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.

The UFO "bigger than a water tower"

The witnesses used a water tower as a point of reference when trying to describe the UFO. What kind of water tower were they familiar with? Here's an old water tower they would have seen in the town of Liberty,  just a bit east of Dayton.

View from the street in Google maps:

View Larger Map

The Courier (Conroe Texas) story 

Two women share terror of mysterious encounter 

by Cathy Gordon Feb. 22, 1981

Vickie Landrum joined in the tale of the mysterious object:

It was if the whole sky was splitting ahead of us,” Landrum said, adding that “torch-like” fire shot from the middle-bottom of the object, appearing to ricochet off the tree tops. ”The part where the fire was coming out of the thing- it looked to be the size of a water tank,” she said.

"Landrum said neither she nor Cash could define a shape for the object because the 'blinding' light projected from it. However, she said, Colby, who was viewing the object through the car's windshield insisted that it was “diamond-shaped”.

“Someone knows where the helicopters came from,” Landrum said, adding that she feels certain they encountered some sort of military experiment.

“I’m not one to believe in flying saucers or nothing like that,” she said. “I think it’s more likely it’s something the military is up to- why else would all them planes be up there if they didn’t know what was going on?”

An Interesting Precedent

Jerry McAlister had a UFO sighting on September 11, 1980. It hit the tabloid press first in November in the Globe, and again in December 9, 1980 in the National Enquirer. The case was also covered by the national television program, "That's Incredible!", broadcast in prime time.

This case featured a huge, brilliant UFO that allegedly left the witnesses suffering eye damage and radiation burns.

 

Link to original newspaper story:
The Sumter Daily Item - Sep 11, 1980 Sumter, SC

A strange coincidence. In Dec. 1980, just before the Cash-Landrum sighting, Jerry Mcalister's story was being filmed for a tabloid TV program. From The Index-Journal, Greenwood, South Carolina, March 13, 1981:

Flying Saucer
ANDERSON (AP) The television program "That's Incredible" plans a segment April 6 on Jerry McAlister. the Anderson man who was the first to spot a flying saucer last fall. Deputy sheriffs who went to McAlister's house confirmed the sighting. A crew from the ABC program was in Anderson for two days in December filming the segment on the UFO.

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:

• "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.

If you know where to locate these or others, please contact me.

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?

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:

 

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

Sightings (Fox television series) season one, episode 11 from July 31, 1992
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

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

These videos sometimes vanish either due to copyright claims or users closing their accounts. I'll periodically refresh the links as available.

More C-L Documentaries

This YouTube playlist features some of the videos above, plus several others since discovered:

Cash-Landrum UFO Documentaries

. . .

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.

1st Press on the Cash-Landrum case

The first news story to cover the Cash-Landrum incident was the tabloid

Weekly World News March 24, 1981. At that time, the magazine carried "legitimate" stories and not yet transformed to a parody of tabloid newspapers. 

If the embedded pages above are not visible, use this link instead:

Weekly World News March 24, 1981

I'm guessing the interview and photos were taken in mid-February (speculating that the hearts on Colby Landrum's outfit were related to Valentine's Day).

How this story happened:

On Feb. 2, 1981, Vickie Landrum called Robert Gribble of NUFORC (the National UFO Reporting Center) to report the UFO incident. Gribble reported it to APRO (Aerial Phenomenon Research Organization, where it was intercepted by rogue APRO member Bill English. Then English contacted the Weekly World News and sold them the story. (Not as heinous or unusual as it sounds, as UFO groups had close alliances with tabloid papers at the time.) English had Betty Cash and Vickie Landrum record their story on a tape and forwarded it it to Dick Donovan who wrote the story for the Weekly World News.

Following this, Cathy Gordon of the Conroe Courier wrote a 2-part series that may have beat the tabloid into print, appearing Feb. 21 & 22, 1981.