Monday, February 16, 2015

Book Coverage of the Cash-Landrum UFO Case



The Cash-Landrum case has been discussed in a great many UFO books, but most often as just a brief summary with no independent investigation or analysis. The majority merely repeat material from the John Schuessler reports. Below, we’ll list some of the works that do better, along with volumes notable for other reasons. 


Age of the UFO Peter Brookesmith editor (1984)
This book is an essential for the case. It collects three 1982-3 magazine articles written for the UK magazine, The Unexplained Mysteries of Mind, Space and Time by John F. Schuessler and features his color photographs of the scene and the witnesses. There's information in these articles not appearing anywhere else including Schuessler's later book. The color photographs alone make this worth having, but the case details and variations of  witnesses and testimony make it a must for students of the case.

Clear Intent: The Government Coverup of the UFO Experience by Lawrence Fawcett, ‎Barry J. Greenwood (1984) 
(Reprinted as UFO Cover-Up: What the Government Won't Say) 
Fawcett and Greenwood's chief interest in the case comes from the involvement of "mystery helicopters" that were so often associated with cattle mutilation lore. A historically important book, and the first one to discuss the C-L case.

Above Top Secret by Timothy Good (1987)
Good's book (and some of his later ones) tie the C-L case into 90s conspiracy lore, repeating some of the material that was presented in the TV special UFO Cover-Up? Live.

The UFO Phenomenon, Time-Life Books (1987)
Very brief coverage of the C-L case. This one is chiefly worth mentioning due to artwork featured in the two-page spread, and for the extensive newspapers advertising that spotlighted the case.


The Spectrum of UFO Research, J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies, Mimi Hynek, ed. (1988)
John Schuessler's first lecture on the Cash-Landrum case from Sept. 1981 is presented, and it serves as as an excellent introduction to the case, telling the story of the events, and discussing the early months of the investigation. The narrative of the encounter is followed by speculation about the injuries and their source. Includes photographs, the Q & A session that followed Schuessler's lecture, and his 1988 update on the case.



The UFO Encyclopedia: UFOs in the 1980s by Jerome Clark, (1990)

Clark's entry on the case is a good summary of John Schuessler's early material on the case, chiefly his report presented at the 1981 CUFOS conference.


 by Larry Warren and Peter Robbins (1997)
This book only mentions the case in passing: "
The Cash-Landrum UFO incident occurred in Texas within twelve hours of the third night's incident at RAF Bentwaters. Two women — Vicky Cash and Betty Landrum — and Betty's grandson, Colby, saw a huge, toplike UFO..."
This (now-discredited) book
gives us a brief detour from Rendlesham to Huffman Texas. Since the events happened so close in time together, they’re frequently mentioned in the same breath, but there's no valuable similarity or tangible connection between them.

In 1997, Physicist Peter A. Sturrock of Stanford University directed an independent scientific review of UFO cases conducted by an international panel of scientists. Three of “the usual suspects” participated, Hal Puthoff, John Schuessler, and Jacques Vallee. Sturrock published a paper on it in 1998: “Physical Evidence Related to UFO Reports: The Proceedings of a Workshop Held at the Pocantico Conference Center, Tarrytown, New York, September 29 – October 4, 1997.” The Cash-Landrum case was presented in “Physiological Effects on Witnesses,” later presented as chapter 15 (pp. 100-104.) of Peter Sturrock’s 1999 book on the study, The UFO Enigma: A New Review of the Physical Evidence.



The Cash-Landrum UFO Incident by John F. Schuessler (1998)
This book was self-published by the investigator and had a relatively small pressing, and is now out of print. The most valuable thing it offers are reproductions of case documents, witness testimony and photographs. It would be great to see this released as an ebook where the photographs could be seen at a higher resolution and in color. While book is imperfect, and far from objective, bit it’s an important resource.



