The Cash-Landrum Incident

The UFO incident that left the witnesses with lifelong health issues

Name	Cash-Landrum Incident
Occurred on	December 29, 1980
Seen by	Betty Cash, 52Vickie Landrum, 57Colby Landrum, 7
Investigated by	John Schuessler

What if the UFO you encountered left you with health complications so severe that they last a lifetime? This is exactly what happened to the key witnesses to the Cash-Landrum incident, a unique UFO case that led to a failed lawsuit against the U.S. government.

It’s also, as ufologist and skeptical Fortean Peter Brookesmith has said:

To ufologists, the case is perhaps the most baffling and frustrating of modern times, for what started with solid evidence for a notoriously elusive phenomenon petered out in a maze of dead ends, denials, and perhaps even official deviousness.

Let’s go into the details of this incident.

What Happened on the Cash-Landrum Incident?

On December 29, 1980, two friends, Betty Cash (52) and Vickie Landrum (57), went out for the evening for a game of bingo on Betty’s 1980 Oldsmobile Cutlass. Tagging with them was Vickie’s grandson, Colby (7).

However, they had to give up this plan because their usual bingo club and the nearby one at New Caney were closed for the holidays. They simply dined at a truck stop in New Caney instead, stayed there for an hour, and drove back home to Dayton.

At around 9 PM, as they were cruising the Farm-to-Market Road 1485, they saw an unidentified object in the distant sky. John Schuessler, the lead investigator of this UFO case, described it in his book as a “vertical streak of red.”

Then, without warning, the UFO descended between the trees until it was directly in front of them. It was ~130–150 feet away from them and hovering ~60–80 feet above the ground.

Now, you must understand that these are two religious women in the 1980s. So, when they saw this UFO, they thought that it was the end of the world. Vickie, at some point during this incident, told Colby:

Baby, you look real close and right at the center of that thing. If you see a big man come out, that’s going to be Jesus. He’s not going to hurt you. He’ll carry us to a better palace. Don’t be afraid.

And who could blame them? This grayish, metallic, diamond-shaped craft, as tall as the 200-foot-tall water tower in Dayton, suddenly split through the trees, blazing with yellow-red flames along its underside. The flames possibly caused the intense heat they felt in the car and the surrounding area.

Reports stated that the three of them stepped out of the car due to the heat. Vickie and Colby only stayed outside for 2–3 minutes before retreating back inside due to fear. Betty remained outside there a while longer; when she came to, she had to use her leather jacket to open the car door because the handle was too hot to touch.

This UFO encounter lasted 15–20 minutes, during which the object, according to Vickie, would rise and fall with every stream of flames. When the last burst of flames came, the UFO lifted into the sky and headed southward.

But the incident didn’t stop there.

The moment the UFO left the trio’s immediate sight, they heard a “distinctive chop-chop sound of helicopter rotors.” The helicopters seemed to be surrounding the UFO, leading Betty and Vickie to conclude that they either:

• Know this object and were escorting it
• Had been monitoring it and intended to capture it

Due to the darkness, they couldn’t see any markings on the helicopters; however, they could count 23 of them, with most being double-rotor and a handful being single-rotor. It was much later, when Vickie and Colby attended a Future Farmers of America Livestock Show in Dayton in April 1981, that they confirmed the helicopters they had seen were tandem-rotor Boeing CH-47 Chinooks, which only the U.S. military could operate.

What Was the Aftermath of that UFO Encounter?

Within an hour after the UFO encounter, Cash and the Landrums started to feel physical pains that only worsened as time went by. Here were the ailments they experienced:

Vickie and Colby were better off, as these ailments had less severe effects on them and recurred intermittently over the course of the year.

Aside from those listed, Colby was also suffering from loss of bowel and urinary movement, and psychological effects in the form of nightmares and fear of helicopters.

Vickie managed to doctor herself and her grandson off with over-the-counter medications. The only exception was the eye-related ailment. Vickie had to consult with an ophthalmologist for her and Colby’s eyes.

