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The Cash/Landrum UFO Case

ComptrollerAlpha said:
From the Cash/Landrum article on the "The Why Files" site:

"About 3 weeks after the incident a number of men in unmarked trucks arrived at the scene of the UFO sighting and repaired the heat damage of the road. Several weeks later they returned and removed 6 inches of the surface material before repairing the road again. At the location where the Cask/Landrum incident took place there is evidence of new growth of vegetation in comparison with the well established nearby trees."

So was it the next day or three weeks later?
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Apologies if I'm in error. But I came upon the "next day" report two or three times back when I was doing in-depth reading into Cash-Landrum.

I wonder if both stories might be correct. Could the "next day" roadmenders have been instructed to save the materials they removed for a later pickup by a HazMat team?

And three weeks later there would almost certainly have been a lot of debris left along the sides of the repaired road, including charred wood.

Or is it possible that those "next day" repairs were limited to re-painting the traffic lines, which had been badly twisted by the heat?
 
eburacum said:
I can't see how they could identify the exact spot on a country road where this happened with any confidence, following a sighting at night.
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Because the roadway melted, distorting the traffic lines. Besides, the trees along the road were charred.

And I wonder who reported the gang of anonymous road repair men, three weeks later? Cash, Landrum or an unspecified third party?
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Does it matter very much? To the best of my knowledge nobody's ever accused Cash or Landrum or the boy of hoaxing the case. And they'd certainly have a deep interest in keeping track of subsequent events.
 
How can we be certain that Cash and Landrum didn't simply create a hoax? Besides an absolute lack of motive, there are these:

1. They would have had to introduce the potential weak link of the grandson into the conspiracy.

2. They would have had to find a way to melt the roadway.

3. They would have had to find a way to char the trees.

4. They would have had to heat-bubble the paint of the car.

5. They would have had to hire a fleet of helicopters. (The helicopters were witnessed by a fourth, independent, witness, the choppers heading hell-for-leather in the direction of the sighting location.

6. For good measure, they dosed themselves with a potentially lethal amount of radiation.

George Adamski should be ashamed.
 
The 'charred' trees and disturbed road surface may have been at a different spot, which is my point. Search along any road through a forest and you will probably find places where the trees and road surface look disturbed.

What does seem to be the case is that a flight of helicopters went over; probably not '23' as that seems to have been a typo. But a flight of 12 helicopers was reported by a policeman and his wife; despite what is says on Geoff's 'Whyfiles' page, these independent witnesses apparently did not report a diamond shaped object.

James Easton seems to have uncovered name of the helicopter force involved; TF158, a supposedly top secret 'rescue' flight. Perhaps they were training at night with a vaguely diamond shaped object suspended beneath their copters, which was seen at close range by these unfortunate women.
Their medical conditions would in that case be entirely coincidental; we don't know their medical history before the event, and the hair loss and so on may have been a stress reaction. The heat and other effects would have been subjective or imagined, if my rather tortuous hypothesis is correct.
 
Or they might ave been on a hazmat training exercise, although using real chemicals or radioactives near a public road would have been the height of folly.
Perhaps it was just a mockup of a reactor or burning fuel tank, with a bit of pyrotechnics to add authenticity.
 
You may be right, but it seems to me that you're using a lot of possible x possible x possible.

And all bets are off if that intense heat was more than merely subjective.
 
Several things about the sighting don't ring true, but that is to be expected given such inexperienced observers. How can an object seen at night both glow brightly and resemble dull aluminium? If a metal object emits light, it loses its metallic sheen (its reflective characteristics- like mirror and specular reflection) when it becomes emmisive. Think of a red-hot poker, or a white hot slab of metal in a forge; it no longer looks metallic or shiny.

I would guess that the object was bright because it was lilluminated externally, perhaps by spotlights on the Chinooks.


