As Seen on TV!
Coming soon! The Cash-Landrum case featured in a new TV show, Close Encounters!
Check the clip below at about 1:15.
High on drama, technical accuracy is optional…
The preview video from YouTube:
Examining the Mystery and Myths of Unidentified Flying Objects © Curt Collins
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query close encounters. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query close encounters. Sort by date Show all posts
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Cash-Landrum case dramatized in New Discovery UFO Program, "Close Encounters"
Coming soon! The Cash-Landrum case featured in a new TV show, Close Encounters!
Check the clip below at about 1:15.
High on drama, technical accuracy is optional…
The preview video from YouTube:
Wednesday, August 6, 2014
Cash-Landrum As Seen on TV: Close Encounters
Late in December 2013, I was excited to see that the Cash-Landrum case was being featured on a new television series.
Close Encounters S01E03 “Second Coming” (Discovery Canada)
SECOND COMING: DECEMBER 29, 1980: Betty Cash, Vickie Landrum and her grandson Colby are driving home after visiting a bingo hall in Dayton, Texas. On a country road, they encounter a large, diamond-shaped craft shooting fire out of its base. The heat is so intense it melts the vinyl of their vehicle's dashboard. They report seeing at least a dozen military helicopters in pursuit of the object. All three suffer physical symptoms similar to radiation poisoning and spend a decade pressing the U.S. government for answers. Part 2: SPACE ROCK: MAY 20, 1967... Stefan Michalak's extraordinary encounter.
Before Close Encounters aired in the US on the Science Channel, "John Carter" at the French site, UFO SCEPTICISME posted, "Curt is going to have a field day pointing out the many errors in the narrative and the depiction of the UFO."
The Close Encounters show is not broadcast in the USA, but I have seen photos from the show and the very brief glimpse of the depiction of the case in their online preview. Wow! I was unaware of the lightning bolts or the UFO stopping the car, but knew that their choice of a angular flaming diamond with rectangular windows neither looked or acted like what the witnesses described. While they are getting many things, wrong, this series is less sensational than many others. Still, they strongly suggest the ET origin of the UFOs by their overly dramatic portrayal of them as bizarre structured vehicles. (Instead of the indistinct lighted shapes they usually are.)
There's a far worse show airing now in the States, "Unsealed Alien Files" It is so comically extreme in its fringe UFO claims as to make the new Canadian show seem factual. ("Hangar 1" has since joined the pack, chiefly different in that it carries a pedigree, claiming the stories are based on MUFON case files. )
John Carter provided a link to the show on YouTube, where I was able to watch it. There were many inaccuracies. Here are the ones I observed on the first viewing:
- 4 door car instead of 2
- Event was not in Liberty County, Huffman is in Harris County, the sighting area also may have partly occurred in Montgomery County
- They were not lost
- States object observed for more than an hour- false. Their series of encounters was about 17 minutes, with the object seen from a distance before and afterwards- maybe 35 minutes total if we stretch it.
- The re-enactment has the UFO hovering over the car, covering it in flames- false. It was supposedly 130 feet away, and they only felt it radiate heat.
- UFO depiction- inaccurate. The UFO appearance is controversial, but just relying on case literature, it is larger and IF there were lights or windows, they were small and indistinct.
- Lightning- inaccurate. There have been theories suggested that the encounter was some kind of electrical event but it is not what the witnesses themselves described.
- Interference with car's electrical system- Betty Cash did claim that in April 1981, but not the initial reports, a point of controversy in the case seldom discussed.
- Panicked attempts to restart he auto- false.
- Vickie burns hand on door handle- false, only Betty, and they depicted that incorrectly
- The description and depiction of the flames produced is inaccurate
- Dashboard impression- overly dramatic depiction. The photographs of the impressions show mild indentations, not evidence of melting.
- Witnesses reported seeing helicopter-like objects. No, they were specific that they saw helicopters.
Another shortcoming was to abbreviate the encounter, which continued as they observed the UFO from several other locations on their way home. Also, the entire aftermath of the case, the hospitalization, investigation and legal struggle were shortchanged. Part of that is due to the structure of the show, usually fitting two cases into a half hour, leaving room for commercial breaks. They are left focusing just on their namesake, the "Encounters" part of the story.
