Betty Cash was then a 51 year old business woman
who owned a restaurant and a grocery store. Vickie Landrum, then
57, worked for Betty in the restaurant and also occasionally as a
school meals assistant. Colby Landrum, Vickie's grandson, was then
7.
After leaving the restaurant some time between
8.20 and 8.30 pm, Betty drove them along Highway FM 1485, a road
usually used only by people who live in the area because it is so
isolated. Although only about 50km from Houston the area is
sparsely populated and is covered by oak and pine trees, and
dotted with swamps and lakes.
It was about 30 minutes later when the three
noticed a bright UFO above the tree tops some distance away. 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.
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| Drawing of U.F.O Seen by Cash, Landrums 12/29/80 [Photo ©2003] |
Vickie screamed "Stop the car or we shall be burned
alive!" The object, many times larger than the car remained hovering
at tree top level and sending down an occasional large cone of fire
like a rocked blast. In between these blasts it would settle
downwards some 7.5 meters or so only to rise up again on the next
cone of fire. Vickie described it as being "like a diamond of fire".
When
Betty eventually brought the car to a stand still the UFO was only
60 meters away. It looked as if it was made from dull aluminum and
glowed so bright that it lit up the surrounding forest like
daylight. The four points of the diamond were blunt rather than
sharp and blue spots or lights ringed its centerline. Had the UFO
not come to rest over the road the cone of fire from its lowest
point would have set the forest on fire. The object also emitted an
intermittent bleeping sound.
The three of them got out of the car to take a
better look at the object. Vickie stood by the open door on the
right hand side of the car with her left hand resting on the car
roof. Vickie is a committed Christian who does not believe in UFOs
or extraterrestrial life and when she saw the bright object she
thought it was the coming of the end of the world. Because she
expected to see Jesus come out of the light she starred at it
intently.
Colby begged his grandmother to get back in the
car and hold him and after about three minutes she did so and told
him not to be afraid because "when that big man comes out of the
burning cloud it will be Jesus." As Vickie held Colby she screamed
at Betty to get back in the car with them. But Betty was so
fascinated by the UFO that she had walked round to the front of the
car and stood there gazing at it. Bathed in the bright light she
stood there even though the heat was burning her skin. Eventually as
the object began to move up and away she moved back to the car door.
When she touched the door it was so painfully hot that she had to
use her leather jacket to protect her hands as she got back in the
car.
As the three of them watched the departing UFO, a
large number of helicopters appeared overhead. As Betty said, "They
seemed to rush in from all directions...it seemed like they were
trying to encircle the thing." Within a few seconds the UFO had
disappeared behind the trees lining the road. It was then that they
realized how hot the interior of the car had become. They switched
off the heater and put on the air conditioner instead.
When the effects of the bright light had worn off,
Betty started the engine and they drove off down the darkened
highway. After a mile or so of twisting road they were able to join
a larger highway and turn in the direction of the departing UFO.
This was about 8km and five minutes later. The object was clearly
visible some distance ahead and looked like a bright cylinder of
light. It was still lighting up the surrounding area and
illuminating the helicopters.
By this time the helicopters were spread out over
an 8km distance. One main group was near the UFO but moving in an
erratic flight path. As they watched from their new vantage point
they counted 23 helicopters. Many of them were identified as the
large double rotor CH-47 Chinooks, the others were very fast single
rotor types and appeared to be of the Bell-Huey type but were not
properly identified. A lot of air crew members must have seen the
UFO that night.
As soon as the UFO and helicopters were a safe
distance ahead Betty drove on. When she reached an intersection she
turned away from the flight path of the UFO and towards Dayton where
the three of them lived. She dropped Vickie and Colby off at their
home at about 9.50 and went home by herself. A friend and her
children were there waiting for Betty but by this time she was
feeling to ill to tell them about what had happened. Over the next
few hours Betty's skin turned red as if badly sun burned. Her neck
swelled and blisters erupted and broke on her face, scalp and
eyelids. She started to vomit and continued to do so through out the
night. My morning she was almost in a coma.
Some time between midnight and 2am Vickie and
Colby began to suffer similar symptoms, although less severe. At
first they suffered the sunburn like condition and then diarrhea and
vomiting. It was a miserable night for all three victims.
The following morning Betty was moved to Vickie's
house and all three were cared for there. Betty's condition
continued to deteriorate and three days later she was taken to
hospital. The burns and swelling altered Betty's appearance so
radically that friend who came to visit her in hospital did not
recognize her. Her hair began to fall out and her eyes became so
swollen that she was unable to see for a week.