Another problem is the rapid onset of the symptoms. Radiation burns and sickness that rapid would have signified a fatal dose; apparently a non fatal dose would have had an onset of days or weeks. (reference here) If the symptoms were associated with the event they were probably chemical in nature (a chemical warfare accident?) or burns from flares (pyrotechnics again) or hot exhaust.
 
eburacum said:
James Easton seems to have uncovered name of the helicopter force involved; TF158, a supposedly top secret 'rescue' flight. Perhaps they were training at night with a vaguely diamond shaped object suspended beneath their copters, which was seen at close range by these unfortunate women.
Their medical conditions would in that case be entirely coincidental; we don't know their medical history before the event, and the hair loss and so on may have been a stress reaction. The heat and other effects would have been subjective or imagined, if my rather tortuous hypothesis is correct.
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buh? (Tejas is mostly desert, right?)
 
ER- blimey!
Look at this! It is a picture of a Credible Sport Hercules firing rocket engines supposedly allowing it to land in Tehran stadium.
plane.lift.lg.jpg


I wonder if that is what the helicopters were accompanying...
 
eburacum said:
Several things about the sighting don't ring true, but that is to be expected given such inexperienced observers. How can an object seen at night both glow brightly and resemble dull aluminium?
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It PULSATED?

Another problem is the rapid onset of the symptoms. Radiation burns and sickness that rapid would have signified a fatal dose; apparently a non fatal dose would have had an onset of days or weeks. (reference here) If the symptoms were associated with the event they were probably chemical in nature (a chemical warfare accident?) or burns from flares (pyrotechnics again) or hot exhaust.
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If this WAS an alien craft (and I'm not insisting on that), would it neccessarily emit radiation according to terrestrial rule books?
 
It might have been emitting neutrinos or Higgs Bosons, but if they affected tissues by ionisation, the effects would be roughly similar to gamma-rays. But heat radiation, ie burns, would be different. They might have been sprayed by hot gases or fuel particles, or poisoned by hypergolics.

...not exactly diamond-shaped...
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The cockpit/cabin area looks vaguely diamond shaped, but the two women omitted to mention any wings.
Three of these craft were modified; one crashed during a demonstration in October of that year, but the operation continued until it was cancelled in 1981. So it is in the right time frame. The modification seems to have been fairly secret until 1997.
 
eburacum said:
It might have been emitting neutrinos or Higgs Bosons, but if they affected tissues by ionisation, the effects would be roughly similar to gamma-rays.
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But once again, why wouild an alien craft, possiblely hundreds of years in advance of terrestrial technology, be forced to emit radiation in agreement with 20th Century/early 21st Century terrestrial knowledge of the subject?

Sir Arthur C. Clarke, a man for whom I have a very great respect, once opined that alien craft could not possibly land unsuspected on earth, because "anything much larger than a fountain pen would be picked up by terrestrial radar."

But how could Sir Arthur so glibly assume that a civilization capable of crossing interstellar space couldn't easily evade (or just plain ignore) 20th Century terrestrial radar?
 
Interestingly, a number of well documented cases have a certain amount of radar evidence.
It is entirely probable that each of those cases are explained by misidentification of known aircraft, unknown experimental craft, faulty equipment, badly recorded data or anomalous propagation; so we are in the same boat as with visual cases, not being able to prove anything.

I have every confidence that an advanced civilisation would be able to avoid radar detection, using a number of different strategies; but it seems to me that they would in fact be able to avoid all detection, which implies (but does not prove) that (if they exist) they want to be seen on occasion.

A strange strategy, but they are aliens after all..
 
Yet another possibility is that the aliens simply don't care whether we see them or not.

They may make no more effort to evade us than a modern jet bomber flying low over unexplored jungle tries to hide from the natives with their blow-guns.
 
OldTimeRadio said:
But once again, why wouild an alien craft, possiblely hundreds of years in advance of terrestrial technology, be forced to emit radiation in agreement with 20th Century/early 21st Century terrestrial knowledge of the subject?
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Think about the alternative.

Yes, there might be shapeshifting, timetravelling beings with paranormal abilities who can walk through walls, communicate telepathically and appear in any form to some people while being invisible to others next to them.

But does this type opf approach have any power to explain anything?

In any case, the only suggestion of radiation seems to have come from the witnesses.
 