The strangest thing was to change one of the most distinctive features from the case, the fiery exhaust seen from the UFO. It was depicted in the preview clip of the series, seen at 1:17 in the clip below:
The strangest thing was to change one of the most distinctive features from the case, the fiery exhaust seen from the UFO. It was depicted in the preview clip of the series, seen at 1:17 in the clip below:
Somehow, for the episode as broadcast, the special effects for the flames were replaced with unearthly lightning-like electrical bolts.
How does this happen?
The show rounded up a good collection of UFO authorities to discuss the cases. I checked with Chris Rutkowski, asking about how the lightning got in there. He told me the producers asked him to speak about the case despite him not being an expert in it. He was repeating the story from memory, partially based on an account where the UFO was producing sparks. Mark Rodeghier (an expert in UFO vehicle interference cases) also talked about the case, and he apparently misspoke, mixing the witnesses' names about who burned her hand opening the car door. The Discovery Canada show apparently used their erroneous descriptions without fact checking the case records. Chris had similar objections on the coverage of a case in the second part of the program, Michalak's Falcon Lake incident, which he has personally investigated.
The show has been renewed for a second season. Australian ufologist Bill Chalker appeared on episodes on season one. Posting about his season one involvement on Facebook:
"Once again the 'recreations' are dramatic and entertaining and hopefully will encourage enquiring minds to dig into the actual data about the case. As I have extensively researched and investigated both cases I have issues with the fidelity of the "dramatic recreations" with the facts of both events. In both cases I know I supplied extensive material which gave detailed illustrated and photographic evidence and data, so some of the "recreation" deviations from the actual facts of each case are puzzling to me. But given the entertainment format I am consoled by the likelihood that the shows may encourage interest in these striking cases."
Chris Rutkowski also commented:
" I found the recreations entertaining, but not particularly accurate. I also gave them voluminous case records and was puzzled by their "creative licence" when the stories aired. I have no idea where some of their presented info came from. I know I am responsible for one error when I misspoke on a case detail, but the facts I supplied from files were sometimes distorted. That's showbiz!"
Television is not in the history business
Close Encounters is dramatic, to be sure, but far less sensationalistic than other shows of this type. Programs like this are chiefly concerned with putting a truth-flavored spooky story on the screen. Ratings and advertising revenue are what matter. Accuracy is a tertiary consideration at best.I hope that some viewers will be interested and read about the cases featured. Most viewers however, will not, just be briefly entertained by the television UFO mind candy.
Epilogue
There's even more coming. At least two other UFO TV shows are planning to cover the Cash-Landrum case for the 2014-15 season. One is a new series from Pioneer Productions for National Geographic Channels International, shot under the working title Planet UFO, but seems to have been renamed Invasion Earth.
Monday, December 23, 2013
Dr. J. Allen Hynek on the Cash-Landrum UFO case
Dr. J. Allen Hynek, Speaking on the Cash-Landrum UFO Close Encounter of the Second Kind
“Something sure as hell happened..."
 |
Dr. Hynek, as seen in Spielberg's CE3K |
Dr. J. Allen Hynek was only indirectly involved with the Cash-Landrum case, but he knew it well. From the beginning, John F. Schuessler was sending copies of his Project VISIT reports to Hynek’s Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS). In April 1981, Dr. Hynek’s protege, Allan Hendry, (CUFOS’ chief investigator) was contracted by the Fund for UFO Research (FUFOR) to investigate the incident. Further, Schuessler made his first lecture on the case at Hynek’s CUFOS symposium in September 1981. While Hynek himself did not investigate the case, he was very familiar with it.
In 1981, just as the news of the Cash-Landrum story was spreading through mainstream media, Dr. Hynek was contacted by a Texas newspaper, the Corpus Christi Caller-Times for his comments on the case.
 |
| Corpus Christi Caller-Times September 13, 1981 p. 1A |
Dr. J. Allen Hynek, founder of the Center for UFO Studies in Evanston, Ill., and the country's premier UFO investigator, termed the Dayton incident a “really crucial case,” because of the “absolutely unequivocal physical effects.”