The appearance of helicopters at UFO sightings is
becoming a common event, and the large number of helicopters at this
incident is just another link in the chain. One thing is for
certain, it is virtually impossible to be mistaken about the
presence of CH-47 helicopters when you are directly beneath these
large and noisy machines. The evidence of all the witnesses was
consistent. They were interrogated separately about both the UFO and
the helicopters and all gave consistent descriptions and sketches
that indicated they had seen a large number of CH-47s.
Finding out where the helicopters had come from
was a more difficult task than identifying them. according to a
official at Houston Airport abound 350 to 400 helicopters operate
commercially in the Houston area but they are all of the single
rotor type, there are no CH-47s. The official also said that because
helicopters fly on visual flight rules they do not have to contact
the tower. Other information provided by Houston was that outside a
24km radius from the airport helicopters must stay below an altitude
of 550 metres, and that due to a technical limitation the Houston
control radar is restricted to a minimum altitude of 600 metres
around the Huffman area.
The US army's Fort Hood press officer, Major Tony
Geishauser, told the Corpus Christi Caller that no Fort Hood
aircraft were in the Houston area that night. "I don't know any
other place around here that would have that number of helicopters,"
he said. "I don't know what it could be..... unless there's a super
secret thing going on and I wouldn't necessarily know about it."
All other bases in Texas and Louisiana denied they
were responsible for the helicopters seen at the incident.
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| MAP SHOWING THE AREA OF THE ENCOUNTER |
Betty, Vickie and Colby were not the only
witnesses to the strange happenings at Huffman. An off duty Dayton
policeman and his wife were driving home from Cleveland through the
Huffman area the same night and also observed a large number of
CH-47s. A man living in Crosby, directly under the flight path,
reported seeing a large number of heavy military helicopters flying
overhead. Oilfield laborer Jerry McDonald was in his back garden in
Dayton when he saw a huge UFO flying directly over head. At first he
thought it was the Goodyear airship, but quickly realized it was
something else. "It was kind of diamond shaped and had two twin
torches that were shooting brilliant blue flames out the back", he
said. As it passed about 45 meters above him he saw that it had two
bright lights on it and a red light in the center.
Since their encounter Vickie and Colby have been
plagued with periodic outbreaks of skin troubles, as if they were
more susceptible to infection than before. But the most far reaching
injury has been the damage to their eyes. Their eyelids became
infected very rapidly and have never fully recovered. Since the
incident Vickie has had to have three new pairs of spectacles with
successively stronger prescriptions to match the deterioration of
her eyesight. Her eyesight continues to deteriorate and she still
suffers from periodic infections. She fears she may eventually go
blind. Colby has suffered similar problems but has needed only one
new pair of glasses. Within a few weeks of the encounter, Vickie had
lost about 30 per cent of her hair, and had large bald patches on
her head. When it grew back it was of a different texture. Colby
lost only a small patch of hair on the crown of his head, this too
grew back in time.
Betty's injuries seemed even worse. She
experienced a severe sun burn like condition and developed large
water blisters, some as large as golf balls, over her face head and
neck. One of these covered her right eyelid and extended across her
right temple. She also developed a long term aversion to warm water,
sunshine or other heat sources. In the year following the encounter
she has spent five periods in hospital, two of those in intensive
care. She lost over half of the hair on her head and has also had
skin eruptions, many as big as a large coin, which leave permanent
scars.
Doctors are baffled by these symptoms but
speculate that they could be caused by some kind of radiation.
One day in April 1981 a CH-47 flew into Dayton. As
Colby watched he became very upset. Vickie decided to take him to
the spot where the helicopter had landed in the hope that it would
seem less frightening on the ground. When they reached the landing
zone they found a lot of people there already and had to wait some
time before they were allowed to go inside the helicopter and talk
to the pilot. Vickie and another visitor both claim that the pilot
said he had been in the area before for the purpose of checking on a
UFO in trouble near Huffman. When Vickie told the pilot how glad she
was to see him, because she had been one of the people burned by the
UFO, he refused to talk to them any more and hustled them out of the
aircraft.
The UFO organization VISIT later located the pilot
and questioned him. He admitted to knowing about Vickie and Betty's
encounter with the UFO but maintained that he had not been in the
area in December and had nothing to do with any UFO. Unless another
pilot decides to come forward it seems that the source of the
helicopters will remain a mystery.
UFO CASE FILE- CASH-LANDRUM
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