Cash Landrum follow-up:
Since RRamjet brought up some specific points recently about the Cash-Landrum case (which is apparently one of his BEST CASES), I decided to go look through my materials for any extra information/opinions on the subject.
UFOlogists Kevin Randle (who can be a very hard core UFO proponent and recently claimed the data in UFO reports indicate an alien intelligence) wrote about 10 pages on the subject in his book PROJECT MOONDUST. However, he seemed to voice the same opinions as I have made here:
The FAA and its various air traffic control centers denied any knowledge of military maneuvers on the night of December 29. Sarran (Lt. Col.)told Schuessler that such activities would have to be coordinated with the FAA because of the possibilities of an aircraft accident. No such notifications had been made.
Checks of local units resulted in absolutely no hint that anyone was trying to hide anything. Pilots and enlisted crew who might have participated in such activities were questioned by both military officers and civilian researchers. No one gave even the slightest indication that flying operations had been conducted that night.
Sarran, among others, pointed out that an operation of the size indicated would have required massive support including refueling capabilities. Refueling would have been a problem, but no one seemed to have noticed any jumps in the consumption of jet fuels in the area on the date in question. No trucks or fuel bladders were seen in the area. There just doesn't seem to be any positive indication that Army Aviation was involved. (p. 212)
Therefore, the search for any source of these helicopters proved to be a dead end. Randle also points out the same thing I mentioned. It was during a holiday stand down period and the manpower required for such an operation would have been noticed.
Randle then discusses the lawsuit:
The problem there, however, is that no indications of governmental responsibility could be proven. The searches of military organizations that would have had access to sufficient numbers of helicopters could find no records to suggest that they had participated in any sort of exercise that would demand the numbers required.
A second problem also developed. Medical records for the three, Cash, Landrum, and Colby, were not presented as evidence. If, according to these records, there had been no signs of preexisting ill health or any medical problems, then a good case could be made that the events of December 29 caused the trouble. If, on the other hand, there was a record of various medical pathologies, then no such conclusion could be drawn. (P. 213)
This was a big problem. Why weren’t the records presented into evidence? It raises questions. It is probable that Betty Cash suffered from heart issues before the incident (Klass reports a bypass operation in his SUN newsletter of 1999) and there may have been other health issues from which she suffered.
Randle brings up an important point:
A comprehensive search by military officers and civilian researchers has failed to produce any evidence that the sighting took place. (p. 214)
He concludes
"Was the craft Extraterrestrial? Was there any craft at all? Or was this some kind of elaborate hoax invented by both women (though neither has a history of creating practical jokes)? Without more data, we just can't answer any of the questions satisfactorily" P. 214
In other words, Randle is stating the case is “incomplete” and no conclusions can be really drawn from it. I find it interesting that he “suggests” it may have been a hoax of some kind. Isn’t that an attack on the witness credibility by a UFOlogist? I guess “debunkers” aren’t the only ones who do this.
As for the search for the helicopters and their witnesses, I could only find a few mentions of it in the MUFON journal by Schuessler (the investigator who wrote a book on the matter, which I unfortunately do not have in my collection right now). Schuessler wrote an article about this search in the September 1983 issue (p.3-6). Randle seems to have gotten a lot of information from him regarding the research involved so I won’t quote him. However, he does mention the key witnesses he found who saw helicopters that night. In addition to the Walker sighting (which really does not apply since it was hours after the event), he brought up two others. One was a man named, John Plaster, who reported seeing 4-5 CH47 helicopters but not on the date in question. The other witness (along with Walker) referred to in many websites as just “a witness” was somebody named Bill “X” in Crosby, Texas. According to Schuessler, he reported seeing a large group of "military type helicopters" for 4-5 minutes ABOUT December 29th. Mystery witnesses who report seeing helicopters is nothing to get excited about and is not much in the way of confirmation. Along with Walker’s testimony, it is inadequate to verify that a fleet of helicopters were flying over that area of Texas that evening.