“Something sure as hell happened: Those women didn’t pull out their hair and blind themselves," said Hynek. "The connection with the event is clear-cut. It's one-to-one. We have other cases, but rarely as clear-cut as this.”
“We are dealing with a real event , but we’re not sure if it’s a government exercise or a UFO sighting," said Hynek, who headed Project Blue Book, a U.S. Air Force study of UFOs from about 1948 to 1969. "There’s a lot of secret stuff going on that most people don’t know about.”
Hynek believes the women should file a lawsuit to compel disclosure.
Corpus Christi Caller-Times September 13, 1981 p. 1A
Texans Tell of Strange Encounter by Pamela Lyon
OMNI Magazine Interview with Dr. J. Allen Hynek
The year before he died, Dr. Hynek was interviewed at length by Pamela Weintraub of OMNI magazine, it appeared in the February 1985 issue. A number of UFO cases were discussed, and in a rather surprising way, the conversation turned to the Cash-Landrum case.
 |
| Dr. Hynek. Portrait from OMNI magazine |
Omni: ... close encounters of the third kind might be anybody's fantasy.
Hynek: I can't disagree. That's why I'd like to focus most of my new research on close encounters of the second kind, where there are actual physical marks. -Perhaps a foreign consciousness is creating not just illusions but the real ship and the-real creatures as well. If they weren't physical creations, they couldn't leave traces. That's the importance of the close encounter of the second kind. Let us suppose that a very, very advanced civilization has, as a part of its everyday technology, the ability to project a thought form that, like a holographic image, temporarily assumes three-dimensional reality. This is just speculation of the wildest sort, but if the UFO phenomenon is doing anything, it's causing us to expand our imagination, to make us aware that this nice, cozy world we live in is only the world we see around us, not the sum total of our environment.
Omni: Are there any close encounters of the second kind that you feel would particularly help to reveal this broader reality?
Hynek: I'd like to get to the bottom of the Cash/Landrum affair. The story there concerns Betty Cash, Vicki Landrum. and Vicki's grandson Colby The three were coming back from a Bingo game when they saw a glowing triangle spewing flames above them in the sky. They stopped the car to watch the thing, and as it moved off, they reportedly saw about twenty-three helicopters escorting it out. After they got home there were all sorts of physiological effects: Their eyes swelled, their hair fell out, they developed blisters, they were nauseated and weak. The event completely altered their lives.
Omni: What do you think was at the root?
Hynek: My best guess is that they were exposed to some kind of microwave radiation.
Space-shuttle engineer John Schuessler, who's investigating the case, is veering toward the idea that the three were exposed to a government device escorted by twenty-three helicopters, He's even helped Betty, Vicki, and Colby to institute a lawsuit against the government. But there's another side of all this: Where would twenty-three helicopters come from? First of all, it was Christmas week, and people at the bases said they would never conduct military exercises at a time like that.
Omni: Certainly you can't be suggesting the possibility of twenty-three extraterrestrial helicopters?
Hynek: No, that's preposterous. But perhaps Cash and the Landrums saw a holographic image of the helicopters. I could buy that more than I buy twenty-three solid, physical helicopters from some unknown base, when no baseman will admit seeing so many helicopters of that particular kind.
Omni: Yet I really think that we're obliged to consider the fact that some of these sightings are due to government craft. Recently, James E. Oberg traced many reports to secret Soviet satellite launchings.
Hynek: Today, of course, such technology may account for many reports. From 1947 through 1955, however, almost none of the maneuvers ascribed to UFOs could have been duplicated with human technology. And even today, our technology can duplicate only part of the phenomenon. We still don't have craft that can hover and then take off at fantastic speed.
Omni: As far as you know. But the government has been implicated in other ways as well. A group known as CAUS [Citizens Against UFO Secrecy] claims that the government has been orchestrating a massive cover-up of UFO information. They've recently invoked the Freedom of Information Act to obtain classified information. Have they found anything, and do you believe there's a government cover-up?
Hynek: What can be covered up? You can cover up ignorance, embarrassment, sinister political acts. I myself don't see real evidence for a diabolical, Machiavellian cover-up. I do perceive a strong reluctance to share information with the public.
The conversation turns to other UFO topics. See this link for a PDF of the entire article:
The conversation turns to other UFO topics. See this link for a PDF of the entire article:
Omni Magazine February 1985 interviewed by Pamela Weintraub.
