UFO History: December 29, 1980 -Cash-Landrum Incident

I finally finished my road trip from Virginia Beach to Pennsylvania and have settled in for the evening. While it was a long drive, it did give me some time to digest a couple podcasts and relax. Now that my regular writing work is done, I can dig into UFO History. 

Today, December 29, I found a famous case that has been reviewed and researched many times: The Cash–Landrum Incident. 

According to the story, on the evening of December 29, 1980, Betty Cash (aged 51), Vickie Landrum (aged (57), and Vickie's grandson Colby Landrum (aged (7) were driving home to Dayton, Texas. Around 2100 hours while driving on an isolated two-lane road in dense woods, they saw a light above some trees and that they first thought it was an airplane approaching Houston Intercontinental Airport (about 35 miles [56 km] away) and gave it little notice.

A few minutes later on the winding roads, they saw what they believed to be the same light as before, but thought it was now much closer and brighter. They said that it came from a huge diamond-shaped object, which hovered at about treetop level, and that its base was expelling flame and emitting significant heat.

Cash and Landrum said that they got out of the car to examine the object, but that Colby was terrified, and so Landrum said she quickly returned to the car to comfort him. Cash remained outside and saw an intensely bright and dull metallic silver object that was shaped like a huge upright diamond, about the size of the Dayton water tower with its top and bottom cut off so that they were flat rather than pointed. 

Small blue lights ringed the center, and periodically over the next few minutes flames shot out of the bottom, flaring outward to create the effect of a large cone. Every time the fire dissipated, the UFO floated a few feet downward toward the road. But when the flames blasted out again, the object rose about the same distance.

They said the heat was strong enough to make the car's metal body painful to the touch. Cash said she had to use her coat to protect her hand from being burned by the door handle when she finally got back in the car. When she touched the dashboard, Landrum claimed her hand pressed into the softened vinyl, leaving an imprint that was evident weeks later. Investigators cited this as proof of their account; video evidence of this was shown in the 1985 HBO documentary,  UFOs: What's Going On. 

The witnesses were southbound on Texas State Highway FM 1485/2100 when they claimed to have seen the object. The initial location of the reported object, based on the same descriptions, was just south of Inland Road.

After the encounter, both Cash and Landrum had multiple medical issues, which they claim occurred due to the incident. Unfortunately, these claims were never verified to be true. 

Many researchers have attempted to figure out what transpired, but no conclusive evidence exists to fully explain what was encountered.