Surely the medical effects of radiation poisoning (which the expert cited above thinks wasn't the cause of Betty Cash's medical condition) would be identical whether they were caused by a nuclear submarine or an alien spacecraft?

How could aliens have a 'different' kind of radiation - assuming that the laws of physics are consistent throughout the universe? Isn't that a bit like saying that they might have a different kind of hydrogen? (I'm asking, not telling - my knowledge of physics would fit on a postage stamp.)

My guess, for what its worth, would be the object was some kind of experimental military aircraft that malfunctioned.
 
I will have to retract my previous criticism of the Whyfiles report; at least one other witness did mention a diamond shaped object that night. Corroborative witnesses often are influenced by newspaper reports; but that doesn't mean to say we can dismiss them out of hand.

I am still amazed at the audacity of the Credible Sport project, however; the plant was to land a C-130 Hercules in a football stadium, a space which was not much longer than the plane itself.
This would be achieved by flying above the football field, and stopping in midair by firing eight forward facing rockets on the front of the plane;
See here
http://members.aol.com/mkonvalin/fave/ymc-1303.jpg
The plane would drop like a stone, to be supported by eight downward pointing rocket blasts -
http://edition.cnn.com/US/9703/03/iran. ... ift.lg.jpg
and land almost vertically. A Delta force of specialised soldiers would pour out, rescue th hostages, and then take off almost vertically under the thrust of eighteen rockets, with 150 people(presumably) tied down on the floor of the Herc.
In the event the first test landing looked like this;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iv_SNIvCzxs
the Herc was a write-off and buried at the airfield.
 
graylien said:
How could aliens have a 'different' kind of radiation - assuming that the laws of physics are consistent throughout the universe?
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I wasn't arguing that "aliens have a 'different' kind of radiation" - although that's possible. It was Einstein himself who said "'E = MC Squared' may be purely a local phenomenon."

But isn't it possible that an engineering and medical technology 500 years in advance of Earth no longer fears radiation poisoning?
 
wembley8 said:
Yes, there might be shapeshifting, timetravelling beings with paranormal abilities who can walk through walls, communicate telepathically and appear in any form to some people while being invisible to others next to them.
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Again, I'm NOT arguing that aliens (assuming they exist) have any such "magical" powers.

But why do we assume that a medical science 500 years in advance of our own will still see the dangers of nuclear radiation exactly as we do today? Our own terrestrial medical and scientific knowledge has made some advances since 1507.
 
eburacum said:
I will have to retract my previous criticism of the Whyfiles report; at least one other witness did mention a diamond shaped object that night. Corroborative witnesses often are influenced by newspaper reports; but that doesn't mean to say we can dismiss them out of hand.
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In which case I withdraw my observation.

I will however reiterate that while observations on the case at hand are always welcome, as are specific links, general adverts should be confined to Announcements.
 
OldTimeRadio said:
It was Einstein himself who said "'E = MC Squared' may be purely a local phenomenon."
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I don't think so!! Got a source?

OldTimeRadio said:
But isn't it possible that an engineering and medical technology 500 years in advance of Earth no longer fears radiation poisoning?
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Or environmental damage. Or lawsuits.
 
Please excuse if the following has already been mentioned but I may have missed it.

When this case first made the headlines Three types of helicopter were mentioned the double roter, small single roter and also a single larger helicopter bigger than the double roter ones. at the time I thought it (the UFO) was some failing government project and that the big helicopter was to tow the UFO away if neccessary. I thought this big chopper would have been a skycrane or similiar.

The damage to the three witnesses was said to have caused by Microwave Ultraviolet and X-ray energy.

Similiar object was seen some distance away in the USA a day or two before.

Sorry can give no references just what I remember from the time.
 
If the UFO was attached (by cables?) to an overhead helicopter, then it might have been some kind of dangerous machinery.
 
Someone ought to go back and find the kid and interview him. He should be in his 30s by now and it would be interesting to see what he has to say. I know Betty Cash is now dead but you have to wonder if he or his mother have had any chronic problems.

I don't really know what to make of this case. My skeptical nature makes me think there's something not quite right about the story, but I don't know what it is. I doubt we'll ever get any definitive answers.

S
 
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