Thursday, April 12, 2012

1st Press on the Cash-Landrum case


The first news story to cover the Cash-Landrum incident was the tabloid
Weekly World News March 24, 1981. At that time, the magazine carried "legitimate" stories and not yet transformed to a parody of tabloid newspapers. 



If the embedded pages above are not visible, use this link instead:


I'm guessing the interview and photos were taken in mid-February (speculating that the hearts on Colby Landrum's outfit were related to Valentine's Day).

How this story happened:
On Feb. 2, 1981, Vickie Landrum called Robert Gribble of NUFORC (the National UFO Reporting Center) to report the UFO incident. Gribble reported it to APRO (Aerial Phenomenon Research Organization, where it was intercepted by rogue APRO member Bill English. Then English contacted the Weekly World News and sold them the story. (Not as heinous or unusual as it sounds, as UFO groups had close alliances with tabloid papers at the time.) English had Betty Cash and Vickie Landrum record their story on a tape and forwarded it it to Dick Donovan who wrote the story for the Weekly World News.

Following this, Cathy Gordon of the Conroe Courier wrote a 2-part series that may have beat the tabloid into print, appearing Feb. 21 & 22, 1981.

No comments:

Post a Comment