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The Cash-Landrum Incident Part Two: That’s Incredible! · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Gone Cold podcasts may contain violent or graphic subject matter.
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  Speaker 2: Listener discretion is advised.
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  Speaker 1: On April 30, 1981, seven-year-old Colby Landrum heard an approaching
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  Speaker 1: helicopter and became frightened. The CH-47 Chinook was to land
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  Speaker 1: at a spot near the town square in Dayton for
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  Speaker 1: a festival. Troops aboard came to march in a parade.
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  Speaker 1: Colby's grandma Vicki decided that seeing the helicopter on the
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  Speaker 1: ground might help the boy overcome his fears. So she
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  Speaker 1: and her friend Martha Thompson took him to the landing area,
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  Speaker 1: where visitors were being allowed aboard for a tour. The
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  Speaker 1: pilot of the aircraft was Chief Warrant Officer Willie Culberson,
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  Speaker 1: who they met shortly after arriving. Vicki told the airmen
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  Speaker 1: that Colby was afraid of helicopters. The topic quickly turned
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  Speaker 1: to something else. She wanted to know whether they were
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  Speaker 1: ever called out at night for UFO sightings. According to Vicki,
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  Speaker 1: Culberson said his unit had been summoned by the Montgomery
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  Speaker 1: County Sheriff's Office several months before, on December 29, 1980.
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  Speaker 1: She was shocked. That was the very night she, Betty,
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  Speaker 1: and Colby had encountered the bright, fiery, hovering craft. When
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  Speaker 1: she identified herself as one of the people injured in
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  Speaker 1: the Cash Landrum incident, Vicki said, his willingness to talk ended.
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  Speaker 1: Martha Thompson supported Vicki's recollection that the conversation changed abruptly.
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  Speaker 1: Aerospace engineer and UFO investigator John Schuessler pursued the lead
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  Speaker 1: through the Ellington Air Force Base. Culberson denied to him
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  Speaker 1: participating in the December 1980 incident. He acknowledged discussing a
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  Speaker 1: UFO-related mission with Vicki, but disputed the date and the
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  Speaker 1: connection she made. He also denied knowing of any other
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  Speaker 1: military operation that matched the woman's account. He said he
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  Speaker 1: and another helicopter had investigated a reported UFO near Sam
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  Speaker 1: Houston State Park in June or July 1977. They'd found nothing.
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  Speaker 1: But there was something uncovered later that made Chief Warrant
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  Speaker 1: Officer Willie Culberson an interesting figure in the case, an
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  Speaker 1: earlier record supporting the existence of a separate helicopter investigation.
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  Speaker 1: On April 2nd and 3rd, 1981, before Vicki's conversation with
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  Speaker 1: the pilot, another investigator, Alan Hendry of the Fund for
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  Speaker 1: UFO Research, had unearthed another operation. According to an Ellington
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  Speaker 1: Air Force Base contact of his, there was a response
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  Speaker 1: to a Montgomery County UFO report in 1979 involving an
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  Speaker 1: Army Guard pilot whose name Hendry recorded as Culverson with
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  Speaker 1: a V. Unless Culverson was incorrect about his 1977 response
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  Speaker 1: to such a report, this established another earlier UFO mission,
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  Speaker 1: one discovered before Vicki met the airman. The potentially misspelled
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  Speaker 1: name could have been him, perhaps, or just a hell
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  Speaker 1: of a coincidence. Willie Culberson told others he believed Vicki
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  Speaker 1: Landrum was sincere and that something had happened to her. However,
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  Speaker 1: he maintained that she had misunderstood his account. No verified
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  Speaker 1: flight record or crew identification has ever been found that
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  Speaker 1: establishes Culberson had participated in the Cash-Landrum incident.
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  Speaker 2: On August 17, 1981, nearly eight months after their encounter
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  Speaker 2: with a.