Project Moon Dust by Kevin D. Randle (1998)
In chapter 11, Randle has a rare skeptical analysis, a 
ten page section titled, "December 29, 1980: The Cash-Landrum UFO Encounter." Kevin Randle is a retired Lieutenant Colonel, and his service and his experience as a helicopter pilot helps provide an understanding of the alleged military involvement in this case. More coverage on this book at: Kevin Randle on Cash-Landrum: A Military Perspective


Pentagon Aliens aka Space Aliens from the Pentagon by William Lyne (1999)
Lyne's is an odd one, and is included for his brief interview with Vickie Landrum. There are some odd and interesting case details mentioned in the book, ones that can't be verified - or trusted.


UFOs, Angels and Stories of Faith and Courage by Edward Wesley Graves (2000)
Graves’ book is noteworthy in that it's the only one to depict the witnesses on the cover. Shortly after Betty Cash's death, he contacted Vickie Landrum  and spoke to her family, who believed the UFO was an "atomic plane."


The UFO Enigma: A New Review of the Physical Evidence by Peter a. Sturrock (2000)
This is a frustrating one, as it summarizes Schuessler's presentation of the case to the Sturrock panel, yet doesn't actually present it. A bit like somebody reciting what was in yesterday's newspaper, and it leaves you with the feeling you are missing something.



The UFO Evidence: A Thirty-Year Report by Richard H. Hall (2001)

Hall does an excellent job of summarizing the case as known without sensationalizing it or playing it for emotion. I liked it well enough, I've used it as the official BBL summary of the case, as The UFO Story.



Hunt for the Skinwalker
by Colm A. Kelleher and George Knapp (2005)
This book just gives a recap of the C-L case from previous sources as an example of human effects from unexplained encounters to bolster the Skinwalker story. No new information.



Project Beta 
by Greg Bishop (2005)
Bishops book is very interesting. There's a C-L connection to the Paul Bennewitz saga, but it's uncertain if it was just speculation by Bennewitz, or if it was the result of manipulation by Richard Doty and Bill Moore. Bennewitz thought the C-L UFO was a joint US-alien venture, part of the lore that became Dulce and the dark UFO mythology. The C-L coverage is very short, and unfortunately, does some harm by repeating some untrue rumors and speculation as if they were facts.
More on Doty-style Cash-Landrum info, trying to tie things to the Bennewitz backdrop.
Secrets of Antigravity Propulsion by Paul LaViolette (2008)
"Evidence that the Air Force was test-flying an antigravity craft surfaced on the night of December 29, 1980. Betty Cash, age fifty-one  her friend Vickie Landrum, age fifty-seven, and Vickie's seven-year-old …"
LaViolette's book is a mentioned just as example of the case being used as means to further someone's agenda or prop up a conspiracy theory.


UFOs and the National Security State: The Cover-Up Exposed, 1973-1991 by Richard Dolan (2009)

"While, across the ocean, the Rendlesham Forest was the scene of dramatic UFO activity, Betty Cash,Vickie Landrum,and Vickie's grandson Colby Landrum were driving in the State of Texas, on the Cleveland Huffman Road on the way to the town…" There’s nothing original in Dolan's coverage. His depiction of the events is used to illustrate his conspiracy theory premise of colossal sinister UFO cover-up.



Texas UFO Tales: From Denison 1878 to Stephenville 2008
by Mike Cox and Renee Roderick (2010)
Texas UFO Tales was a pleasant surprise. A lot of regional UFO books are cranked out quickly, and that may have been the intent here, but someone goofed up and got a good researcher. The coverage of the C_L case is very good and you'll only find some of the data by digging as deeply yourself. It's the only book to date to include the testimony from the Bergstrom AFB interviews with the witnesses.



UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies, and Realities by John B. Alexander (2011)
“Cash-Landrum... is a very solid case, in which the observations and facts just don't make sense or support any prosaic hypothesis." Alexander's coverage of the case is brief, but well worth reading as he participated in the DAIG's investigation of the case led by George Sarran. Alexander's conclusions on the case are among the most interesting, that the events were real, but perhaps not the kind of real we are used to! 



