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Could Glare Have Made the Flame Seem Stronger?

Brightness, viewing angle and tree cover could have made motion and flame intensity appear causally linked when they were not.

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Preview for Could Glare Have Made the Flame Seem Stronger?

On this page

  • How intense light obscures shape and distance
  • Perspective changes that can mimic ascent
  • Why frightened observers may connect simultaneous events

Introduction

One sceptical explanation for the reported relationship between the Cash–Landrum object’s flame and its vertical movement is that the apparent link may have been created, or strengthened, by normal limits of human visual perception rather than by an actual propulsion system. The witnesses described an intensely bright object seen at night through trees while under considerable stress. Those conditions are well known to make it difficult to judge an object’s outline, distance, altitude and movement accurately. They can also encourage observers to perceive separate changes—such as fluctuations in brightness and shifts in apparent position—as parts of a single physical process.

Visual Effects illustration 1
Explanatory illustration 1

This explanation does not claim that the witnesses invented what they saw. Instead, it asks whether a genuine visual experience could have been interpreted as evidence that increasing flame caused the object to rise, when glare, perspective and changing viewing conditions might have produced a similar impression.

How intense light obscures shape and distance

The reported object was described as extraordinarily bright, bright enough that the witnesses struggled to distinguish fine details beneath it. Under such conditions, the eye experiences disability glare, in which scattered light inside the eye reduces contrast and washes out nearby features. Rather than seeing a sharply bounded object, observers often perceive a glowing mass with uncertain edges.[PubMed Central (PMC)]pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.govPubMed Central (PMC)The Effects of Glare on the Perception of Visual Motion as a Function of Age - PMCSeptember 20, 2022…Published: September 20, 2022

That matters because judging the position of an object’s lower edge is essential when estimating whether it has climbed, descended or remained stationary. If the boundary between the object and its surrounding glow changes as brightness varies, the apparent position of the object can also seem to change even when its actual position does not.

The effect is especially relevant at night because the visual system has fewer external reference points. Tree branches, roadside vegetation and darkness reduce the stable background cues that normally allow accurate estimates of height and distance. Research on distance perception shows that humans rely heavily on visible ground surfaces and surrounding environmental structure; when these cues are degraded or partly hidden, distance estimates become substantially less reliable.[Nature]nature.comPerceiving distance accurately by a directional process of integrating ground information | NatureMarch 4, 2004…Published: March 4, 2004

Importantly, glare does not necessarily make people unable to detect movement. Modern vision research suggests that continuous glare alone does not dramatically impair basic motion detection in healthy observers. However, it does reduce visibility, obscure object boundaries and make localisation more difficult, especially in complex night-time scenes.[PubMed Central (PMC)]pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.govPubMed Central (PMC)The Effects of Glare on the Perception of Visual Motion as a Function of Age - PMCSeptember 20, 2022…Published: September 20, 2022

How perspective could imitate ascent

The reported encounter occurred on a dark rural road bordered by trees. Such an environment offers only limited depth information.

Several perspective effects could produce an apparent connection between changing brightness and changing altitude:

  • Changing visible outline. If an intense luminous region expanded downward during a brighter burst, the observer’s eye might lose sight of the object’s true lower edge, making the vehicle appear to shift vertically.
  • Partial obstruction by trees. Small changes in the visible gaps between branches and a bright object can create the impression that the object has moved more than it actually has.
  • Uncertain distance. If the object’s range was misjudged, even modest horizontal or diagonal movement could be interpreted as vertical ascent or descent.
  • Loss of fixed reference points. In darkness, observers often compare a bright object with nearby silhouettes rather than precisely measured landmarks. Those silhouettes themselves may be poorly defined.

None of these mechanisms requires deliberate misperception. They arise because the visual system reconstructs three-dimensional motion from incomplete information.

Visual Effects illustration 2
Explanatory illustration 2

Why brightness and motion may become linked

The witnesses described repeated cycles in which the flame appeared to intensify and the object then seemed to rise, followed by weaker emission and apparent descent. From a psychological standpoint, it is understandable that observers would infer a causal relationship between these events.

Humans naturally seek coherent explanations for simultaneous changes in a scene. When two events repeatedly appear together, people tend to interpret one as causing the other, particularly when that interpretation matches familiar physical experience—in this case, the idea that downward exhaust produces upward lift.

Stress can reinforce this tendency. The Cash–Landrum witnesses consistently described the encounter as frightening and overwhelming. High emotional arousal narrows attention towards the most salient features of a scene, such as intense light and loud sounds, while reducing attention to less conspicuous spatial cues. Later recollection may therefore preserve the overall relationship—”the flame increased and it rose”—more confidently than the precise sequence of positions or timings.

This does not imply that the witnesses consciously reconstructed the event incorrectly. Rather, perceptual organisation and later memory both favour integrated narratives over disconnected observations.

What this explanation can and cannot account for

The glare-and-perspective hypothesis offers a plausible mechanism for why observers might perceive a close relationship between flame intensity and altitude without requiring an actual variable-thrust propulsion system.