Monday, July 9, 2012
The Cash-Landrum Video Documentary Collection
The Cash-Landrum case has been covered several times on television over the years, and below is a collection of what is available online. Several key video documents of the Cash-Landrum UFO case are not available, chiefly:
HBO documentary America Undercover episode: “UFOs: What's Going On?” August 1985
UFO Cover Up? Live 10/14/1988
Notorious for its wild claims, this program had another credibility problem. The producer required guests to "perform" a pre-written script. The claims made by "Falcon" of the UFO's origin were outrageous, but Betty seemed to like the idea of the US Government's involvement.
Segment with Betty Cash and Vickie Landrum:
- "Good Morning America" (ABC TV) 1981 Featured Vickie Landrum and was the first televised national coverage of the case.
- “That's Incredible!'" ABC-TV/Alan Landsburg Productions, broadcast November, 16, 1981. Features Vickie Landrum hypnotized, also appearing: Colby Landrum, Betty Cash, Dr. Leo Sprinkle and John Schuessler. This episode also featured a recreation of the event which the witnesses felt was accurate.
Cash-Landrum Case Video Coverage
"The UFO Experience" September 1982, an hour-long documentary created by San Francisco TV station KPIX, directed by Ron Lakis. Features interviews with Colby Landrum, Betty Cash, Vickie Landrum, Dr. V. B. Shenoy, John Schuessler and Major Dennis Haire of Ellington AFB. Also, of note is an on-scene recreation of the incident by the witnesses, with a small commercial helicopter playing the role of the UFO.
Segment begins at 13:50.
The UFO Experience
HBO documentary America Undercover episode: “UFOs: What's Going On?” August 1985
Robert Guenette, 1985, 56 minutes, HBO Cable TV/Robert Guenette Production, produced and directed by Fred Rosen.
Betty Cash and Vickie Landrum were interviewed, Colby shown, and it included comments on the case by Phil Klass and Stanton Friedman. Video of BC demonstrating how VL's handprints were left in the dashboard. The Cash-Landrum segment begins at 35:30.
UFOs: What's Going On?
Segment with Betty Cash and Vickie Landrum:
UFO Cover Up? Live
Unsolved Mysteries February 6, 1991
Interviews with Betty Cash, Vickie Landrum, John Schuessler, Dr. Bryan McClelland and L.L. Walker. This show was broadcast in prime time and reached millions of people. It lives on in reruns even today, and is the best-known media coverage of the case.
Sadly, there are many inaccuracies in it, and the depiction of the UFO bears little resemblance to what the witnesses initially described.
See partial transcript with photos at http://unsolved.com/archives/texas-ufo
See partial transcript with photos at http://unsolved.com/archives/texas-ufo
Interviews with Vickie Landrum and John Schuessler. There are some sensational claims by Vickie Landrum, claims that disagree with the documented facts of the case.
Sightings
Encounters: The UFO Conspiracy, Feb. 22, 1994 on Fox, pilot episode of the 90s TV series. Hosts: John Marshall, Sandra Pinckney, Russell Rhodes, Natalie Brunt. Featuring: Stanton Friedman, George Knapp, Jim Dilettoso, Bob Oechsler, Bruce Maccabee, Larry Fawcett, Don Berliner, Betty Cash, Steven Schiff, Chuck DeCaro. The Betty Cash segment begins at 6:26 and runs about four minutes.
The Unexplained episode "Close Encounters" from July 9, 1998.
Produced by Towers Production, Inc. for A&E Network ; writer/producer Kevin Barry. Betty Cash, Vickie Landrum, John Schuessler, Dr. Bryan McClelland, attorney William Shead, and Ken Storch are interviewed.
The Unexplained: "Close Encounters"
Mysterious Worlds episode, "UFO Secrets" aired in the USA in 2002, it was produced for TLC, originally shown on The Learning Channel, written and directed by Kevin Barry. It featured the last known filmed interview with Vickie Landrum and included archival footage of Betty Cash (from Encounters: The UFO Conspiracy, Feb. 22, 1994). It also featured re-enactments of the story and new interviews with John Schuessler, and Dr. Bryan McClelland. (This French language version aired on France's Planete Choc.)