Confessions of a Professional Smart-Ass
  by John Kelso (2013) "John Kelso has been writing a humor column for the Austin American-Statesman for more than thirty years...”This book features a four page section on the author's memories of covering the Cash-Landrum sighting for the paper. His piece was one of the few articles to approach the case with skepticism. UFO mavens would be better off reading his original article (which I may be able to reprint someday). The book is just a short recap of the case with some Kelso flavor, and leaves out the interesting details in his article. About all the only thing new here is his negative impressions of the town of Dayton. While he cracks wise in his memoirs, he admits he didn't know just what to make of the story.


Forbidden Science - Volume III by Jacques Vallee (2016)
Vallee's journals for the years 1980 - 1989 contain several mentions of the Cash-Landrum case, usually second-hand information with a mixture of fact and speculation. However, the discussion was with people such as Dr. Kit Green and Dr. Richard Nimetzow, so gossip at an elite level of ufology.
 
Fact, Fiction, and Flying Saucers: The Truth Behind the Misinformation, Distortion, and Derision by Debunkers, Government Agencies, and Conspiracy Conmen by Stanton Friedman & Kathleen Marden (2016)
Chapter 8 spotlights the Cash-Landrum UFO case, but it’s there mostly as part of an attack the character of the late Phil Klass. If you crawl the footnotes, you’ll find a few references to Blue Blurry Lines, cited as a source. 


UFOs, Chemtrails, and Aliens: What Science Says, by Donald R. Prothero, Timothy D. Callahan (2017)
In the 5-page section, "Radiation Sickness, Melting Vinyl, and Scorched Asphalt: The Cash–Landrum Incident”(pp. 104 - 108), the authors discuss the case and come to a skeptical conclusion, based chiefly on the 1981 interview of the witnesses at Bergstrom AFB, Brad Sparks’ analysis of the reported injuries, and Robert Sheaffer’s article “Between a Beer Joint and Some Kind of Highway Sign” which in turn was based on the BBL report disclosing the unpublished case documents held by the Texas Department of Health. The authors conclude that “as a source of physical evidence, that Cash-Landrum incident is inconsequential." 

. . .

There will be revisions from time to time, to add other titles and to comment on why they are worthy of inclusion. 



Monday, January 26, 2015

If you haven't read it, it's STILL news!


UFO News, Again!

I’m sure you saw it splashed over the news, the Air Force recently declassified and released Project Blue Book UFO files, and that for the first time ever, they are available for viewing on the Internet.


All the news that's fit to copy and paste.
This just in...


The files were released long, long, ago.
Here’s a news clipping from The Dispatch (Lexington KY)  Nov. 5, 1974 (UPI):

But they didn't languish in that Air force black vault forever. Die-hard UFO researchers worked with the files on microfilm, but a decade ago, they were presented digitally on your friendly neighborhood Internet. 

Here’s the UFO UpDates notice about the files going online from 2005:
Blue Book Archive Announcement


That site is still alive and well.

In 2007, Ancestry.com's site devoted to military records, Fold3 presented scans of the Project Blue Book files. 
Fold3: Project Blue Book - UFO Investigations

Maybe it's just a remake 

How does the media get things so wrong? Part of it is that there’s a rush to report (or recirculate), and little fact checking is done. That, and some of the reporters were born yesterday. Sometimes, things like this happen; the media suddenly notices something and falls all over it to become an overnight success after 20 years. 

It can happen when an unknown book gets chosen by Oprah, or for a movie adaptation. Sometimes it comes on their radar when a box office bust of a film becomes a hit on video. Worse, sometime they mine a classic and issue a remake for a new generation.


Less than 15 pieces of flare.

Even in the UFO topic, some things become news, over and over. Like the FBI’s memo on the Aztec hoaxed flying saucer crash. In its latest exhumation, it was passed off as proof of Roswell.  


Like Dracula, it won't stay down.