It can reasonably explain:

  • uncertainty about the object’s exact outline;
  • difficulty judging altitude against a dark background;
  • apparent vertical shifts produced by changing brightness or partial obstruction; and
  • the tendency to connect simultaneous visual changes into a single causal sequence.[nih.gov]pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.govPubMed Central (PMC)The Effects of Glare on the Perception of Visual Motion as a Function of Age - PMCSeptember 20, 2022…Published: September 20, 2022

However, the explanation also has clear limits. It does not demonstrate that no real movement occurred. If the object genuinely changed altitude while its brightness varied, glare would not eliminate that motion. Likewise, this hypothesis does not address other reported aspects of the encounter, such as the claimed heat, noise or subsequent health effects, which require separate evaluation.

Visual Effects illustration 3
Explanatory illustration 3

A cautious assessment

Within the narrow question of whether glare and viewing geometry could mimic thrust changes, the answer is that they could plausibly exaggerate or even create the impression of a connection between changing flame intensity and vertical motion. The combination of extreme brightness, darkness, roadside trees, uncertain distance and emotional stress is consistent with conditions known to complicate accurate judgments of shape, height and movement.

At the same time, this remains an interpretive possibility rather than a definitive solution. Because no calibrated photographs, measurements or contemporaneous instrument records exist, it is impossible to determine whether the reported rise-and-fall sequence reflected genuine aircraft motion, a perceptual illusion, or some combination of both. The available evidence supports caution in treating the observed correlation between flame and ascent as direct proof of a thrust-controlled propulsion system.

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Endnotes

1. Source: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Link:https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9508687/

Source snippet

PubMed Central (PMC)The Effects of Glare on the Perception of Visual Motion as a Function of Age - PMCSeptember 20, 2022...

Published: September 20, 2022

2. Source: nature.com
Link:https://www.nature.com/articles/nature02350

Source snippet

Perceiving distance accurately by a directional process of integrating ground information | NatureMarch 4, 2004...

Published: March 4, 2004

3. Source: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Title: Some of these fact
Link:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK621592/

Source snippet

Guide on Eyewitness Identification - Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence - NCBI BookshelfDecember 31, 2025 — VISUAL SENSITIVITY At th...

Published: December 31, 2025

4. Source: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Link:https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12669640/

Source snippet

2025 Nov 27;15:42826. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-26456-5 VISUAL MOTION PERCEPTION AND DRIVING HAZARD VISIBILITY AT NIGHT-TIME Catherine Kenn...

5. Source: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Link:https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36125791/

Source snippet

Effects of Glare on the Perception of Visual Motion as a Function of Age - PubMedSeptember 1, 2022 — ABSTRACT Purpose: The purpose of thi...

Published: September 1, 2022

6. Source: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Link:https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9274752/

7. Source: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Link:https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19110841/

8. Source: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Link:https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26790842/

9. Source: youtube.com
Title: Cash-Landrum UFO Encounter or Something Scarier?
Link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_3CfT4I9nk

Source snippet

The Cash - Landrum UFO Encounter | Dark Mysteries...

10. Source: youtube.com
Title: The Cash
Link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6sV0LIy7GI

Source snippet

LANDRUM INCIDENT | MOST CREDIBLE UFO CASE IN HISTORY...

Additional References

11. Source: frontiersin.org
Link:https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.958787/full

Source snippet

Psychol., 15 December 2022 Sec. Perception Science Volume 13 - 2022 | [https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.958787](https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.958787) Published in Frontiers in...

Published: December 2022

12. Source: sciencedirect.com
Link:https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/027554089500070T

Source snippet

Night driving: effects of glare from vehicle headlights on motion perception - ScienceDirect...

13. Source: wikidisc.org
Title: Cash–Landrum incident | Wiki Disc
Link:https://www.wikidisc.org/wiki/Cash%E2%80%93Landrum_incident

Source snippet

Cash–Landrum incident | WikiDiscJuly 1, 2026 — EVIDENCE[EDIT | EDIT SOURCE] PHYSICAL EFFECTS ON WITNESSES[EDIT | EDIT SOURCE] The medical...

Published: July 1, 2026

14. Source: youtube.com
Title: THE CASH LANDRUM INCIDENT | MOST CREDIBLE UFO CASE IN HISTORY
Link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzoOTCOUMKA

Source snippet

Did Aliens Cause This Family Health Problems? | Cash-Landrum Incident...

15. Source: tandfonline.com
Link:https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10683160701580107

16. Source: sciencedirect.com
Link:https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022437515000134

17. Source: sciencedirect.com
Link:https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S030698771731229X

18. Source: sciencedirect.com
Link:https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030698771731229X

19. Source: cir.nii.ac.jp
Link:https://cir.nii.ac.jp/crid/1360301476149226624

20. Source: research.aston.ac.uk
Link:https://research.aston.ac.uk/en/publications/night-driving-effects-of-glare-from-vehicle-headlights-on-motion-/