Mysterious Worlds: UFO Secrets
Link to English version below. Segment starts at about 12 minutes.
Watch Mysterious Worlds Online - S01:E05 - UFO Secrets | Tubi TV
Link to English version below. Segment starts at about 12 minutes.
Watch Mysterious Worlds Online - S01:E05 - UFO Secrets | Tubi TV
UFO Hunters "Alien Fallout" episode aired January 14, 2009.
Kevin Barry writer/producer. Colby Landrum, Mickey Geisinger (Betty Cash’s daughter), Dr. Bryan McClelland and Colonel George Sarran were interviewed. This show focused on the US Government conspiracy theory and the legend of the road burned by the UFO.
UFO Hunters: Alien Fallout
More C-L Documentaries
This YouTube playlist features some of the videos above, plus several others since discovered:
. . .
There were many stories on the C-L case, especially local news stories from Texas, from Houston CBS affiliate KHOU. If anyone has more information on locating other programs, please post a comment or send an email.
Friday, June 30, 2017
Dr. J. Allen Hynek: Ufology is a Mess
“Ufology today is in the state I would say chemistry was when chemistry was alchemy, a mixture of superstition, wild ideas, unproved claims, and yet out of that whole mess, finally the very first class science of chemistry evolved. And I think the same thing is going to happen eventually with Ufology, but right now, it is a mess.
There’s a fantastic amount of wishful thinking, of desire, of pseudoscience, of pseudo-religion, of cultism, but eventually, I think that will all finally sink to the bottom, and we’ll have out of the whole thing a clear liquid of something we that can really see, and I hope, understand.”
- Dr. J. Allen Hynek in The UFO Experience (documentary, 1983)
The Close Encounters Man
Hynek is back in the news, due to the biography by Mark O'Connell, The Close Encounters Man: How One Man Made the World Believe in UFOs. O'Connell interviewed people who knew and worked with Hynek, and was given unprecedented access to Hynek’s professional files as an astronomer, and the UFO documents and correspondence at the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS).
It's not exactly a UFO book, but it touches on a lot of the topic's history in telling the story of the man, Josef Allen Hynek. So in that sense, it's a book that' is accessible to non-saucer buffs, and also provides an interesting look UFOs as part a cultural phenomenon, and Hynek's evolving role in making it happen.
More details about the book and the author can be found at this page at The Book Cellar.
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
The 4th Witness, Betty Cash's Car
The Absence of Evidence…
A case file on "missing witness," the car involved in the Cash-Landrum UFO encounter, Betty Cash's 1980 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme
1980 Oldsmobile Cutlass (2-door)
Length: 5022 mm / 197.7 in
Width: 1826 mm / 71.9 in
Height: 1350 mm / 53.1 in
Turning circle btw. walls: 11.4 m / 37.4 ft
http://www.automobile-catalog.com/auta_details1.php |
| Betty's 1980 Oldsmobile Cutlass |
 |
| Similar Cutlass |
 |
Betty's Cutlass, Feb 22, 1981
(There's no further mention of the lens cover anywhere in case literature.)
|
The Dashboard
One of the strange things reported was the impression of Vickie's handprints to the dashboard during the incident. | ||||||
Sample interior of a 1980 Cutlass supreme"[Vickie] screamed for me to stop, and right where she put her hands, her fingerprints are still on my dash, it melted my dash in the car with her fingerprints imbedded."Betty Cash in Bergstrom AFB interview 8/17/1981 The image conjured by the description is often along the lines of handprints left in sand or cement.
|
 |
| The interior of Betty's car as shown in 1985 HBO documentary. |
 |
| Betty demonstrating the placement of the handprints. |
John Schuessler had his own version of how the handprints were made:
“As Vickie leaned forward to peer out of the front window, her hands grabbed the padded dash area which molded into the shape of her fingers. The imprints are still there." -J. Schuessler, CUFOS symposium, Sept.1981The emphasis placed on the handprints by the witnesses is significant. It may yield valuable insight into how the reality of the event differed from their emotionally charged memories of it.
