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Case · C-047

Cash-Landrum: diamond-shaped object, helicopters and alleged health damage

Huffman, near Dayton, Texas · United States · Dec 29, 1980

In flight Civilian witnesses

Unexplained

What happened
On the evening of December 29, 1980, Betty Cash, Vickie Landrum and the latter's seven-year-old grandson said they had seen, on an isolated road in the woods near Huffman, a large luminous diamond-shaped object emitting flames and heat, then surrounded by 23 helicopters, some of them dual-rotor. In the following days they reported nausea, blisters and hair loss and sought compensation from the federal government. According to the literature on the case, an investigation by the Army Inspector General (1982) found no evidence that the helicopters were military; in 1983 the Air Force rejected the claims and in 1986 a federal judge dismissed the case, after testimony from officials of NASA, the Air Force, the Army and the Navy.
Proposed explanation
No official explanation: the Air Force and Army found no evidence of involvement of military equipment or personnel. The skeptic Steuart Campbell (1994) proposed a mirage of the star Canopus; Robert Sheaffer, Brian Dunning and Gary Posner question the location, details and connection with the health problems, which the medical records cited by Dunning also tie to other causes.
Official investigation
U.S. Air Force (legal office of Bergstrom Air Force Base), Army Inspector General, federal court

Sources

  1. Robert Sheaffer, “Between a Beer Joint and a Highway Warning Sign: The 'Classic' Cash-Landrum Case Unravels”, Skeptical Inquirer, 2014 (PDF) (analysis, skeptical)
  2. Gary P. Posner, “The Legendary Cash-Landrum Case: Radiation Sickness from a Close Encounter?”, in The Reliability of UFO Witness Testimony, 2023 (PDF) (analysis, skeptical)
  3. John F. Schuessler, “Cash-Landrum UFO Case File: The Issue of Government Responsibility”, MUFON symposium, June 1986 (PDF) (analysis, pro-disclosure)
  4. Wikipedia – Cash–Landrum incident (other)

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