FBI files, searchable

The FBI's NORJAK file on the Vault is 44,238 scanned pages with no usable text. We ran every page through OCR. Download the text, labeled page by page with Part, PDF page and Bates number, and search the whole file yourself.

About

Everything here comes from the FBI's own NORJAK file as released on the FBI Vault, plus clearly marked outside sources. A citation like 110 / 267 / 566 means Vault Part 110, PDF page 267, Bates stamp DB Cooper-566, so you can open the page and read it yourself.

Each report comes with its sources: the Oscillations report has a companion PDF reproducing every FBI page it cites, with a header on each page naming the sections that use it.