One of Ours? Earth Technology Candidates for the Cash-Landrum UFO

Cash-Landrum UFO Suspects: Military Tech

If the Cash-Landrum UFO incident in December 29, 1980 could have been a military operation, the leading candidate would be a  Delta Force exercise by Task Force 158 practicing for a rescue of American hostages held in Iran. If the UFO was part of this, it must have been intended to serve a specific and necessary purpose for that mission. Based on the mission needs and what the witnesses saw, two of the most logical possibilities are either a battlefield illumination system, or a vehicle to provide transportation of the hostages. I’ll cite some known experiments along those lines and suggest a few past projects that were designed for similar purposes. Most of these possibilities, however, do not suggest causes of injuries reported in the case. If it wasn’t an alien space ship or a WASP II, what was it?

The following is a visual checklist of candidates I gathered in 2012. Some of this equipment might have played a role in this or other UFO cases.*

V/STOL Rescue Vehicle?

Vertical or Short Take Off and Landing vehicles are desirable when areas for landing strips are not available. The embassy building where the American hostages were being held offered no landing strip for a rescue mission except for a nearby soccer stadium. In an effort code named Credible Sport, Lockheed modified at least two C-130 Hercules planes, expanding their lift surfaces and equipping them with a series of rocket thrusters to allow them to make use of an  incredibly small landing strip for the size of the plane.

On a test flight on October 29, 1980, a crash destroyed one of the planes and the program was reportedly scrapped. The test was top secret and developed at breakneck speed, ignoring standard safety protocols. Credible Sport was developed as an Air Force project. Is it possible that they had other vehicles in development for this mission, or that other military branches were conducting tests?

Project Nite Fite Test?

There were tests run on systems based on the Fulton surface-to-air recovery system (STARS). From the JTF (Joint Task Force) Capability Review:

“Project Nite Fite investigated the possibility of using a hot air balloon mated to existing in-flight satellite recovery systems. The system would be capable of recovering 7-10 personnel on a single pass.”

          

Airfield Illumination Device?

The bright light produced by the UFO is puzzling if it was part of a rescue operation. Task Force 158 was drilling for night missions using night vision goggles, which seem incompatible with airfield or battlefield illumination techniques.

Click for larger view

The light may have been produced by a powerful military flare of some kind.

High-Powered Helicopter Spotlight?

The most mundane scenario is that the UFO was an Army helicopter outfitted with high-powered illumination equipment. With the beam directed towards the witnesses, they would be unable to see past its brilliance to identify the vehicle.

                                                                                   

  

Nightsun searchlight used to simulate a UFO.
National Helicopter Service & Engineering Co.

                                                             

Carbon Arc Searchlights were designed, and built as a searchlight to search out, and illuminate enemy aircraft at over 20,000 ft during World War II. It has a 5 ft, 5 mile beam length visible for over 35 miles. 
Further details and history of searchlights: http://www.victorysearchlights.com/



These are just possible candidates to investigate; ones that had a military connection and a reasonable chance of being in play on that night in December 1980. While none of these are a perfect match, it is worth examining the military technology in use at the time that could have produced UFO reports.


*Notice the frequent use of question marks, a journalistic tradition to make the author sound like he's really on to something while just clutching at straws.

Area 51, the CIA and Cold War UFOs: TD Barnes

In the 2010 Mirage Men book, Mark Pilkington discusses how Dr. Leon Davidson thought some UFO radar appearances were man-made, created for covert counterintelligence purposes. Pilkington discussed a CIA program that created radar "ghosts," Project Palladium, and how it might have been used to also spoof UFOs.

CIA Saucers?

TD Barnes, president of Roadrunners Internationale, was kind enough to answer some of my questions about his work at Area 51 and the purpose and capabilities of the CIA radar program known as Project Palladium.

TD Barnes

Q: What can you tell me about Project Palladium?

A: Gene Poteat was a fast-rising star in CIA who headed up the project. As you will see, the CIA Project OXCART at Area 51 was the purpose and need of Project Palladium to determine if we would be able to safely overfly Russia with the Mach 3 A-12 Blackbird intended to replace the U-2. We were very hot in the arms race at the time and didn't have a clue what the Russians were up to. 

Eugene Poteat and TD Barnes

Q: Was Palladium or another radar spoofing system used on China in the early 60s? I'm wondering if the "ghost planes" it could generate explain the story told in Above Top Secret by Timothy Good:

"Miles Copeland, former CIA organizer and intelligence officer, related an interesting story to me involving the Agency's attempt on one occasion to use fictional UFO sightings to spread disinformation. The purpose, in this case, was to 'dazzle' and intoxicate' the Chinese, who had themselves on several occasions fooled the CIA into sending teams to a desert in Sinkiang Province, West China, to search for nonexistent underground 'atomic energies.' The exercise took place in the early 1960s, Copeland told me, and involved launching fictional UFO sighting reports from many different areas. The project was headed by Desmond Fitzgerald of the Special Affairs Staff (who made a name for himself by inventing harebrained schemes for assassinating Fidel Castro). The UFO exercise was 'just to keep the Chinese off-balance and make them think we were doing things we weren't,' Copeland said."

