The December night was chilly and damp, and the two middle-aged women turned up the car heater as they drove along the deserted Texas road. It was a little after Christmas, 1980. The women and the small boy with them had traveled to a town about fifteen miles from Houston for dinner; now, as they made their way home, the child noticed something strange in the sky. A blazing light was gliding toward them over the pines.
As it approached, the light resolved itself into a brilliant, diamond-shaped object. Flames shot out from its underside. In her fifty-one years, Betty Cash, the driver, had never seen anything like it. Nor had Vicki Landrum, age fifty-seven, who pulled her seven-year-old grandson, Colby, close to her as the object slowed and then hovered over the roadway as if preparing to land.
Betty Cash stopped the car, and the three of them watched, awe struck. The bizarre craft continued to hover about sixty yards away, emitting a high pitched beeping noise. Curiosity overcoming their fear, they stepped out of the car for a better view, although the terrified boy soon persuaded his grandmother to return to the vehicle. Betty remained outside, Intense heat pulsed from the object, forcing Betty Cash, as she came back to the car, to wrap her hand in her coat before grasping the searing metal of the door handle.
Eventually the craft began moving up and away. As it did so, A squadron of helicopters-more than twenty in all, many of them big, double-rotor machines like those used for carrying military cargo- appeared and attempted, to surround the craft. When the object sped away, accompanied by the swarming helicopters, the three tried to follow in the car. From a different angle, the ship became cigar-shaped, a bright, oblong cylinder of light. Then it vanished, along with the helicopters, in the distance.
Betty Cash dropped her passengers off at their home and returned to hers. By this time she was already feeling ill. Over the next few hours, all three witnesses developed sunburn like blisters, nausea, and diarrhea. Betty Cash's symptoms were the worst, presumably because she had exposed herself the longest to the crafts radiant heat. Sick and frightened, she sought medical treatment and was hospitalized for over two weeks as a burn victim, before they discovered she had radiation sickness. Investigators studied the case for several years without coming close to identifying the fiery craft or even tracking down the more mundane helicopters. Although other witnesses in the area reported that they too had seen a dazzling light and double rotor helicopters that night -identifying the larger choppers from photographs as CH-47 Chinooks-local military bases all denied having had such aircraft in the region on that December night. The U.S. government disclaimed ownership of the glowing apparition. Betty Cash, Vicki Landrum, and her grandson colby were left with only their lingering injuries and an unfinished story. The so-called Cash-Landrum incident-just one of many such events recorded each year-is typical of reports of mysterious objects flashing across the sky and, sometimes, touching down on the surface of the earth. On this evening no in the car had a camera with them. What If they'd Had a Video Camera?
|
|
 Our Newsletter
|
 Join The Watcher's |
 Top Of Page
|
