Type: Medical Documentation
Source: Treating Physicians
The original medical records for the Cash-Landrum incident witnesses are not publicly available and have been withheld or are considered lost.
Withholding by Investigators: Chief investigator John F. Schuessler refused the Texas Department of Health’s offer to examine the records directly, citing witness privacy, which critics argue prevented independent verification of radiation exposure.
Hospital Denials: Betty Cash’s personal physician, Dr. Brian McClelland, attempted to retrieve records from Parkway Hospital for nearly two decades but was ignored, leading him to speculate that the records were blocked by military or legal means.
Skepticism and Alternative Explanations: Skeptics note the absence of pre-incident medical histories. Dr. Gary Posner analyzed available photographs of Cash’s burns and suggested they may have been self-inflicted, while other analyses attributed symptoms like hair loss to pre-existing conditions such as alopecia rather than ionizing radiation.
Legal Outcome: A $20 million civil lawsuit filed in 1981 was dismissed in 1986 because the plaintiffs could not prove the object was not related to the U.S. government, and no residual radiation was detected at the sighting site by state health officials.