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  Speaker 1: Fiery, diamond-shaped object in the sky, Betty Cash, Vicki Landrum,
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  Speaker 1: and Colby Landrum sat down with Air Force representatives at
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  Speaker 1: Bergstrom Air Force Base in Austin. Because they thought they'd
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  Speaker 1: be admitted into a medical facility for testing, they came
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  Speaker 1: prepared with packed suitcases. At 10.40 that morning, Captain John Camp,
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  Speaker 1: the acting staff judge advocate, began recording their meeting in
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  Speaker 1: the law library of Building 2102. Captain Terry Davis, the
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  Speaker 1: claims officer, and Assistant Claims Officer Pat Wolfe were also present.
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  Speaker 1: Lloyd Benson, the U.S. Senator from Texas, had directed Betty
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  Speaker 1: to Bergstrom after she wrote him about the incident. When
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  Speaker 1: Captain Camp asked why she had come to the Air Force,
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  Speaker 1: her answer was immediate, because of the helicopters. The officers
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  Speaker 1: asked her to locate the encounter on a Texas map,
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  Speaker 1: but it lacked enough detail. Camp then requested a drawing
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  Speaker 1: of the object and asked both women to sign it.
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  Speaker 1: They examined photographs, discussed Betty's medical treatment, and questioned her
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  Speaker 1: about any aircraft markings she might have seen. Betty maintained
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  Speaker 1: that she had seen Air Force identification on the helicopters.
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  Speaker 1: Vicki would later make a distinction. She had recognized the
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  Speaker 1: helicopters as military, but had seen no identifying lettering herself.
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  Speaker 1: As the interview continued, the discussion turned to what the
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  Speaker 1: Air Force could do. Camp explained that he lacked authority
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  Speaker 1: to investigate the sighting and offered to forward a report
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  Speaker 1: to Washington, but promised no further action. Vicki pressed him
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  Speaker 1: for somewhere else to turn. Betty asked who was responsible
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  Speaker 1: for their injuries. The captain had no answers. Then Betty
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  Speaker 1: changed the subject. Senator Benson, she explained. had sent her
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  Speaker 1: to Bergstrom to file a claim. Camp said his office
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  Speaker 1: could help with that, although government attorneys could not provide
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  Speaker 1: her with legal advice. The officers recommended consulting a civilian attorney.
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  Speaker 1: Wolfe explained the paperwork, an original with two carbon copies,
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  Speaker 1: each signed by both women. Vicki would also sign for
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  Speaker 1: Colby as his legal guardian. They had described their encounters,
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  Speaker 1: supplied material for copying, and received instructions for seeking compensation.
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  Speaker 1: No one at the meeting identified the object, accepted responsibility,
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  Speaker 1: or determined what had caused their illnesses. Near the end,
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  Speaker 1: the conversation turned to the drive home. Betty's license had
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  Speaker 1: expired while she was ill and convalescing in her hometown
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  Speaker 1: of Birmingham, Alabama. Vicki said her own poor eyesight made
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  Speaker 1: driving difficult. but they would receive no medical care or
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  Speaker 1: undergo any testing at Bergstrom. Frustrated, they laughed about the
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  Speaker 1: predicament before leaving the base. Their troubles, they knew, were
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  Speaker 1: hardly over. Before leaving Austin that August day in 1981, Betty, Vicki,
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  Speaker 1: and Colby made another stop. They visited the office of
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  Speaker 1: State Representative Larry Browder. Browder was away. but an aide
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  Speaker 1: listened and took notes. The visit led to a request
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  Speaker 1: for the Texas Department of Health's Bureau of Radiation Control
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  Speaker 1: to examine the case. On September 2nd, Charles Russ Meyer
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  Speaker 1: contacted Vicki, who referred him to the man who had
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  Speaker 1: been helping them, Aerospace Engineer and Mutual UFO Network Deputy
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  Speaker 1: Director John Schuessler. Eight days later, Meyer and two colleagues
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  Speaker 1: met with the investigators. According to Meyer's report, Schuessler could
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  Speaker 1: identify only a general stretch of road where the encounter
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  Speaker 1: took place. On September 16th, Meyer surveyed the roadway and
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  Speaker 1: collected soil samples. He found no residual radioactive material during
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  Speaker 1: that inspection and recorded no evidence of scorched pavement or trees,
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  Speaker 1: something Schuessler himself had documented. The investigator who had accompanied
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  Speaker 1: him to the scene months before also left mention of
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  Speaker 1: these things out of his report. Those omissions would later
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  Speaker 1: be cited, alongside other inconsistencies, as evidence the entire ordeal
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  Speaker 1: was a hoax. Meyer acknowledged the limits of his result,
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  Speaker 1: saying an exposure would not necessarily leave radioactive material behind.
