The Cash-Landrum Incident

Monday, December 29, 1980. Farm-to-Market Road 1485 runs through the Piney Woods of East Texas, about 35 miles from Houston. One car was heading home to Dayton. Betty Cash, 51, was driving. Vickie Landrum, 57, sat in the passenger seat. Her grandson Colby was seven.

About 9 p.m. a bright light appeared in the sky. It was so bright that Betty could not make out details. It came to hang above the road, about 60 to 80 feet up. The account that became standard describes a huge upright diamond, the size of the Dayton water tower, its top and bottom cut flat. It was intensely bright and a dull metallic silver. Small blue lights ringed the center.

Flames shot down from its base. Each time, a swoosh. As Vickie put it, "when the fire'd come down, it would lift up." There was a roar, "like a hurricane". And a shrill beeping that was "deafening".

Betty got out and stood closest to it. Back at the car, "the door handle was so hot I couldn't stand it." She opened it with the bottom of her leather jacket. After "15 to 16, 17 minutes" the object slowly rose and moved away. Helicopters crowded around it. Betty counted 23. Vickie counted 26.

That night all three suffered nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea and burning eyes. Their skin looked sunburned. On January 3, 1981, Betty went to the emergency room. She could not walk. She had lost large patches of skin and clumps of hair. By April, a cataract was developing in one of Vickie's eyes. Colby had been terrified. His recorded illness was minor.

Betty wrote to Senators Lloyd Bentsen and John Tower. At Bergstrom Air Force Base, officers told the women there was "no such part of the Air Force that today investigates these complaints." No radar or pilot reports backed the sighting. The Texas Department of Health found no residual radiation.

In 1982, Lt. Col. George C. Sarran of the Army Inspector General found "no evidence… that Army, National Guard, or Army Reserve helicopters were involved." Yet he did not doubt the witnesses. A Dayton patrolman, Lamar Walker, and his wife Marie said they saw about 12 Chinook-type helicopters that night. The three sued the government for $20 million. On August 21, 1986, the case was dismissed without trial.

No one has seriously argued that the witnesses made it up. The debate is about how the story grew. Early statements said the light was too bright to see a shape. Diamond drawings came later. Brian Dunning of Skeptoid noted: "In 1980, the US Air Force did not have any twin rotor helicopters." He also pointed to a doctor's diagnosis of alopecia areata. Philip J. Klass noted there were no pre-incident medical records. Steuart Campbell proposed a mirage of the star Canopus. Others suggested a secret military operation.

The case became a fixture of television, from That's Incredible! in 1981 to Unsolved Mysteries in 1991 and UFO Hunters in 2009, which featured Colby Landrum. Betty Cash died on December 29, 1998. Eighteen years to the day. Vickie Landrum died in 2007. She told the same story until her death. As Texas Monthly put it, "To this day, there is no conclusive explanation of the night's events."