Is this just bad reporting, or a case of them using anything and everything shiny that catches the notice of their open minds? I'd like to blame the Twitter age of news media, but this kind of thing is not new itself. There’s one that goes back to the coming of the flying saucers.

Good Evening, Mr. and Mrs. America, and All the Ships at Sea



We forget the incredible influence radio once had. Radio commentators such as Walter Winchell (and Frank Edwards) had their finger on America’s pulse sometimes reporting the news, other times making it. They also did a lot to introduce and propel the UFO story. Winchell’s show was printed as a newspaper column, and in this story from the July 7, 1947 San Jose News, he said, “The mystery of the ‘Flying Saucers’ is not new.” Then goes on to cite a recent book by R. DeWitt Miller, Forgotten Mysteries.
San Jose News July 7, 1947



R. DeWitt Miller’s book was chiefly a collection of articles on phenomenon from Coronet magazine, and one chapter focused on strange aerial objects. It enjoyed the flying saucer spotlight, but only for about a day. Someone finally noticed that he cited Charles Fort as his inspiration.




Miller noted that there had been speculation "That conscious beings from other worlds have actually reached this earth and navigated our skies in space ships." That speculation was chiefly from Charles Fort, who had collected accounts of strange flying things and speculated that they were interplanetary. 

Fort died in 1932, and had little to do with the Fortean Society, which Tiffany Thayer created in his honor. Thayer kept the torch burning by publishing the Fortean Society’s Doubt magazine.


Snazzy modern edition
It wasn't long before Walter Winchell was quoting R. DeWitt Miller but we know he could have done better than that. As it turned out an Associated Press reporter made the discovery in Chicago's Newberry Library. There the reporter claimed to have discovered a "rare unknown” book, the scarlet colored volume titled The Book of the Damned.
 Thayer howled with laughter when he read about the “great discovery.” Awhile after this "discovery” the news agencies tracked Thayer and the Forteans to their lair to ask: "Who was this guy Fort?" And: "Can we quote such and such?" This was the high- point of the whole history of the Fortean Society and it was sad Fort himself was not alive to take a well-earned bow.  (From UFOs: A History Vol. 1: 1947 by Loren Gross)

Fort provided the backstory!
Major Donald Keyhoe used the Fort foundation to build his article and later book, Flying Saucers are Real, and thereafter, every so often a reporter would “discover” Charles Fort and report that 
“The flying saucer story, you know, is by no means a new one.”

Anyway, the news has a long history of getting things jumbled, even when they are really trying. Sometimes it's corrected, but those notices reach far fewer eyeballs. What's news, will yet be news again... someday.

World's oldest newspaper
If you haven't read it, it's STILL news!





Sunday, January 4, 2015

Science Fiction and UFOs: Buck Rogers

The relationship of Science Fiction to UFOs is a complex one. Debunkers are too quick to blame fantasy for influencing Flying Saucer reports, and proponents are too quick too deny it. Old time SF fans wanted nothing of flying saucers, and FS fans felt the same way about SF. 

There's a relationship, to be sure, with ideas form one camp influencing the other. Sadly, most of the discussions of this tend to be heavily biased. The UFO/Science Fiction topic needs further examination.

Buck Rogers

Science fiction, at its best, is examining how new ideas and inventions affect mankind. In effect, it's shining a flashlight into our future. 

If Science Fiction has a name, it's Buck Rogers!

Many people around the world were introduced to science fiction in the form of an enormously popular newspaper comic strip that began in 1929. Science fiction writer, Philip Nowlan teamed up with artist Dick Calkins to create Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. It literally defined science fiction. There was a shorthand term for advanced technology, and it was "Buck Rogers." 

C.R. Smith
C.R. Smith, president of American Airlines:
“When we endeavor to envision the future of aviation, we come to the conclusion that Jules Verne was a conservative man and that Buck Rogers more closely approximates the role of a realist. Some of the potential developments in aviation are so far reaching that they might easily amaze and confuse the hero of the Sunday supplement.”
(American Aviation magazine, 1941.)