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  Speaker 1: State officials also sought access to the medical records for
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  Speaker 1: further evaluation, but the surviving file didn't document a completed
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  Speaker 1: medical review. The further he got into his investigation into
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  Speaker 1: the mysterious, unexplained aircraft seen by Betty Cash and Vicki
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  Speaker 1: and Colby Landrum, the more Schuessler became determined to find answers.
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  Speaker 1: He contacted military installations that operated CH-47 Chinooks, He continually
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  Speaker 1: asked about flights on December 29, 1980, and challenged explanations
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  Speaker 1: he believed did not fit what he himself would later
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  Speaker 1: observe around Ellington Air Force Base in southeast Houston. Military
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  Speaker 1: officials insisted both that they didn't schedule maneuvers for Mondays,
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  Speaker 1: nor would they have performed operations during the holidays. Schuessler
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  Speaker 1: photographed subsequent helicopter accidents, keeping track of dates and times,
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  Speaker 1: and obtained other records that contradicted the statements he was given.
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  Speaker 1: After leaving Texas again, Betty Cash continued receiving treatment in Alabama.
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  Speaker 1: She was hospitalized during the fall of 1981, from November
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  Speaker 1: 26th until December 7th, for respiratory problems and chest pain.
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  Speaker 1: Her complaints included pain in her chest and left arm.
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  Speaker 1: A heart attack was ruled out. The skin problems also continued.
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  Speaker 1: During that stay, a dermatologist considered radiation dermatitis, but nothing
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  Speaker 1: confirmed a radiation injury. Public attention continued to grow. Schuessler
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  Speaker 1: presented the case at a Center for UFO Studies conference
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  Speaker 1: in September. On November 16, 1981, the show That's Incredible
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  Speaker 1: brought the story to a national television audience. Vicki recounted
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  Speaker 1: the incident under hypnosis conducted by psychologist R. Leo Sprinkle.
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  Speaker 1: Whatever the broadcast accomplished in attracting attention, the hypnosis provided
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  Speaker 1: no new information, let alone an explanation. the women were
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  Speaker 1: also trying to recover an earlier recording of their account.
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  Speaker 1: Bill English, the APRO member who had sold the story
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  Speaker 1: to the Weekly World News, had also given the tabloid
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  Speaker 1: the tapes Betty and Vicki had made for him, and
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  Speaker 1: they wanted those tapes back. At some point, they apparently
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  Speaker 1: did retrieve them, but it's unclear if they came in
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  Speaker 1: time to be used for the lawsuit they'd eventually file.
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  Speaker 1: By early 1982, the television publicity had helped generate another
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  Speaker 1: official inquiry. On March 18th, Betty, Vicki, Colby, and John
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  Speaker 1: Schuessler had appeared on Good Morning America. Attorney Peter Gersten
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  Speaker 1: saw and subsequently offered to represent them without a fee.
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  Speaker 1: Gersten had experience pursuing UFO-related information from the government. At
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  Speaker 1: the same time, Oregon Congressman Ron Wyden sought information about
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  Speaker 1: possible military helicopter involvement. Captain Virginia Lampley initially handled the
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  Speaker 1: matter for the Air Force. The descriptions of CH-47 Chinooks
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  Speaker 1: pointed toward equipment operated by the Army, however. and the
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  Speaker 1: inquiry passed to the Department of the Army Inspector General's office.
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  Speaker 1: Lieutenant Colonel George C. Saron received the assignment. Saron's mandate
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  Speaker 1: was specific. He was to determine whether Army, Army National Guard,
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  Speaker 1: or Army Reserve helicopters had participated in the reported incident.