In order to help resolve this issue, Schuessler makes some leaps in another article in the MUFON journal in July 1986. In order to evade coastal radar, he proposed a path for the UFO (and presumably the helicopters) that takes it in from the ocean someplace close to the Texas-LA border, then westward towards Houston. Before it gets to Houston, it then proceeds south again towards the Ocean. As for the helicopters, the only theory I have seen him present comes from his book, where he apparently proposed they came from the USS New Orleans off the coast of Texas. How he arrived at that conclusion is not clear but we can check up on the USS New Orleans. It had returned to home port in San Diego after an arduous WESTPAC on the 22nd of November 1980 and went into the shipyard on the 22nd of February 1981 (source:
http://members.cox.net/starboard/NOBOAT/NOBOAT.html#0) . It seems highly unlikely the ship would return from a WESTPAC and immediately hightail it to the other coast in order to conduct exercises with a UFO. When ships return from deployment, the crew goes into a standdown period. Considering the upcoming Christmas period, it is probable they did so into early January of 1981. I think the USS New Orleans theory, while remotely possible, is unlikely. It was not even on the same coast as best I can tell.
As far as the symptoms or radiation exposure, I recalled reading something Brad Sparks wrote about radiation exposure. I found his article here:
http://www.qtm.net/~geibdan/a1999/cash3.htm
He pretty much made the same points I made about radiation exposure. This comment was interesting though:
It is known that many chemical agents MIMIC IONIZING RADIATION EFFECTS even down to the cellular level, and can create such symptoms without regard to dose-onset-time relations and with considerable individual variability in response (which might obviate the need to suppose shielding by the car from exposure). The immediate contact dermatitis (skin burns) and conjunctivitis seem to indicate a chemical agent exposure.
Sparks is no expert on the subject but it is an informed opinion on the matter by a UFOlogist/UFO proponent.
The issue of the injuries brought up a statement by a Dr. Peter Rank, who is supposedly a radiologist and a quote from Jerome Clark’s UFO encyclopedia was given. I don’t have that book as it is three very large and expensive volumes but I am going down to the library to see if it is there (I know I saw it there recently but it may not have been all three volumes) to check up where Clark got the information. It was not in his “UFO book” (which I do have), which is an abridged version of the whole set. However, I did happen to go through some MUFON journals and found that Dr. Peter Rank (from the University of Wisconsin) was MUFON’s CONSULTANT in radiology. That does not necessarily mean he was a radiologist. I could not find any evidence that he was actually an MD but I can only assume he was. In the December 1982 edition of the MUFON journal, Rank made some comments about an article describing the effects of radiation exposure in the Cash-Landrum incident. He seemed to be non-committal on the subject:
Mr. Stowe has made certain assumptions which may or may not be warranted. The first assumption is that the principals in this case suffered total body radiation. This is by no means clear. I do not believe that a general dosage level can be assigned to the Cash/Landrum case. My reasoning is based upon the observation, to the best of my knowledge, that ALTHOUGH BOTH WOMEN HAD SYMPTOMS OF RADIATION SICKNESS, THERE WERE NO WELL DOCUMENTED CHANGES IN THE BLOOD AND THE DIARRHEA REPORTED WAS NOT BLOODY IN NATURE (My emphasis).
My analysis ASSUMED (my emphasis) that ionizing radiation, exact wavelength undetermined, was responsible for most of the symptoms. We also know that the women had exposure to light as well as to infrared waves. As Mr. Stowe points out, some of the erythema of the skin can be attributed to ultraviolet, and some certainly can be attributed to shorter wavelengths with higher energy and of an ionizing nature. The extent to which microwave radiation was involved is not clear, and I was unable to come to a position with regard to it. (P. 9)
So, Dr. Rank’s conclusions indicated that there were problems with the radiation exposure issue and one could not categorically state the effects were from radiation. He does not mention examining the records themselves. In fact, in the January 1983 issue of the MUFON journal a Dr. Richard C. Nicmtzow (MD) who was working in MUFON’s UFOMD project stated,
I never examined or had access to their medical records (p14). This seems to indicate that MUFON did not have their personal medical records available for anybody to examine.
This coupled with Brad Sparks (who I often disagree with) opinion on the matter, I think there is good reason to doubt that the effects reported were due to radiation exposure.
To summarize all of this:
1) There is no evidence for the helicopter fleet other than the testimony of Cash and Landrum and one vague reference to a mystery witness who apparently was not sure of the date. The other witnesses saw their helicopters on different dates or at different times.
2) The medical records appear to have been closely guarded. Those that did see them seem to have reported that the bloodwork results were not what one would expect from radiation exposure.
3) No evidence has been presented (other than the symptoms) that radiation was involved.
4) No evidence of any damage to the surrounding terrain or vehicle
5) The UFO itself seems to have magically appeared and disappeared. Only one person besides Cash/Landrum seems to have seen it even though Cash/Landrum claimed it was visible for over 20 minutes!
If this is an example of a BEST CASE, then what does it mean about all the others?
