The Cash-Landrum suppressed government file

reply to post by 1ofthe9

I very much appreciate that swift and knowledgable reply! Now, can we trace the manufacture or operation of such a project within range of the scene of the crime?

Bonus question: Was this covert in 1980?

I can't really add anything to this thread in terms of factual information and it's worth a lot more than a dozen flags or so.

But it's always been one case I was aware of and always believed it to be something the US military were responsible for. This information does not dim my view. It occurred just a few days after all the commotion thousands of miles away at Bentwaters & Rendlesham Forest as 1980 drew to a close.

Is there any connection? I have no idea. But this information throws a poor light on the the actual investigation of this case by certain parties.

CardDown
reply to post by 1ofthe9

 

I very much appreciate that swift and knowledgable reply! Now, can we trace the manufacture or operation of such a project within range of the scene of the crime?

Bonus question: Was this covert in 1980?

Well, SASSTO and such were the product of Phillip Bono's imagination, and he was a Douglas man. I haven't really seen any SSTO type stuff that compares to it from other aerospace companies, but JimOberg might be able to help in that area. It would have been covert because I haven't run into anything like it prior to the DC-X program in the early nineties...which was run by McDonnell Douglas. DC-X might have been the descendant of our hypothetical black world hopper - with an aim to be less liable to poison the taxpayers.

Another avenue to check out would be where the government would source high energy fuel from.

Wikipedia - Zip Fuel
It is estimated that the U.S. spent about $1 billion on the program, in 2001 inflation-adjusted dollars.[7] At least five HEF production plants were built in the U.S., and two workers were killed in an explosion that destroyed one plant in New York.[7] Most of the program was classified Top Secret while being carried out, but nevertheless it was widely covered both in the trade press and civilian newspapers.[10] Both the U.S. and Soviet Union independently declassified their research in 1964.

Now they do still have secret-squirrel production of nasty chemicals for PANTEX and what not. I suppose a plant might have been mothballed and restarted if they had chosen to get back into the field... The mythical Blackstar spaceplane from a few years back was rumored to have run on borane - suppose everything about Blackstar was bull# except for the use of high energy fuels...

mirageman
I can't really add anything to this thread in terms of factual information and it's worth a lot more than a dozen flags or so.

But it's always been one case I was aware of and always believed it to be something the US military were responsible for. This information does not dim my view. It occurred just a few days after all the commotion thousands of miles away at Bentwaters & Rendlesham Forest as 1980 drew to a close.

Is there any connection? I have no idea. But this information throws a poor light on the the actual investigation of this case by certain parties.

edit on 15/11/13 by mirageman because: corrections

Well whatever was observed at Rendlesham doesn't fit my covert hopper thesis. Different reported visual appearance - plus the last thing you'd want to do with something loaded with a extremely reactive high energy fuel is try to set down in a forest. Major fire and crash hazard.

Great discussion y'all. I'm out of my league on this one, but I'm learning lots. Please keep it up!

Its really the absence of Keelian high strangeness that I'm surprised no one picked up on. There are no weird psi effects or 'silent contactee' behavior that indicates something other then of Earthly origins. I'm really suprised no one considered exposure to a environmental toxin as opposed to radiation.

The exposure of Area 51 people to toxic waste was something the government tried to hush up. This is actually more 'containable' then something like that. Plus it helps that folks have been chasing saucers for thirty years.

It might also be useful to check with people who would have been living downwind of the sighting location for any health effects. This is something that can be accomplished without recourse to FOIA or anything. Just grab the weather records for the area and look for a farmer who would have been downwind. Animal deaths might be another thing to check out.

I'm in Canada, but if I was in Texas I'd be more than happy to check things out in person. Do we have any fourm members or bloggers who would be willing to check this stuff out?

reply to post by The GUT

TG, I dug out some corresspondence just for you!
The DAIG Investigation of the Cash-Landrum Case & John B. Alexander

Before your favorite spook made his mark solo, he was a bit player in this drama. But somehow, even then, he managed not to leave any documents tying him to it. Way to go John!

