Author claims D.B. Cooper is Walter Reca from Oscoda, Michigan

(WJBK) - A decades' old mystery that has baffled the world may finally be solved. At least, according to an author in west Michigan. 

Author Carl Laurin says he believes D.B. Cooper was really a former military paratrooper named Walter Reca from Oscoda, Mich.

His book was unveiled at a signing event in Grand Rapids Thursday. 

A man nicknamed D.B. Cooper hijacked a Boeing 727 near Portland, Oregon in 1971 that was headed to Seattle. He demanded $200,000 in ransom and once he got the money he parachuted out of the plane, never to been seen again. 

Laurin claims to have been Reca's best friend.

The publisher played audio recordings of Reca and testimony from a person who spoke with him right after he made that famous jump. The audio recordings, created in 2008, include Cooper discussing skyjacking details that were not known to the public prior to the FBI's information release in 2015.

Laurin's memoir is called "D.B. Cooper & Me: A Criminal, A Spy, My Best Friend."