A: I'm not sure the project name of the spoofing action in China. We were doing a lot U-2 overflights of China and losing a lot of planes in the process. I recall our training a group of Taiwan Chinese at Groom Lake in 1969 in a C-130E to drop motion and light sensors in the desert of northwest China to gather intelligence on the Chinese nuclear weapons development program. These were palletized sensors that looked like ordinary rocks that they dropped out of the back of a C-130 over Locknor and Zhang Sinzu area. 

"TALL KING" parabolic shaped radar antenna

Though I have no first-hand knowledge of UFO disinformation, I don't doubt for a minute that we did it. Our U-2 and Blackbird flights were UFO sightings that we really didn't want to occur, especially the CIA A-12 whose existence we wanted to keep secret. In the A-12 alone, we flew 2850 flights out of Area 51 and many of them were responsible for UFO sightings. The Air Force Bluebook investigators having to make up stories to cover for us caused a lot of the skepticism that exists today. Psy-Ops by all parties were a major component of the Cold War, but in our case we preferred to be undetected.  

A-12, CIA plane built by Lockheed.

Thanks to Mr. Barnes for answering my questions. For more information on him and his work, check out http://roadrunnersinternationale.com/

For more information on Project Palladium, see Gene Poteat's article, 
Stealth, Countermeasures and ELINT 1960-1975 pdf

Dream of Space Ships Near Reality, Air Force Chief Declares: Nov. 12, 1945

War may descend upon us by thousands of robots…
    one or two atomic bombs should suffice

A bit of military prophecy from the Golden Age:

The Milwaukee Journal Nov. 12, 1945, Headline:


Dream of Space Ships Near Reality, Air Force Chief Declares

Gen. Henry H Arnold advises advises that atomic bomb warfare 

waged from interstellar space ships is "within the foreseeable future."

For further atomic spaceship information, see:

HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE ATOMIC SPACESHIP

More Details from UFO Witness Colby Landrum

"I can still see it very vividly in my mind."

Colby Landrum revisiting the road.

Continued from Cash-Landrum Witness, Colby Landrum: 2013 Interview

Martin Willis really scored when he managed to convince Colby Landrum to agree to be interviewed on Podcast UFO. Martin had already scheduled a show devoted to the Cash-Landrum case with Chris Lambright and me, but having Colby talk entirely changed the focus. Instead of a review of the case and analysis of recent findings, things shifted to strictly presenting eyewitness testimony. Colby was asked to recount events as he remembered them, leaving out what he may have heard later. He did a very good job of that and was frank about things he just didn’t remember. He was candid about its emotional impact on him and the pain and anger that he feels in association with the event. While he has no evidence, Colby feels that it was an object under military control and the U.S. government has ducked taking responsibility for the accident.

Colby describes the UFO

During the show, interviewers made a special effort to press him for further details about the appearance and flight characteristics of the UFO. The details were scant:

• Size: approximately 50 feet wide, 100 feet tall, roughly the size of the tank of a water tower
• Shape: diamond-shaped
• Color: orange and yellow (fiery)
• Texture: Not described, object radiated a glow
• Effects produced: flames coming out of the bottom, radiated heat
• Flight performance: floated
• Speed: not described, slow enough to be followed by helicopters

Colby said the helicopters, 23 double-rotor Chinooks, were always present, and that they maintained a distance of about 100 yards, surrounding (but not above) the object. He had the impression that they were escorting it, or perhaps that they were there to deal with the threat of the object (liberally paraphrasing).

Looking at Mugshots

After the show, I asked Colby to look at a collection of images based on the UFO, “mugshots,” to find the closest match.

"Those look close, I can still see it very vividly in my mind." He selected this one and commented:
“I would say the MUFON Symposium (drawing) would be the best one if color was added and (the object was) moved above the trees about 100 feet in contrast. Chinook helicopters added in, and it would look almost what I remember.”

Kathy Schuessler sketch from 1981.

I then asked him to look at Chris Lambright’s illustration based on his 1985 interviews with Vickie Landrum and Betty Cash.

Colby said:
“That actually sent chills. If he could add in some helicopters, it would be perfect, but that's good.”

Chris Lambright illustration based on his interviews with Vickie and Betty.

