I'm not going to repost the entire Cash-Landrum UFO incident in detail here, as it is one of the most well-known and significant close encounters in
history. For those who need a refresher on the case:
Cash-Landrum UFO Incident (1980)
HUFFMAN, TEXAS - On the evening of December the 29th 1980, Betty Cash, Vickie Landrum and Colby Landrum... noticed a bright UFO above the tree
tops... Colby was the first to spot it and pointed it out to the others. As they drove on it appeared to get larger and larger. As they realized that
the object was approaching the road only a short distance ahead they began to get worried but hoped to get by it in time and leave it behind. But
before they could do so the object had straddled the road blocking their way.
In a nutshell, the two women and young boy witnessed a massive "diamond-shaped" craft descend and hover just a few meters above the blacktop country
road directly in their path, causing them to stop their automobile. One of the women exited the vehicle for a better look, but was forced to retreat
by the intense heat of the UFO's sparking and flaming "exhaust." The UFO then ascended and departed.
All three witnesses reported a large formation of
Chinook helicopters (as many as 23 choppers) accompanying the bizarre craft.
In the weeks and months that followed, the witnesses repeatedly sought medical treatment for symptoms that were positively identified as resulting
from
high-energy radiation exposure. In point of fact, the severe "sunburns" that the women received deteriorated into prolonged battles
with cancer, which claimed both of their lives years later. Only the boy, Colby Landrum, survives to this day.
I was reminded of this incident just this evening while viewing an episode of
UFO Hunters on
The History Channel, an episode
specifically addressing the Cash-Landrum event. No new information was revealed (as is usually the case with such programs), but one segment of the
show hit home for me.
In early January of 1981, I was catching a ride from a buddy who lived in Conroe, Texas, and we necessarily traveled that same roadway (FM 1485) on
our way to work on the east side of Houston. We usually left well before sunrise to reach our jobsite by 7:00 AM, as the commuter traffic up there
around Conroe was legendarily bad. So it was still dark when we hit the road.
This would have been shortly after the Cash-Landrum incident transpired, but we didn't know that, as the story had not yet reached the press.
Outside of New Caney, Texas, on a stretch of 1485 that was particularly desolate at the time, we encountered a nondescript sawhorse roadblock and what
I supposed was a contract road crew
working in the dark, using only a spotlight tree to illuminate what appeared to be some serious road
repairs. In fact, we were
turned back to New Caney because the entire road was closed.
I thought this was odd because there were no "detour" nor "road closed" nor "men working" warning signs, and it was highly unusual for road
repairs to shut down
both sides of a thoroughfare. Unless, of course, it was an emergency job. We assumed that a petroleum tanker had crashed
and burned, damaging the road and warranting a rush repair.
By the light of our headlights, we could see quite a bit of heavy equipment — a couple of beaten-up and unmarked dump trucks, an unmarked front-end
loader, an unmarked road grader, and a couple of other bulky vehicles hidden by the darkness. I guessed that it was a blacktop machine, because we
could smell creosote and asphalt in the air. None of the road crew were wearing reflective gear, either, which I thought was pretty peculiar. They
were tearing up and laying a new road. In the dark.
Aside from being a little puzzled and pissed off, we turned around and took an alternate route to work and didn't give the road block another
thought, except that we remembered to take a different route home later that day.
Shortly thereafter, the Cash-Landrum incident first made the news in a big way; even then, we didn't put two-and-two together for a few more weeks.
Then, on the way home from work one afternoon, traveling up FM 1485, we made the connection — here was a new stretch of over 100 feet of the roadway
that was stark and pristine blacktop. Even the gravel
shoulders of the road were fresh gravel, all of which stood out like a sore thumb
against the rest of the forested scenery.
It just suddenly became very obvious to us — this was where that goddamned
thing, that diamond-shaped UFO, had come down and melted
the road. As later confirmed by the witnesses, it was the
exact site of the incident.
Which was a distinctly creepy feeling, but also an infuriating one. I mean, this
thing had provided even the staunchest skeptics with
some of the most irrefutable physical evidence they could possibly demand of a UFO sighting... A
melted highway, and a trio of witnesses
suffering high-energy
radiation burns, for Godsake.
But the evidence was
deliberately destroyed and paved-over. The witnesses tried to sue the U.S. military and then the U.S. government
for their grievous injuries, but their lawsuits were dismissed without hearing, simply because the government issued a one-line excuse:
The U.S.
government has no knowledge of and does not assume responsibility for this incident.
Ta-daaaa. Easiest defense ever.
Which is one of the reasons that I have very little respect for skeptics demanding irrefutable physical evidence of UFO contact. I think skeptics
know the evidence is being destroyed, which makes it easy to dismiss UFOs out-of-hand, without even bothering to investigate. I mean,
how many times do you think this has happened over the decades? How many contacts have been
paved-over and
officially dismissed, even as people's lives were destroyed in the process?
— Doc Velocity