CardDown
reply to post by The GUT

 

TG, I dug out some corresspondence just for you!
The DAIG Investigation of the Cash-Landrum Case & John B. Alexander

Before your favorite spook made his mark solo, he was a bit player in this drama. But somehow, even then, he managed not to leave any documents tying him to it. Way to go John!

Hey CardDown, great work with this stuff. Got two question for ya:

1. Has anyone considered that Sea Knights were involved vs. Chinooks? The CH-47-Army link would be a great way to deflect attention me thinks.
2. Did anyone ever look into toxicology stuff on the witnesses?
3. Do you think my speculation re: SSTO testbed stuff has any merit? :p I gotta credit you and your commentors for hitting on borane before I did.

reply to post by 1ofthe9


1. Has anyone considered that Sea Knights were involved vs. Chinooks? The CH-47-Army link would be a great way to deflect attention me thinks.

Yes, J. Schuessler mentions it a few times in his literature, but I can't say how well this was investigated.
(His theory involved the USS New Orleans navysite.de... ) Supposedly this was also dealt with in the DAIG investigation, but I'd imagine not closely.

2. Did anyone ever look into toxicology stuff on the witnesses?

The literature only focuses on "selling" the radiation scenario, and only Betty Cash had extensive treatment/tests. The Schuessler book documents part of Cash's treatment/diagnosis, but I don't recall physician speculation on poisoning. (More along the lines of skin ailment.)

3. Do you think my speculation re: SSTO testbed stuff has any merit? :p I gotta credit you and your commentors for hitting on borane before I did.

I'm simply not familiar enough with it to say, but like it a whole better than the NERVA scenario!

CardDown
reply to post by 1ofthe9

 

1. Has anyone considered that Sea Knights were involved vs. Chinooks? The CH-47-Army link would be a great way to deflect attention me thinks.

Yes, J. Schuessler mentions it a few times in his literature, but I can't say how well this was investigated.
(His theory involved the USS New Orleans navysite.de... ) Supposedly this was also dealt with in the DAIG investigation, but I'd imagine not closely.

2. Did anyone ever look into toxicology stuff on the witnesses?

The literature only focuses on "selling" the radiation scenario, and only Betty Cash had extensive treatment/tests. The Schuessler book documents part of Cash's treatment/diagnosis, but I don't recall physician speculation on poisoning. (More along the lines of skin ailment.)

3. Do you think my speculation re: SSTO testbed stuff has any merit? :p I gotta credit you and your commentors for hitting on borane before I did.

I'm simply not familiar enough with it to say, but like it a whole better than the NERVA scenario!

edit on 15-11-2013 by CardDown because: link

1. Well, I propose a place to start on this aspect would be to track down a veteran (or several ideally) who would have served about the New Orleans at the time. Something like this would be pretty hard to disguise from the crew. I might have another solution: are there any closed ranges used for aircraft testing in Texas and how far are they from the sighting location? If so, this could have been an attempted suborbital 'hop' from California/Nevada to Texas, except something happened and the craft came down outside the closed area. The helicopters would have been running some kind of range safety/emergency thing if that was the case...and its interesting to note that the Marine Corps have the Sea Knight in their inventory, and they ran a relatively recent study on sub-orbital troop carriers.

Granted, the one problem with my scenario is the time involved. Hovering on a rocket for 20 minutes would eat a lot of fuel up. I know some SSTO studies from the sixties and seventies involved turbojets for landing - but that might be too mass intensive for the size of the airframe. Although, when I think about it, they could have tried a Texas to California flight, and then aborted for whatever reason. Either way, Weird Flying Thingie ends up where it isn't supposed to be.

2. I'm curious as to the motivation of the "selling". It could represent misdirection, but it could also represent an attempt to oversell the case by the investigators. The skin ailment line is very interesting - I'm pretty sure contact dermatitis would result (at minimum!) from exposure to this stuff. Cash being the worst affected of the bunch would make sense, given that she spent the most time outside the car and thus exposed to whatever the hell was in the air that night.

I saw the mention of the smell of lighter fluid coming up under hypnosis on your site, and this might also be worth checking into. If the MSDT's for the borane fuels could be found, it might be worth it to see what they smell like - it at least implies some kind of hydrocarbon (kerosene?). Of course, it is hypnosis so...