Many researchers said that the Landrums’ medical conditions made sense because:

• They had less direct exposure to the UFO 
• They stared straight at the UFO after talking about Jesus Christ

Now, Betty Cash, on the other hand, took the brunt of them all. Her condition was so severe that the Landrums had to rush her for emergency care at Parkway General Hospital on January 2, 1981—the first of the many hospital visits she’d have over the course of her lifetime.

In Schuessler’s book, he detailed Betty’s state during her month-long hospital admission:

• Bouts of headache, nausea, and diarrhea continued
• Eyes so swollen she could barely see
• Hair loss to the point of balding
• Blisters broke out, and water came out when touched
• Ears were infected

Doctors, headed by V.B. Shenoy, initially treated her as a burn patient. It was only when they learned of the trio’s UFO encounter on Betty’s second hospitalization that they began treating her as a patient with acute radiation syndrome.

The pattern of hospital visits has continued every year since the encounter and are still continuing. While doctors cannot say that the encounter on December 29, 1980 caused all of the events, they do admit it could have been the “trigger” for the events that followed. There is no doubt that she was exposed to radiation during the encounter, and that the encounter left her in a weakened condition that lowered her resistance to illness and disease.

Who Were the Key Players Investigating the Cash-Landrum Incident?

The trio’s rising medical bills and Betty Cash’s worsening condition led them to actively seek answers from authorities on what they had encountered that night of December 29, 1980.

I hope to find out what the object was and what the purpose of it was, being there on the road at the time. God forbid, I don’t ever want anything to happen to any of my family or my friends, or even to you or your family, even to an animal, what I’ve had to go through.

…there has to be an answer somewhere, you know?

— Betty Cash’s statement to the officers at the Bergstrom Air Force Base

John Schuessler

Help came on February 21, 1981 in the form of John Schuessler, a MUFON UFO investigator and NASA engineer. He was the first to document the Cash-Landrum incident, which included, but was not limited to:

• Interviewing the witnesses
• Taking photos of the witnesses’ state of health and the incident site
• Compiling their medical records and doctors’ statements

In regard to the matter of radiation, the Geiger counter he used didn’t detect any radiation from the car or the site. The hand-held compass also didn’t detect any unusual strong magnetic fields from them.

The only clues left behind of such activity were:

• The “clear hand-shaped imprints” on the car’s vinyl dashboard
• The obvious road damage at the site, appearing to “have been melted and resolidified”
• The medical tests that revealed they were suffering from the effects of acute radiation syndrome

Schuessler also championed their case to the U.S. Air Force (USAF) and the U.S. Army’s Office of the Inspector General, which we’ll tackle later.

Allan Hendry

Another person who helped the witnesses was CUFOS’s Allan Hendry. He had worked with Schuessler briefly on this case.

Hendry told them they could try to write to their congressman, Charles Wilson, and senators, Lloyd Bentsen and John Tower, for help.

Betty and Vickie eventually went with Sen. Bentsen’s recommendation: to talk with the Judge Advocate Claims office at Bergstrom Air Force Base and file a claim.

Bergstrom AFB

The three of them went to Bergstrom AFB on August 17, 1981. The claims officers they met took their statements and said they’d “forward a brief report” to the “agency of the Air Force that used to investigate UFO sightings.” That “it’ll be up to them to determine whether or not they’ll take any action with respect to it.”

This disappointed Betty and Vickie, as they were hoping to get some answers—or at least some immediate action—for their concerns.

Betty, at the end, asked them, “Well, who is responsible for us being injured?”

The claims officers couldn’t provide a definite answer. However, they did suggest consulting a civilian attorney to determine what legal actions they can take from this point forward, as well as to get advice on completing and filing the claim forms.

You can read the transcript of their conversation with Bergstrom’s claims officers at CUFON’s website: Part 1 / Part 2.