A better understanding of this object will aid in its identification if it was a military vehicle or weapons test of some kind. Colby's contribution is an excellent step forward in establishing the best possible description of the UFO.

The Family Business

Colby has expressed the desire to pick up where his grandmother Vickie left off, to try to get answers about what they encountered. I’m talking with him about ways to do this, emphasizing that any investigation will carry more weight with his involvement. But first, it is crucial to review the case and verify the existing details. To that end, Colby has some documents and photographs that may contain information not included in the public record, and examining them may provide some leads, or possibly new evidence. 

I’m extremely grateful to Martin for giving Colby the push he needed to start working on a solution. Colby told me afterwards, "I hope we can get this rolling. I have a good feeling about this." 

Anything learned about this mystery will serve as a valuable tool which can be applied to other UFO cases, particularly those involving military operations. 

The Legend of the WASP II

The WASP II

Flying Magazine from September 1982 was one of many magazines carrying information  on the Williams International WASP II (Williams Aerial Systems Platform).

(scroll down a bit for WASP picture article)

 

Flying Magazine Sep 1982

Somehow, this real device got attached to the legends of a nuclear powered secret test vehicle involved in the Cash-Landrum case.

It seems to have begun after the story was featured on "Unsolved Mysteries" in 1991. One of the calls that came in the tip line told of the atomic powered WASP II.

Betty Cash's physician, Dr. Bryan McClelland later repeated the story in the press, and it became part of the legend surrounding the case.

Was the Cash-Landrum UFO a Damaged Nuclear Warhead?

Among the theories for the Cash-Landrum UFO event, there was speculation that it was an accident involving a damaged nuclear weapon carried across Texas. There was such an event just a few months earlier, a deadly accident at a Titan II missile complex in Damascus, Arkansas in September 1980. An accident led to a fuel tank leak which caused an explosion that sent the nuclear warhead flying. The warhead was recovered a sent to the Pantex weapons assembly plant in Amarillo, Texas.

The secrecy of the recovery led to contradictory news coverage, as to whether the damaged warhead was sent by truck or a shielded C-141 plane.

Lewiston Morning Tribune Sept 24, 1980

The Damascus incident was the subject of the 2017 documentary Command and Control.

Official Theatrical Trailer - Command and Control

The similarities in time and place are most interesting, but the Damascus incident was resolved by the time of the Cash-Landrum encounter, and there's no evidence that another weapons accident occurred.

Bill Moore on the Cash-Landrum Case

UFO superstar researcher William L. Moore, co-author of The Roswell Incident, appeared on Bill Jenkins' The Open Mind radio program in early 1984 and discussed the Cash-Landrum case. Moore had an excellent knowledge of the case, and some direct familiarity with it. Moore was a member of APRO, and supposedly, Moore was responsible for John Schuessler becoming involved in the case. Bill Moore (along with Richard Doty) also circulated rumors of a secret flight of a test vehicle originating from Kirtland AFB, which fed into the development the myth of the nuclear-powered WASP 2.

Bill Moore

Bill Jenkins The Open Mind radio show January 21, 1984 Bill Moore UFO Report part 2 (audio player)

Here's a transcript of the portion of the show discussing the Cash-Landrum case:

Listener “Mike” calls in a with a question about the Cash-Landrum incident, asking if Moore is familiar with it and the witnesses’ legal case against the U.S. Government.

Moore:

Yes, very familiar with all aspects of that case. In fact I was the first investigator called on the case. I put it in the hands of the people dealing with it now. 

Mike: I, see so it’s probably a pretty good case, then?

Moore:

It appears to be on the surface.  (Commercial break)

The case in question was the Cash-Landrum case. Betty Cash and Vickie Landrum and a young boy - I think he was seven years old at the time, Colby Landrum. In December of 1980, driving home at night, after dark, encounter an unusual object above the highway, stop the car, get out to look at it. It’s bright, it’s essentially obstructing the road ahead of them. It appears to be in trouble, there’s a loud roaring noise, flame comes out the bottom, suddenly a bunch of helicopters appear around it and it seems to get control of itself and takes off across the tree line. They don’t know what it was, they’re terrified. They think- one of them thinks it is the Second Coming, they just don’t know what to make of it. They get home they experience physical symptoms which are quite similar in many respects to radiation poisoning. And they continue to experience physical effects now, three years later after the fact- quite serious physical effects as a matter of fact. 