 A letter to Astounding Science Fiction 

Spaceship by Paul Orban
Astounding Science Fiction Dec. 1948 

In the February 1949 issue of Astounding Science Fiction, editor John W. Campell printed a letter from an avid fan, W. H. Entrekin Jr. It serves as good examination of the intersection of UFO and science fiction ideas at the time.  The latter half of the letter deals strictly with comment on earlier magazine stories, but I've included it for the sake of completeness. (Note: STF stands for Scientifiction, an elegant and archaic term for science fiction.)

Dear John,

At last technological development has caught up with the science- fiction artists and illustrators. I am not referring to anything else but Paul Orban's' spaceships. Note illos for “The Rull,” et cetera. 


 illustrated by Paul Orban

Also the filler cut of the multi-windowed ship you use frequently. The only sad thing about this development is that evidence lends support to the extra-mundane origin theories of Charles Fort and other dubious adherents, among them members of our own genre of stf authors—needless to say, with the recent crop of wacky theories.

First came the “flying saucers”, or “disks”. Perhaps Phil Nowlan and Dick Calkins could be credited with the idea and cartooned version of the flying disk much, much earlier in the Buck Rogers strip. 
Dick Calkins art from Buck Rogers
Well, Kenneth Arnold of Boise brought science-fiction up-to-date with the first observation of the flying disks. And finally, stf has been caught up with in the form of Orban's ubiquitous, eternal spaceship. 

On Saturday, July 24th, two EAL pilots, Captain Clarence Chiles and Co-pilot John Whitted, on the Houston-to-Atlanta-to-Boston flight, at 2:45 am.(CST), in their DC-3, reported a wingless aircraft that passed them at tremendous speed. They were flying at five thousand feet in the regulation CAA designated airway when they spotted the aircraft, it being almost in their line of flight, headed in the opposite direction, towards Mobile and New Orleans. The DC-3 was about twenty miles southwest of Montgomery, Alabama. 
Dick Calkins art from Buck Rogers

Captain Chiles related: “I hate to say this, but it looked just like a Buck Rogers rocket ship. If I see anything else like this, I think I’ll have to quit flying. We were flying along on the regular airway when we saw ahead and slightly above and to our right what appeared to be a tremendous jet of flame. It flashed down and we veered to the left and it veered to its left, and passed us about seven hundred feet to our right and about seven hundred feet above us. Then as if the pilot wanted to avoid us, it pulled up with a tremendous burst of flame out of its rear and zoomed up into the clouds. Its prop-wash or jet-wash or rocket-wash, take your pick, rocked our DC-3." The pilots describe the ship as about one hundred feet in length, and about four times the circumference of a B-29 fuselage. It had no wings. 

A twenty-five-to-fifty foot red flame was shooting from the rear, and there was a blue, fluorescent glow under the whole length of the fuselage. Captain Chiles further related, “It had two rows of square windows, apparently from an upper and lower deck, and the interior was brilliantly lighted. We saw no occupants. I’d say it was going between five hundred and seven hundred miles an hour." 


The following Sunday morning the story appeared in various Georgia papers, the Atlanta Constitution carrying sketches of the ship by both men. The singularly remarkable thing about the incident, is that the sketches were remarkably similar to Orban's ships.

Well, these things happen every day so to speak. The alarming fact is that no matter what the theory that explains the phenomenon, as infinite numbers of theories do as long as it is a workable theory, the PHENOMENON STILL REMAINS
Whitted, Chiles and their sketches of the UFO

I guess I’ll have to go back through Charles Fort again.


UFORTology's father


(The rest of the letter is about the Aug. 1948 issue of Astounding Science Fiction.)



 As for the contents of the August issue. The cover takes my breath. Canedo is too, too utterly para- or hyper-symbolic. And no story titles to mar the front either. I guess yon J have finally decided that ASF sells itself on its own merits rather than having to resort to standard pulp tactics. Psycho-dynamics applied to the masses. 
Your editorial — simply superb!

