The Cash-Landrum Incident
Two women and a boy on a Texas back road said a diamond-shaped object spewing flame hovered over the road, surrounded by military helicopters. All three fell ill afterward with symptoms resembling radiation exposure. Their lawsuit against the US government failed.
- Date
- 29 December 1980
- Place
- Near Huffman, Texas, USA
- Witnesses
- Betty Cash, Vickie Landrum, Colby Landrum
- Status
- Unresolved
What happened
Driving home through pine woods on the evening of 29 December 1980, Betty Cash, 51, her friend Vickie Landrum, 57, and Landrum's grandson Colby, 7, saw a bright light above the trees and then, ahead of them, a large diamond-shaped object hovering at treetop height with flame blasting from its underside. They stopped. Cash got out and stood by the car; the heat was intense enough that the door handle burned her hand when she got back in. The object rose and moved off, and the witnesses said a large number of twin-rotor helicopters, which they counted as more than twenty, followed it.
The aftermath
Within hours Cash developed blisters, nausea, diarrhoea and hair loss, and spent weeks in hospital; Landrum and the boy had milder versions of the same symptoms. Doctors were unable to identify a cause. The witnesses' description of the helicopters as CH-47 Chinooks led to enquiries at nearby bases; every command denied having aircraft in the area that night.
The claim against the government
In 1981 the three sued the US government for damages, arguing that the object had been a military vehicle. In 1986 a judge dismissed the case on the grounds that no evidence showed the government owned or operated such an object. Betty Cash died in 1998 on the anniversary of the sighting; her health never fully recovered.
Explanations
The case is unusual in the record because the witnesses' own theory was terrestrial: a secret, malfunctioning American craft. Sceptics have questioned the medical link, noting that Cash's pre-existing health problems and the absence of measured radiation make cause impossible to establish, and no helicopter operation has ever been confirmed. No one has produced a satisfactory account of what, if anything, was over the road.
Sources
- Cash–Landrum incident
- John F. Schuessler, The Cash-Landrum UFO Incident (1998) Find on Amazon
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