Published by krisse at 20:43 BST, October 3rd 2007
There have been claims of mysterious flying saucers carrying alien creatures for over sixty years now, but very few supposed witnesses have ever taken pictures or filmed these craft. Now that cameraphones are becoming ubiquitous, will we see a flood of UFO images, or a drought of UFO sightings?
(Note: Although “UFO” technically means any unidentified flying object, this article uses “UFO” in its popular sense, to mean a flying craft of apparently non-terrestrial origin.)
In Texas, USA, on the 29th of December 1980, an event known as the Cash-Landrum Incident supposedly took place: three people were driving along a rural road when a huge glowing diamond flew towards them and hovered above the ground, emitting a bright light and great heat. A group of helicopters, apparently belonging to the US military, appeared on the scene and somehow took the object away. Afterwards the witnesses suffered from the symptoms of radiation sickness. While the illness was observed by hospital staff, the cause of the illness wasn’t observed by anyone except the alleged victims. The witnesses had no camera with them, so even if the object did exist there was no way to prove it. UFO fanatics seized on the radiation as proof that the story was true, while sceptics seized on the lack of health checks before the incident which would have ruled out another source of radiation.