Let’s have one tying in Non-Newtonian system of action-by-contact, and the standing confused controversies over quantum mechanics giving us readers the low-down latest discovered subatomic particles and and their relation to our present systems, with probable effect on classical set-up. Oh well, such an evaluation would be quite a thesis for a graduate work much less asking it for the price of two-bits.

Oh yes— the stories. “The Monster” takes first place with the tag van Vogt placed well before the denouement — "This race has discovered the secrets of its nervous system." "Time Trap" grabbed second, I like Harness' new words - Hardtimes (sterechronia).
"Dreadful Sanctuary” has to show. I just couldn't resist his description of the rockets' lifting for their maiden voyage. Thank you Eric and John. After all,  everyone didn't get to see the lift of a Vr-2 at White Sands. Or maybe I'm just a dreamy-eyed fool. (I'll bet I have company on this one.) 

“Smaller Than You Think" was fourth, with "Dawn of Nothing" hitting fifth. Quite an issue. The liquor ads have been bounced and the fans are now happy with the new program of the Fan-ad. 

When do we get some of the unwritten Future History series or does Bob like three to five cents a word better than honor and tradition? However, ya’ gotta eat!

To A. E. van Vogt— "Let's have in Asimov-type yarn concerning corruption of the Galaxy with the unique system of Null-A." 
Time for a Kuttner serial. 

(Address) Unknown. Unknown. UNKNOWN.—W. H. Entrekin Jr., Americus, Georgia


- - - 

A bonus Buck Rogers tidbit from the files of Project Sign, a note about Kenneth Arnold.


Saturday, December 27, 2014

Lighting a Candle for the Cash-Landrum UFO Case

The December 29, 1980 Cash-Landrum UFO event is one of best known, thoroughly documented cases in UFO history.  This is due in part to the investigation led by John F. Schuesller, then deputy director of MUFON. The other reason is the dramatic story itself, with the apparent credibility and sincerity of the witnesses, Betty Cash, Vickie and Colby Landrum. On the anniversary of their encounter, last year, I posted this memorial:
Remembering Betty Cash and Vickie Landrum



This year, the discussion is about how the event itself is remembered.


As time passes, the Cash-Landrum UFO event is in danger of having its significance and place in history forgotten. Its important to remember the era in which it occurred. There was a change in the fabric of the UFO experience. 




The Dark Side

Things were getting darker. Reports of alien abductions were beginning to be taken seriously and there were reports of cattle mutilations and sightings of mystery helicopters. The story of a UFO Crash at Roswell, New Mexico was being circulated, with a massive US Government cover-up, a “Cosmic Watergate.” Paul Bennewitz reported seeing UFOs and contacting the aliens, who told him of battles in secret underground military bases, and of an alliance where they provided the  US with atomic-powered delta-shaped ships.



“The 1980s saw a revival of interest, at least among American ufologists, both in the extraterrestrial hypothesis and in the issue of alleged official cover ups… Speculations about space visitors and government concealment gave birth to the dark side movement, a subculture which fused unrestrained paranoia and far right conspiracy theory into a nightmarish vision of a malevolent Washington in collusion with sinister extraterrestrials and a plot to enslave the human race.”Jerome Clarke, The UFO Book: Encyclopedia of the Extraterrestrial, 1997

The Cash-Landrum event was folded into this lore, and the whatever was behind the mystery of the event was seen as something sinister.  The case itself was co-opted and turned into a dark conspiracy parable. The people and the truth of the events were getting lost in the myth.

Shedding some light

Some regard this as an old and cold case, but it’s not too late to learn more about it and from it. Much of value can be learned just from studying the event’s investigation alone. Preserving the evidence and stripping away the layers of apocrypha can help let us examine the truth in this case.  Whatever secrets lie at the heart of this mystery, they have value to other UFO cases past and present. 