3. Yay! Now we just gotta see if it meets the approval of JimOberg.

I'd also be very interested in a thread about Project VISIT if you have any more of their documentation. I'd really be keen on how they figured UFO engineering worked. I've also picked up quite a bit about nuclear rocketry over the years, so if you ever need that feel free to ask.

edit: in discussing this with an engineer friend he suggested looking into whoever would have had the closest aerospace fabrication plant to the sighting location. Anyone know?

reply to post by 1ofthe9


I ran your SSTO scenario by Graham, who has made similar speculation about chemical injuries:

I'd call it an interesting speculation, and my own preferences are towards a terrestrial explanation (Like the one suggested by the photograph of the helicopter in your November 15th blog post.), but in my own opinion, a 'souped up' flamethrower is easier to design, build and supply 'exotic' fuel for than an aerospace vehicle.

And there is less lead time involved. To use a real world historical example NASA ran it's first manned lunar landing simulations covering a full mission from launch to landing in 1962, seven years before the first Apollo landing, so early in fact that they had not decided on the landing mode (The missions simulated a direct landing of the Apollo CSM on the lunar surface rather than the two vehicle approach eventually chosen.)

This thread I created on the Nasaspaceflight.com forums last year has pictures from the reports, but the documents themselves are currently offline due to that security scare earlier in the year.

forum.nasaspaceflight.com...

I just don't see the lead time existing to put together a manned SSTO spacecraft, even if they were working from completed plans.
blueblurrylines.blogspot.com...

What you guys seem to both saying is that we could virtually duplicate this event with technology of the day- possibly with off the shelf vehicles.

CardDown
reply to post by 1ofthe9

 

I ran your SSTO scenario by Graham, who has made similar speculation about chemical injuries:

I'd call it an interesting speculation, and my own preferences are towards a terrestrial explanation (Like the one suggested by the photograph of the helicopter in your November 15th blog post.), but in my own opinion, a 'souped up' flamethrower is easier to design, build and supply 'exotic' fuel for than an aerospace vehicle.

And there is less lead time involved. To use a real world historical example NASA ran it's first manned lunar landing simulations covering a full mission from launch to landing in 1962, seven years before the first Apollo landing, so early in fact that they had not decided on the landing mode (The missions simulated a direct landing of the Apollo CSM on the lunar surface rather than the two vehicle approach eventually chosen.)

This thread I created on the Nasaspaceflight.com forums last year has pictures from the reports, but the documents themselves are currently offline due to that security scare earlier in the year.

forum.nasaspaceflight.com...

I just don't see the lead time existing to put together a manned SSTO spacecraft, even if they were working from completed plans.
blueblurrylines.blogspot.com...

What you guys seem to both saying is that we could virtually duplicate this event with technology of the day- possibly with off the shelf vehicles.

Pretty much yeah. I don't think it has to be an SSTO - maybe just some kind of engine test bed. If they were going to design and build a souped up flamethrower, I'd expect something like Chlorine trifluoride over a borane - but Graham might be on to something too.

Cash & Landrum case, I never read anything 'solid' other than the fact that something did irradiate or burn the three people in the car to feel disappointed by any inaccuracies. Usually there, where the inaccuracies are, one can see some truth in the case. Either way, is there any info about the craft, the object or all revolves around the damaged asphalt and the health of the witnesses? It seems even the witnesses did not know what they were facing, thus no report of the object describing what it was could be made.

That 'Colby' guy could not shed any more light in that?

But there is no piece of info to talk about this being in any way a non-human thing.

reply to post by 1ofthe9

Now, DUMBO's thrust to weight advantage over NERVA might be worth considering, but if they did have a NTR hopper, they wouldn't be flying it around Texas. That's what Jackass Flats in Nevada is for. I would suggest...

