Futility Closet

In 1971 a mysterious man hijacked an airliner in Portland, Oregon, demanding $200,000 and four parachutes. He bailed out somewhere over southwestern Washington and has never been seen again. In today's show we'll tell the story of D.B. Cooper, the only unsolved hijacking in American history. We'll also hear some musical disk drives and puzzle over a bicyclist's narrow escape. Intro: In 1973, Swedish mathematician Per Enflo won a goose for solving a problem posed 37 years earlier. Established in 1945 by a sympathetic actor, the Conrad Cantzen Shoe Fund will reimburse working artists $40 toward a pair of shoes. Sources for our feature on D.B. Cooper: Ralph P. Himmelsbach and Thomas K. Worcester, Norjak: The Investigation of D.B. Cooper, 1986. Kay Melchisedech Olson, The D.B. Cooper Hijacking, 2011. Associated Press, "First D.B. Cooper Clue Discovered," Jan. 18, 1979. Associated Press, "Clue to D.B. Cooper's Fate Found by a Washington Family on Picnic," Feb. 13, 1980. Farida Fawzy, "D.B. Cooper: FBI Closes th