The dashboard plays another small role in the story, it provided cover for Colby Landrum to view the object after retreating into he car. Vickie Landrum speculated that it provided him a better view of the object, allowing him to describe a shape for it.
 |
| It was from below the dashboard that Colby watched the object. |
Electromagnetic Effects?
In John Schuessler's original report, he stated that
“When the group met the UFO they stopped the car - it did not fail on its own.”
But controversy arose when Betty Cash started saying otherwise:
Allan Hendry interview FUFOR 4/2/1981 talking about the motor stalling:
BC: “It just quit on its own…”
"I had not killed the motor on the car, I had put it park. The radio was
playing on low, but the car completely went dead. I mean, it was like somebody
had turned a switch off on it." BC in Bergstrom AFB interview 8/17/1981
This discrepancy was not addressed in Schuessler's reports, but he deftly sidestepped the issue in 1982:
“It is not clear whether Betty turned the car engine off, or whether it just died."
The Unexplained (UK) Orbis Publishing Limited, Vol 9, Issue 107
By the time of his book. He repeats testimony given by Betty Cash describing the motor stalling in the presence of the UFO and includes it in his narrative:
“But for the first time she realized the engine on the Cutlass had died.”
(JS narration of the scene following the UFO’s exit,) CLUFOI pg 13
 |
| Vehicle stopped by UFO in Stephen Spielberg's "Close Encounters" |
No Escape
“As Betty glanced to the side and then looked through the rear window, seeking some way to escape, but the highway was narrow and she was afraid of getting stuck in the muddy ditches if she tried to turn around.“Vickie, I can’t even see the sides of the road!”, she shouted, “I can’t turn around and I don’t dare back up.” The Cash-Landrum UFO Incident by John F. Schuessler page 78
Another interesting detail is the height of the car, 53.1 inches. Vickie supposedly burned her hand from laying it on top of the car. She was short, five feet tall (60 inches). Unless she was standing on the threshold of the open door, it seems unlikely she could reach up to lay the back of her hand on the car's top. Even so, it would seem to be an uncomfortable position, more so that she was said to also be restraining and comforting young Colby during this time.
Getting Out of the Car
The sequence of events following the car stopping has been explained and second-guessed, as to who got out and for what reason.“Then Betty got out of the car and started walking toward the object. It was as big as a water tank and about a half-mile up in the sky. It started getting real hot in the car, so I rolled the window down and stuck my head out to look at it." Vickie Landrum Weekly World News March 24, 1981
“ they opened the car doors to stand beside the car and watch.”MUFON Journal April 1981 (Richard Hall’s case summary)
"The car heated rapidly, forcing them out into the open where the heat seared their skin and caused their eyes to burn."Schuessler, J. F. (1996). UFO-Related Human Physiological Effects
After interviewing Betty Cash for the for the first time in Feb. 22,1981, John Schuessler then examined her automobile:
"The car was a 1980 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme with Texas license number VAS 217. I examined it for obvious damage and found it to be clean and in good condition. The exterior paint and plastic parts were all found to be in good condition. The tires were like new. The only visible anomaly was some very clear hand-shaped imprints in the padded dashboard on the passenger (right)side. A geiger counter was passed over every part of the vehicle,but no readings above background radiation level were found.Also, no unusual strong magnetic fields were found by using a hand-held compass as a detector. When started up, the engine did run a little rough."
Betty later claimed that two unidentified military men tried to purchase the vehicle. Vickie told a similar Men-in-Black story that they approached Betty offering to replace the car's interior. Two other bits of trivia, the car's plastic steering wheel crumbled, leaving only the metal frame. Supposedly Betty saved the pieces for study, but nothing further is known. More dramatically, in the mid-80s while the legal efforts were churning, Betty was in the Houston area with her car for a recreation for Mitch Duncan of KHOU. When the spotlight lit the car, it shattered the windshield, something it should not have done. Fragments of the glass were saved for study. It could be that glass and plastic fragments lay forgotten among the belongings of Betty Cash.
Sadly, the car was not retained as evidence, and Betty drove it for many years afterwards. Ken Storch located the car in the late 90s, somewhere in south Mississippi, but was unable to obtain funding to investigate further. Chances are, no further information could be retrieved, but still, what a relic!
 |
| Another lost Cutlass |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)