Peter Gersten

Peter Gersten, a New York attorney known to many as the “UFO lawyer,” took Betty and Vickie’s case pro bono (voluntarily and without pay), which made the women extremely grateful. They provided Gersten with all the necessary documents for the claim.

Their fight for this case ultimately landed them in front of the U.S. district court, with the witnesses suing the U.S. government for $20 million for the medical expenses and personal injury they had suffered from the UFO encounter.

In their argument, Betty and Vickie didn’t believe the UFO involved “those little green men with pointed ears.” It was probably government- or military-owned; otherwise, how could there have been that many Chinooks following it that night? So, the government should bear the responsibility for this incident.

Unfortunately, on August 21, 1986, the U.S. district court dismissed their case. The court cited these as the reasons for dismissal:

• No one could prove that the government or the military owned such a UFO 
• No flight records were found for the Boeing CH-47 Chinooks that flew on the night of December 29, 1980

Lt. Col. George C. Sarran

In November 1981, the Cash-Landrum incident was featured on the That’s Incredible! TV show. This prompted a Congressional inquiry that forced the Pentagon to investigate the matter.

The USAF Legislative Liaison Office was the first to contact Schuessler on February 24, 1982, asking him for a thorough overview of the incident. They informed Schuessler two weeks later that the USAF didn’t use twin-rotor helicopters and thus weren’t involved in the incident, and they’d pass the case to the U.S. Army’s Office of the Inspector General.

Schuessler then received a call on March 19, 1982 from Lt. Col. George C. Sarran, who headed the formal governmental investigation into this case. Lt. Col. Sarran personally traveled to Huoston and spoke with the people involved or related to the case, including:

• The witnesses, Cash and the Landrums
• John Schuessler 
• Multiple officials from the area’s U.S. military bases 

However, the results of his investigation only brought added disappointment to the witnesses. The Lt. Col. couldn’t find evidence that the 23 helicopters they had seen belonged to the U.S. military. He added that the military itself had no knowledge of the UFO they had encountered.

These findings were presented to the U.S. district court under oath, convincing the court that the U.S. government couldn’t be linked to the Cash-Landrum incident.

What Is the Significance of the Cash-Landrum Incident in Ufology?

The Cash-Landrum incident is a unique unsolved case in which the UFO left physical consequences on the witnesses’ bodies—ones they carried for the rest of their lives.

It makes people wonder who’ll bear the responsibility if the UFO (regardless of whether it pertains to the literal meaning or its extraterrestrial connotation) harms ordinary citizens. Will the government that’s supposed to protect us shoulder it? Or will they push it aside and deny, deny, deny, as they had done with Betty Cash, Vickie Landrum, and Colby Landrum?

Regardless, many admire the trio’s resilience despite leaving that courtroom with mounting medical bills and declining health. To this day, they never stopped seeking answers to what happened that night.

Skeptics may challenge the authenticity of the encounter, but they cannot dismiss the severe illnesses that followed. Betty Cash’s extensive collection of medical records alone underscores the seriousness of the incident.

Today, the case is frequently referenced in long-standing UFO reports and preserved UFO documents, and readers seeking deeper context and primary sources can explore further analysis and related cases through UFO Connect.

FAQ

Where are the key witnesses to the Cash-Landrum incident now?

Sadly, both Betty Cash and Vickie Landrum passed away, leaving Colby Landrum the sole surviving witness to this UFO incident.¹⁰

Betty died at the age of 69 due to cancer and prior health complications on December 29, 1998 (the incident’s 18th anniversary). Vickie died at 83 on September 12, 2007.

Is it true that the first to “cover up” the Cash-Landrum incident was the witnesses themselves?

Yes. You have to understand that Betty Cash and Vickie Landrum are middle-aged, God-fearing women leading ordinary lives. They knew no one would believe them; what’s more, they certainly didn’t want to be sensationalized by the media. 

The story only got out to the public when Colby Landrum accidentally spoke of their UFO encounter to the doctors on Betty’s second hospital visit.

References