The passage of time closes some doors, but others may open. Betty Cash died in 1998, and Vickie in 2007, leaving only Colby Landrum remaining as a primary witness.  The helicopter personnel who would have participated in the operation are at retirement age and could now discuss this case without the fear of risk to their military careers. Others who may have been involved could still be alive, and it is possible that once-secret government documents could now be available. 


The privately held MUFON case files also need to be opened for whatever cold leads it may provide. There is still hope that the curtain of secrecy can be parted to reveal what the witnesses fought so hard to find - answers.


Cash-Landrum UFO Case: Slideshow


Thursday, December 11, 2014

TV takes on the Cash-Landrum UFO case

UFO Conspiracies

(Updated 12/11/14)
The National Geographic UFO series aired in the UK as UFO: Alien Invasion, but in most other countries as Invasion Earth. It was produced by Pioneer Productions for National Geographic Channels and Science, and was broadcast in the US as UFO Conspiracies starting November 19, Wednesday (10 PM - 11 PM) on Science Channel.

In the UK
In non-English thinking countries.

Here's a link to summaries of the 8 episode series:
http://natgeotv.com.au/tv/invasion-earth/episodes.aspx?series=1

I'm only concerned with their coverage of the Cash-Landrum story, featured in episode 4,  "UFO Swarm" which aired in the US December 10. It's the final third of the program, a segment about thirteen minutes long:

“Witnesses in Texas claim their confusing physical illnesses are the result of a massive, fiery object and in the skies above Brazil, jet fighters play cat and mouse with unknown lights.”


Vickie, Colby & Betty, as portrayed by actors.

Дело денежных Ландрум НЛО

I'd originally seen the Russian-language version of the episode featuring the C-L case, but have  updated this article after hearing the show in English. It's mostly a review of the case, but with a few new elements and discussions. Archival footage of Betty Cash and Vickie Landrum telling their story from the 1985 HBO show, UFOs: What’s Going On? is used.  The treatment of the case is serious and respectful, and the production values are good. The re-enactment scenes fairly tastefully done, the big clunker being the awful wig that would have embarrassed Vickie Landrum. 

Not bad, but a little too close.

The portrayal of the UFO is disappointing, but in some shots, not so bad. The scale of the object is good, but it seems to placed be a bit too low, and close to the car, about half the distance reported in the case (but not bad for TV). The flames are pitiful in comparison to description, and should have been about equal to the UFO’s width.



They literally made the UFO a diamond...

The worst is when it's shown to be a literal giant diamond. The witnesses used the diamond description, but just for the outline. It was not described as four-sided, but more ovoid with a bulging midline. Other shots show a big lighted shape that isn't so distinct, which was much better. The only attempt to portray the Chinook helicopters was a short shot of the UFO surrounded by spotlights.


Just pretend those are CH-47 spotlights.

The worst problem was the fact the incident was simplified for television. The case is complex enough it would need at least a full episode to do it justice, but it just gets a hit-and-run treatment. All that is featured in the reenactment is the initial encounter of the UFO and they do not examine the sightings from later locations or the movement by it or the helicopters the witnesses described.



Cash-Landrum UFO, as seen on TV.
They leave out some key elements of the story, such as Betty's account of burning her hand on the door handle as she returned to the car. The actress was wearing a sweater instead of the leather jacket Betty used to open the door.

Presentation of Medical Evidence


Radiologist, not.

Far too much time is given to Dr. Bryan McClelland, the family physician who treated Betty Cash starting in 1983.  McClelland is sometimes misrepresented in the media as a radiologist, or Cash’s original physician or both, and in this program, it’s implied he treated her immediately after the incident. McClelland mentions that he began treating Betty Cash after she moved back to Alabama, but does not say that it was later than that, about 1983. He claims that her symptoms followed the pattern to exposure to radiation exposure. He also said that he'd that he taken a biopsy from Betty Cash and tested it, and insists that she was exposed to radiation that led to her health problems. (This is his opinion, and it is unsupported by any documentation.)

If you don't know, make something up.

Fictionalized wounds on the actor portraying Betty Cash are placed on her face, collar and arms.

