The Cash-Landrum UFO Incident

On the evening of December 29th, 1980, three Texans would observe something that changed their lives, an alleged UFO setting that remains one of the most puzzling cases on record. This is the Cash Landrum incident. On the Monday evening of December 29th, 1980, 51-year-old Betty Cash, 57-year-old Vicki Landrum and Vicki's 7-year-old grandson Colby Landrum were returning home to Dayton after a bingo game.

Betty was driving her Oldsmobile Cutlass south on State Farm Road, 1485 through the East Texas Piney Woods area, which is about 15 miles from Dayton, Texas, on the outskirts of Houston, Texas. At around 9pm, while driving on the isolated two-lane road in these dense woods, they noticed a light above some trees. As they were driving, the light would disappear from behind the trees and then reappear again moments later.

None of the occupants in the car thought much of it, so they kept going. Only a few minutes later they would spot that same light again, this time much closer and even brighter. In fact, the object was hovering so close to the ground that if the car had kept going they would have gone right under it, which Vicki noticed and then screamed at Cash to stop the car.

Cash would hit the brakes, which made Landrum lurch forward and brace herself against the dash. As she pulled her hand back, she saw that her handprint had become embedded in the dash, which had softened from the intense heat. All three of them then got out of the car to look at this strange object.

The object was a huge diamond-shaped craft that was hovering close to the ground with its base expelling flame and emitting significant heat. It also emitted irregular but constant shrill beeps that hurt everyone's ears and the light was so strong that it hurt their eyes. Kobe was absolutely terrified and he would pull at his grandmother urging her to get back into the car.

The pair would then return to the car and Vicki did her best to comfort her grandson. As Christian women they would interpret this event as some kind of supernatural event. Betty would later say that she thought it was the end times and Vicki would later say that she interpreted the object as a sign of the second coming, telling her grandson that he did not need to be afraid as that's Jesus and he wouldn't hurt them.

While Vicki and Kobe got back into the car, Betty remained outside of the car and even walked towards the front of the car and stood there for about five minutes trying to get a better look at this strange craft. The heat that was emitted by this strange craft would get so intense that Betty soon felt like she was burning from the inside out, so she decided to retreat to the car. But when she reached for the door handle she immediately had to pull her hand away because the heat from the craft had made the door handle so hot that she could not touch it with her bare hand.

So using her coat to protect her hand she then tried the door handle again, this time she was able to open it and she got back into the car. Everyone inside the car was now truly terrified and Betty found herself wondering if they would make it out of there alive. She briefly considered turning the car around but decided against it.

The road that they were on was very narrow and it had recently rained causing a lot of mud so Betty was concerned that if she tried to turn the car around they would get stuck in the muddy ground. Not only that but the car had stopped and she found herself unable to start it again, almost as if the craft had shorted out the car somehow. With the car not starting and everyone frozen in fear, the trio would remain stuck in the car on that road for about 20 minutes.

As they watched the object would then ascend over the treetops they then noticed that a group of helicopters seemed to surround this object. Young Colby would count around 23 of these helicopters. The women assumed that these helicopters had to be military and later they would identify them as Chinooks.

It then looked like this diamond shaped craft tilted on its side and departed slowly to the south towards Galveston Bay. With the craft now gone Betty found that she was able to start her car again. For a time on their journey home they could still see the craft and the helicopters to their right.

Betty would later remark that it appeared like these helicopters were either trying to help the object or to hem it in. During the drive home the group would then be startled by the radio which suddenly came back to life. The radio had been on the entire time but had been quiet during the 20 minutes that the group had been observing that strange craft.

Betty would then take Vicki and Colby home then she went home and retired for the evening. But unbeknownst to any of them this was only the beginning of their ordeal. After returning home that evening all of them reportedly had experienced similar symptoms.

All three of them experienced unquenchable thirst and became ill with headaches, stomach shakes, vomiting, nausea and even diarrhea. They also would suffer symptoms such as diminished eyesight and even hair loss. Their skin was extremely sensitive as if all of them had been badly sunburnt.

Vicki would also suffer severe cataract in one eye and her grandson Colby would also suffer symptoms of post-traumatic stress which included nightmares and overreactions to seemingly innocent events. Only because she had spent the most time outside of the car Betty Cash is the one who suffered the worst symptoms. Over the following days her symptoms would worsen with large painful blisters that formed on her skin.

Two days after she was taken to hospital her daughter would visit her. After walking into the room her daughter would walk back out again because she thought that she was in the wrong room. She did not even recognize her mother whose face was so swollen that it looked like the size of two men's faces put together and her eyes were swollen shut.

Rubbing her mother's forehead water would squirt out as if a blister had popped and this was reportedly all over Betty's face and hair. After being in hospital for about 12 days she was released. During this first day in hospital Betty did not reveal any details of this strange encounter for fear of ridicule.