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  Speaker 1: His memorandum explicitly excluded an effort to substantiate the unidentified
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  Speaker 1: object itself or establish the cause of the witnesses' medical problems.
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  Speaker 1: Records checks at all Army installations in a reasonable proximity
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  Speaker 1: to the encounter produced no flight identified as the operation
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  Speaker 1: the witnesses described. On May 25, 1982, John Schuessler accompanied
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  Speaker 1: Saren to Vicki's home. Vicki's sister Bertha was also present.
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  Speaker 1: Schuessler recorded the interview. And after, Saron telephoned Betty in Alabama.
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  Speaker 1: That same afternoon, the group visited Dayton police officer Lamar L.
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  Speaker 1: Walker and his wife, Marie. Schuessler recorded their account of
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  Speaker 1: the helicopters they had seen the very night of the encounter.
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  Speaker 1: Saron considered Betty, Vicki, and Colby credible and thought the
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  Speaker 1: same of the Walkers. But credibility didn't identify a flight crew.
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  Speaker 1: an aircraft, or a military unit. Marie and Lamar weren't
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  Speaker 1: the only folks who had seen Chinooks around that time.
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  Speaker 1: Schuessler had found others. Although he couldn't say the exact date,
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  Speaker 1: John Plaster said he and his 10-year-old son were outside
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  Speaker 1: their Huffman, Texas home a few days after Christmas playing
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  Speaker 1: with the toys the boy had found under the tree
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  Speaker 1: when four or five double-rotor helicopters passed overhead. Plaster identified
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  Speaker 1: them as Army CH-47 Chinooks. It was within a couple
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  Speaker 1: miles of both the Walker Siding and the Cash Landrum Siding.
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  Speaker 1: At the Indian Shores neighborhood in Crosby around December 29, 1980,
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  Speaker 1: this witness also could not recall the exact date, a
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  Speaker 1: man known only as Bill X reported seeing a large
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  Speaker 1: group of military helicopters flying overhead. though there are other
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  Speaker 1: sources that claim less credible sightings. These were the only
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  Speaker 1: accounts that remained consistent over the years as far as
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  Speaker 1: the helicopters were concerned. A few people in the area, however,
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  Speaker 1: reported credible sightings of something more than just Chinooks. At
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  Speaker 1: around 9 p.m. on December 29, 1980, a woman named
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  Speaker 1: Belle McGee was playing cards at her home just outside Huffman.
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  Speaker 1: Out the window, something caught her eye, a light in
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  Speaker 1: the sky. It was big, Belle said, much too big
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  Speaker 1: to belong, and it was to the northeast, in the
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  Speaker 1: direction of New Caney. She told her son to look,
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  Speaker 1: but by the time he turned around, the light had disappeared.
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  Speaker 1: Also that night, Angie and Doug Stanley were driving from
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  Speaker 1: New Caney to their home in Dayton. As they turned
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  Speaker 1: on FM 2100 from FM 1485, not far from where
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  Speaker 1: the Cash Landrum incident occurred, they saw a bright light
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  Speaker 1: in the sky. Not a star, not an airplane or helicopter,
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  Speaker 1: but something that wasn't supposed to be there. Perhaps the
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  Speaker 1: most compelling sighting was by a man named Jerry McDonald
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  Speaker 1: of date Sometime between 7 and 9 p.m. on December 29, 1980,
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  Speaker 1: Jerry was behind his mobile home trying to mend a
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  Speaker 1: leaky water hose when he heard a rumble. It was
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  Speaker 1: coming from above. Jerry looked up, and about 150 to
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  Speaker 1: 200 feet in the sky, he estimated, was some sort
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  Speaker 1: of craft as big as the Goodyear blimp. It was
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  Speaker 1: going extremely slow. Jerry described it as triangular, with a
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  Speaker 1: bright red light in the center, and widened blue lights
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  Speaker 1: on the corners. On the back, it looked like two
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  Speaker 1: jet propulsion-type engines that spewed flames he compared to an
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  Speaker 1: acetylene torch. It flew directly above him, going in the
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  Speaker 1: direction of Huffman, west. By Wednesday, Jerry said, he was
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  Speaker 1: experiencing flu-like symptoms, including a 103-degree fever and severe headaches.