Expert Commentary

Nick Pope is prominently featured in the series. Here, he is introduced as having studied the case for fifteen years, and he offers some commentary and speculation on the nature of the UFO, and discusses the charges of a government cover-up. He suggests that the UFO was a nuclear-powered prototype, possibly an unmanned  black project.

Chris Pocock, editor of Aviation International News offers comments on the secrecy regarding the testing of military projects and the locations where they are generally tested. He finds the secret test vehicle scenario unlikely, pointing out that such vehicles are not tested in populated areas.

Jim Thurston is captioned as “Medical Radiation Specialist.” He’s the head of Radiation Protection and Dosimetry at The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust. He discusses the effects of radiation and the dosage, and points out that a dose of ionizing radiation capable of producing the symptoms so rapidly would have been a lethal one. He dismisses radiation as the cause of injuries and points that exposure to chemicals could have produce the same symptoms.

There’s a discussion of some skeptical theories.

Dr. Robert Bartholomew is captioned as “Medical Sociologist,” and he’s written on UFO and paranormal topics, and believes most witnesses are sincere. He discusses that witnesses may be truthful, but be mistaken in interpreting what they’ve seen. Bartholomew points out that our memories do not playback what happened, but a reconstruction based on our interpretation. He also suggests that the stress of an encounter could produce psychosomatic physical problems such as rashes, headaches and vomiting.

Prof. Randy Cerveny, captioned as “Extreme Weather Expert,” is a professor of geographical sciences at Arizona State, and the author of two books on freakish weather. He discusses the possibility that the UFO was a superior mirage, possibly the reflection of the column of flame of a nearby oil refinery. 

Light pillar is too fancy, just say mirage for TV.

I have a source inside the film making industry, we'll call him PK. He tells me that shows like this shoot segments with "experts" where they talk about different topics, which are edited into bits of several different shows. That's what's happened here, and some of the comments are so generic they could have been used for most other UFO cases. None of their experts had any specific relation or familiarity with the Cash-Landrum case. Some of it is very good, but it lacks depth.

It's not over until the segment's over

The attempt by the witnesses to file a legal claim against the United States is very briefly discussed. They show a made-for-TV army document, then some of the case paperwork, including one from the Texas Department of Health (first published here at Blue Blurry Lines!) The implication is that officials lied under oath to cover up the events.

TDH document from BBL!
They tell the basic story, superficially deal with the pros and cons, and then seem to shrug, and leave it in the “who knows?” category.

Product Contains Less Than 1% Blue Blurry Lines 

I was in contact with Paola Desiderio, Pioneer’s Archive Assistant Producer, and exchanged a series of correspondence helping with getting them images, and putting them in touch with John Schuessler. Besides shopping BBL for ideas, they used some photos from this site, transformed to black and white. In the closing  credits, under Stock Footage, they list John Schuessler for the use of his photographs, but it’s his only acknowledgement in the show. Using my work without credit is forgivable, but Schuessler deserved far better.


I'd like to forget all the little people...

There were also negotiations with other parties to provide material on this case never before broadcast. Why those failed, I don’t yet know, but it gives me hope that it can yet be presented in a more thorough examination of the case. The key item of interest is the audio recording of the witnesses giving a statement to officers at Bergstrom Air Force Base in 1981. When the deal fell through to get the new interviews and materials, they should have just moved on to covering another UFO case.



There are two other programs coming in the near future that will discuss the Cash-Landrum case, NASA's Unexplained Files, and Hangar 1: The UFO Files. Investors are warned that, “past performance does not necessarily predict future results.” In the case of television, I think it does, and that these programs, too will botch the story. 

The best that can be hoped for about these UFO shows, is that people will hear about these cases and be prompted seek out more accurate information on them. Don't laugh. We can dream...

If National Geographic can’t get the Cash-Landrum case right, TV should just give up on it.

Television, you can’t handle the truth.

It's good to try new things, but stick to what you do well.