The question at issue of course, is just what is it they saw, where did the helicopters come from. There were a number of independent reports verifying helicopters were in the area at the time. The road surface was damaged, there was damage to some of the vegetation in the area and all of this of course makes for a “what’s going on here” type case. Certainly they saw something, the medical effects were caused by something. And the case was investigated largely by John Schuessler in Houston Texas, who was the deputy director of MUFON, The Mutual UFO Network, one of the three major national organizations that deal with UFOs. MUFON has a oh- about 900 members worldwide, I guess, publishes a journal (has a local chapter here in Los Angeles, as a matter of fact, that is sponsoring this get-together next weekend at the Culver City Civic auditorium Saturday afternoon 1:00 to 5:00 and we’ll talk some more about that later). 

But back to Cash-Landrum, Schuessler did what I would consider to be a “credible” investigation in may respects, in that he covered a lot of territory in a short amount of time, but he, being only one individual, seemed to have skipped a few points, I guess understandably. But the result was that the Air Force instituted an investigation of their own, or at least they claim it was an official investigation through the Judge Advocate general’s office, and the Inspector General’s office, trying to in essence get themselves off the hook. And they concluded that they [Gersten’s clients] could not show Government involvement in the case. They [Gersten’s clients] could not produce any evidence that would indicate whose helicopters were there. That’s point one. 

At that point, Peter Gersten, a New York attorney, got involved with it and filed a complaint against the Department of the Air Force on behalf of these people, claiming that the Government was responsible at least for the injuries and the medical treatment of these people because they were citizens, because the Government had an obligation to protect its citizens against whatever this thing was since it had caused damage. That claim was rejected on the grounds that Gersten had totally failed to connect the injuries, which they didn’t deny, with anything which was sponsored by the Government. They didn’t deny the incident occurred, or the injuries occurred, they simply said, “We're not responsible because you haven’t produced any evidence indicating that we are responsible,” they threw the burden in his lap, you see. He appealed that, and in September, a ruling was issued by the Judge Advocate of the Air Force upholding the initial denial on the same grounds, that Gersten failed to prove in any way to implicate the Government in the occurrence. And until he could show that they in fact were responsible through some action on their part, they claimed that he had no cause of action, and I know that his intention was then to appeal that in a Federal Court in a civil matter against them, to gain judgement against them, against the Air Force. 

And I assume he has done that, but I don’t really know for certain if he has. And I really have some problems in wondering if he’s going to get anywhere with it simply because if in fact the Government was involved in any way, he’s going to have one whale of a time in trying to prove it. If they’re going to cover it, they’re certainly not going to produce information and there’s certainly provisions within the security and classification procedures which allow members of military intelligence or military projects to deny the very existence of these things if disclosure would effect the National security.

Jenkins:

Just takes a short session with the judge.

Moore:

That’s right, it’s happened in the past. So I’m very sympathetic to the problems that these people are having, and I really wish I could do something to alleviate them but at this point, I don’t see a lot of hope unless somebody comes out of the wood work and says “hey the Government was involved in this thing in some way,and here’s the proof, here’s the connection, here’s the evidence,” and willing to testify on that behalf that the evidence is authentic. So we’re left with a question: Did they see a legitimate UFO, and was some unit of the military aware of its presence, and did they send out what amounted to 20-some odd helicopters to try to intercept it, and is that what the helicopters were doing there,

Jenkins:

Or, were they trying to help it?

Moore:

Or, were they trying to help it?, which is another question. Or, and I tend to lean more in the direction of a second alternative, and that is that what we have in fact run into here is the test of some secret project-type vehicle, which may be nuclear propulsion, and which went out of control and threatened to crash and they said, “hey guys, we're going down,” and the helicopters were sent out to cordon the area off and try to recover the object and keep the public away from it. 

Now we know that there has been considerable interest on and off in the area of nuclear propulsion for use within the atmosphere since 1946, going back to the old NEPA project, the Nuclear Energy for Propulsion of Aircraft,  NEPA, and you know, that’s almost forty years ago, that considerable research was done and that it slowed up in the 60s, the late 60s, but it’s possible somebody made a breakthrough and we have in fact developed a nuclear propelled craft and that it was on a test mission, went out of control and that’s what happened. I tend to believe that that’s more realistic in this case than the fact that they encountered a legitimate UFO - simply because of the circumstances. I think that tends to be more credible. You don’t send off 26 or 25 CH-46 helicopters, Chinook helicopters, CH-47 (I guess they are) after a UFO. You send a fighter-interceptor.

Jenkins:

They’re not going to be very effective against (inaudible)...

Moore:

Yeah, you don’t send out Chinooks loaded to the gills with personnel. You do that if you’re going to cordon off an area. If you’re going to secure an area and try to protect the public from going in there and to protect the security of the project involved, then you send out helicopters full of people. But if you’re after a UFO, in every case you send out a fighter-interceptor.

(Interview turns to other topics.)

If and Then

 If the Cash-Landrum incident was a training exercise related to the rescue of the American hostages held by Iran, then this is the memo that required it be kept secret.