With regards to NERVA, have you considered something more exotic like Project Pluto (aka. The Flying Crowbar)? The time-frame was in the mid-60s. So there would have been ample time to develop it into a tail sitter design. I haven't done much research into the specifics to vet the idea, but it is something that's always niggled at me. Especially after I discovered Pluto was designed to "travel at near-treetop level."[0] Whatever your thoughts, I'd be interested to hear them. Thanks for sharing!

reply to post by Xtraeme

Wow, Xtraeme, you just blew my mind...

The nuclear ramjet engine at the heart of Project Pluto is key to what made this weapon so horrific. A ramjet is a very simple engine design, with essentially no moving parts. Once the missile was launched with conventional rocket boosters, the air velocity going into the ramjet's intake would be fast enough to let the engine function, and an essentially unshielded nuclear reactor would heat the air as it entered, where it would expand and be expelled out of the engine's nozzle, providing both lots of thrust and plenty of radioactive material.

jalopnik.com...

The GUT
reply to post by Xtraeme

 

Wow, Xtraeme, you just blew my mind...

I try to limit blowing people's mind to once a day.

I still need to reply to your Electromagnetism thread. I have a lot to say.

Hopefully I can find the time at some point!

Xtraeme
reply to post by 1ofthe9

 

Now, DUMBO's thrust to weight advantage over NERVA might be worth considering, but if they did have a NTR hopper, they wouldn't be flying it around Texas. That's what Jackass Flats in Nevada is for. I would suggest...

With regards to NERVA, have you considered something more exotic like Project Pluto (aka. The Flying Crowbar)? The time-frame was in the mid-60s. So there would have been ample time to develop it into a tail sitter design. I haven't done much research into the specifics to vet the idea, but it is something that's always niggled at me. Especially after I discovered Pluto was designed to "travel at near-treetop level."[0] Whatever your thoughts, I'd be interested to hear them. Thanks for sharing!

edit on 2013-11-16 by Xtraeme because: (no reason given)

Treetop level at Mach 3. They did some open air testing in Jackass Flats of the Tory reactors , but it wouldn't be a good candidate for this case because this Weird Flying Thingie hovered around the highway.

If you want something more hardcore than Pluto, check out Project Orion and Deep Space Force. Coca-Cola helped with the bomb handling mechanism.

1ofthe9

If you want something more hardcore than Pluto, check out Project Orion and Deep Space Force. Coca-Cola helped with the bomb handling mechanism.

Project Orion was not designed to be something flown in our atmosphere.Nor was it ever anything close to being built. It was just a design study, albeit further along than something like Project Longshot.

Orion was to be a space assembled interstellar probe. In short it would have been propelled by lighting off H-bombs behind it.

Had the Cash-Landrum incident been Orion then they would have been killed instantly along with most of their county and beyond.

JadeStar

1ofthe9

If you want something more hardcore than Pluto, check out Project Orion and Deep Space Force. Coca-Cola helped with the bomb handling mechanism.

Project Orion was not designed to be something flown in our atmosphere.Nor was it ever anything close to being built. It was just a design study, albeit further along than something like Project Longshot.

Orion was to be a space assembled interstellar probe. In short it would have been propelled by lighting off H-bombs behind it.

Had the Cash-Landrum incident been Orion then they would have been killed instantly along with most of their county and beyond.

Oh no. I wasn't proposing it was an Orion.

Just that it was a cool concept to explore if you're into that sort of thing. It was actually intended to be ground launched; it was only when NASA became interested near the end of the program that you saw things like lofting and space assembly.

reply to post by ImpactoR


You make some very good observations. There are so many missed opportunities in this case and puzzles in the investigation. Big head scratcher for me- Why did the investigator wait a full week from meeting Betty Cash to meeting Vickie Landrum and seeking the sighting location? Obligations, sure, but with a red-hot case, I'd have burned a sick day to check things out!

The surviving witness has not spoken to the media since the mid-80s except for UFO Hunter's botched coverage of the case. Instead of allowing him to tell the story, they switched over to a canned narrative of the legend. I'm hoping he can be soon for his testimony. (Stay tuned!)

On another front, I wrote a piece discussing how recent events have caused some to prematurely dismiss the case as a hoax, some even leveling noxious accusations at the witnesses.
Cash-Landrum UFO Case: Attacking the Witnesses