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  Speaker 1: On February 14, 1981, he was admitted to the hospital.
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  Speaker 1: He had an air pocket in his lung, Jerry explained,
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  Speaker 1: probably meaning he had a collapsed lung, or pneumothorax, a
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  Speaker 1: condition where air leaks into the space between your lung
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  Speaker 1: and chest wall, putting pressure on the lung until it
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: partially or completely shrinks. That was the worst of his
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: health problems, but he'd been sick off and on the
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: entire time in between seeing the craft, and his hospitalization.
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  Speaker 1: At some point during his inquiry, Lieutenant Colonel Saron also
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  Speaker 1: questioned Willie Culberson, the Chinook pilot who Vicki and a
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  Speaker 1: friend said knew about a helicopter mission on the same
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: night of their encounter, but who had become evasive after
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: Vicki mentioned she was one of the women involved. As
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  Speaker 1: he'd done before, and like he continued to do after,
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  Speaker 1: Culberson told Saron he had not participated in a helicopter
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  Speaker 1: mission on December 29, 1980. For John Schuessler and others,
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  Speaker 1: the various sightings of the Chinooks, the strange bright lights
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  Speaker 1: in the sky, and whatever it was Jerry McDonald saw
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  Speaker 1: provided compelling evidence that the Cash Landrum incident did indeed happen.
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  Speaker 1: He'd become more determined in his investigation than ever. Meanwhile, Betty, Vicki,
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  Speaker 1: and Colby continued riding the whirlwind. On June 16, 1982,
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  Speaker 1: Betty Cash and John Schuessler participated in a press interview
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  Speaker 1: with Dr.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: V.B.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: Chenoy, the physician who had overseen her treatment in Houston.
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  Speaker 1: Schuessler later wrote that the interviewer had led Betty to
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: expect a chromosome test connected with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
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  Speaker 1: The proposed test, they had been told, might help determine
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: what kind of radiation had been involved. But the promised
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: testing never materialized. Betty underwent a bone marrow examination on
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: July 14th. The reproduced report described bone marrow necrosis and
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  Speaker 1: decreased iron storage with a final diagnosis of abnormal, non-diagnostic marrow.
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  Speaker 1: It did not identify a radiation source or prove that
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: the roadside encounter caused the abnormalities. The radiation interpretation remained unsettled.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: In December, nuclear technology specialist Paul Stowe published an analysis
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: attempting to explain the reported injuries. Radiologist Peter Rank, who
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: had reviewed medical material for the investigation, challenged an essential assumption.
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  Speaker 1: Exposure had not been established, and radiation couldn't responsibly be
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  Speaker 1: determined from the available information. No instrument had measured the
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: witness's exposure that night. The road itself became another disputed
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: piece of the case. By 1982, claims of road resurfacing
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: had begun appearing in investigation reports. Schuessler later described the
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: section of burned pavement he had observed being removed and replaced.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: He documented witness accounts of unmarked, unidentified trucks hauling the
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: scorched gravel away under large tarps. But Alan Hendry's April
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: 1981 report had stated that an examination found no pavement marks.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: And officials with the Texas Department of Health's Bureau of
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: Radiation Control had discovered no contaminated soil or other material
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: near the site. In late December 1982, Close to the
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: encounter's second anniversary, Attorney Peter Gersten filed administrative damage claims
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: with the Air Force. The forms obtained at Bergstrom had
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: become a formal demand for compensation. A federal lawsuit had
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: not yet begun. During the same period, Schuessler continued checking
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: whether Chinook operations could be identified at night. He logged
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: later flights, including observations on December 28th and December 30th, 1982.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Those sightings demonstrated helicopter activity two years after the encounter
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: and at around the same time. They did not connect
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: a particular aircraft or crew to December 29th, 1980. Soon after,
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: author and UFO researcher William Moore and Air Force Office
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: of Special Investigations agent Richard Doty circulated claims about the
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: Cash Landrum incident. According to some, Doty had a motive
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: other than helping Betty, Vicki, and Colby. That's next time
• 22:07
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