The Cash-Landrum UFO Contamination

Unexplained aerial phenomena is a topic that has long fascinated the public, but has not fared as well in being regarded as a serious matter by the media, scientists, or the government. It’s a bit of the Chicken or the Egg conundrum,  but the media is most attracted to the UFO topic whenever money, the government, or the military is involved. The upswing in respectability in recent years was due to revelations that the U.S. government covertly funded paranormal and UFO research in the late 2000s. That publicity eventually led to a new cycle of government involvement, including congressional hearings on UFOs and the establishment of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO).

UFO proponents and activists cite historical cases in support of the legitimacy of the topic, and one frequently mentioned in lectures, literature and documentaries is the Cash-Landrum case. The 1980 incident is cited due to its prominence, documentation, the physiological effects of the witnesses, and the involvement of the U.S. government.  Usually, it's also mentioned that the official policy of UFO secrecy thwarted its investigation, and prolonged the suffering of the witnesses who were injured in the encounter.  

The problem is that this case (and others) are frequently presented as summaries based on other summaries, along the way becoming distorted and inaccurate by compounding errors. In Lue Elizondo’s 2024 memoirs, he described some examples of “...the darker, more sinister aspect to UAP encounters. The ‘biological effects’—medical consequences—experienced by human beings who encountered UAP Technology.” First, without using the witnesses’ names, he described the medical aspect of the Cash-Landrum encounter in Imminent.

December 1980: Two women and a boy driving on a lonely Texas road saw what resembled a diamond-shaped UAP descend and hover over a nearby tree. The boy, the grandson of one of the women, was too terrified to move. The women got out to have a look. They sensed a massive amount of heat emanating from the object. Later, after they fled the scene, their symptoms moved swiftly from headaches to severe skin burns, nausea, diarrhea, eye damage, lesions, exhaustion, hair loss, and the shedding of their fingernails. The boy, who remained in the car, also had eye problems and suddenly needed to wear glasses for his schoolwork. One woman later developed severe cataracts, the other breast cancer.

Elizondo said “certain medical professionals” briefed him on incidents like this. “Soon it became evident that a graduated scale of symptoms could be explained by the person’s proximity to the UAP and exposure to radiation.”

The passage fumbles details of the incident and projects ailments primarily suffered by Betty Cash onto the other two witnesses, whose undocumented complaints were not treated in a hospital. The conclusion of radiation exposure is to be expected. It repeats the legend rather than the facts associated with the case. Although radiation was a suspect as a cause of Betty Cash’s problems, tests performed on her body, automobile, and the location of the sighting all came back negative for ionizing radiation.

Illustration copyright Christian P. Lambright

The Cash-Landrum encounter was always a puzzle, but by trying to understand it as a UFO incident and comparing it to what was “known” about other UFO injury cases may have caused the investigation to be a snipe hunt. All these years later, relying on a mythologized version of events only takes us further from the truth. If the facts of the case are going to be disregarded, maybe it’s best remembered and regarded as the type of events collected by Charles Fort, appreciated as anomalous and unexplained.

There are facts and documentation to be found on the Cash-Landrum story. Weigh the evidence for yourself.

The Cash-Landrum UFO Case Document Collection