But her condition would not improve and she was soon forced to return to the hospital and by that point Colby had spilled the beans about what happened and Betty made the decision to tell her doctor of the encounter. Unlike some of his colleagues the doctor Dr. Chenoy took Betty seriously and a dermatologist would later remark that Betty Cash was suffering from radiation exposure and a radiologist who examined the witnesses medical records for MUFON wrote that they had strong evidence that Betty Cash and Vicky Landrum had suffered secondary damage to ionizing radiation.

As I mentioned Vicky would develop severe cataract in one eye and Betty Cash would also later be diagnosed with breast cancer and she would be in and out of hospital for years. It was these injuries and the mounting medical bills that they struggled to pay that provoked the women to report the incident. Cash and Landrum contacted their US senators Lloyd Benson and John Tower who in turn suggested that they file a complaint with the judge advocate claims office at Bergstrom Air Force Base which they did.

In August 1981 all three witnesses Betty, Vicky and Colby were interviewed by personnel at Bergstrom Air Force Base who allegedly would tell them that they should hire a lawyer and seek financial compensation for their injuries which again they did. The women would hire a lawyer who filed suit against the government for 20 million in damages. This case would drag on in district court for several years and officials from NASA, the Air Force, the Army and the Navy would all be called to testify.

But as they could not prove that the Chinooks they had seen were in fact associated with the US federal government and military officials testifying that the United States armed forces did not have a craft that resembled the one described. The case would be dismissed by a US district court judge on August 21st 1986. Vicky Landrum would also call several US government agencies and officials about this encounter and when calling NASA she would be steered towards NASA aerospace engineer Jan Schussler who began research on the case and have since written several books about it.

Despite their case being thrown out and the government's continued denial both women were convinced that the government was involved. This was largely due to the Chinooks that they had spotted at the scene. They would do interviews where they expressed anger at the government for not taking responsibility for this incident.

One such interview was on the 1989 US television special called UFO Cover Up Live hosted by Mike Farrell and on that show this conviction of theirs that the government was involved appeared to be confirmed by an anonymous source who said that this craft was alien in origin but was being piloted by the military. In 1982 Lieutenant Colonel George Saran began the only thorough formal governmental investigation into this supposed UFO encounter. Other witnesses would also come forward and mention the presence of an unusually large number of helicopters at the right place in time.

In other words other people would see all of these helicopters around the same time as Betty, Vicki and Coby would see them. One such witness was a Dayton police officer Detective Lamar Walker and his wife who claimed that they had seen around 12 Chinook type helicopters near the same area and at roughly the same time as the Cash Landrum event. However none of the other witnesses would report seeing the strange diamond shaped craft.

The Chinook helicopters being present at the scene led to most of the witnesses presuming that at least one branch of the United States armed forces witnessed the object or like Betty believed were either escorting it or pursuing it. However the government denied this and Saran was not able to find any evidence that the others that the witnesses claimed to have seen even belonged to the US armed forces. In the end his report was inconclusive but he did write that Betty Cash and Vicki Landrum were credible witnesses and that there was no perception that anyone was trying to exaggerate the truth.

To this day it's unclear just what Betty Cash, Vicki and Coby Landrum saw that evening of December 29th 1980. This case has been much discussed with some skeptical of the whole thing. The skeptics will say that these women and Coby may have genuinely seen something but that they had been mistaken about what that thing was.

Other skeptics will say that overall their story may be true but it was very exaggerated in order to get what they felt was a just settlement. In other words they would make it up to get more money. But despite this there are many people who do believe these women.

Believe that they did see something that evening. But what that something that they saw was will differ depending on who you ask. The acronym UFO have been heavily associated with aliens over the years.

But that's not always what a UFO is. However UFO stands for Unidentified Flying Object. While that could mean a craft from outer space it can just as easily be a craft built right here on earth.

A craft that the various governments of this world may not want the civilian populace to be aware of. With the Cash Landrum incident the believers seem to be split into two groups. One group thinks that the craft was alien and the other group thinking that the US government was behind the craft.

From what I could find Betty Cash and Vicky Landrum and also Coby Landrum all fell into this latter group. They believed that it was a craft operated by the US government that the government was denying the existence of. As I mentioned before Betty Cash would be diagnosed with breast cancer and she would be in and out of hospital for years until she passed away 18 years later at the age of 69 on December 29th 1998.

Vicky Landrum passed away on September 12th 2007 at the age of 83 and she never gave up her search for answers of what happened that evening. Mr. Coby has faced ridicule over the years since the incident.

Not to mention the mental toll that the incident took on him. But like his grandmother all he wants is answers. The truth of what happened that evening.