Spook Sightings of Yester Year - No. 25 - Val Johnson's Unidentified Thing!

From The Beaver County Times, 30th August 1979...

'Unidentified thing' smashes deputy sheriff's patrol car

WARREN, Minn. (AP) - When law officers responding to a call reached Marshall County deputy Val Johnson, they found his car smashed, its windshield broken, antenna bent - and its clock 14 minutes off.

And the chief investigator for the Center for UFO Studies says the "thing" that attacked Johnson on an isolated road may well have been a UFO. "It's certainly as good a case as any I've seen in the past year," Al Hendry said Wednesday after flying here from his Evanston, Ill., Headquarters. 

Johnson, 35, said he was on patrol early Monday when he was attacked by an "unidentified thing" which dove at his car, causing him to lose control.

Val Johnson sat inside a new Marshall County squad car two months after the incident.
(Regene Radniecki) | Star Tribune 1979

"It sat there and appeared to be stationary," he said. "But when I got closer, boom, it was right there, just right now. I heard glass breaking, saw the inside of the car light up real bright with white light. It was very, very, extremely bright. That's all I can remember."

Sheriff Dennis Brekke has calculated the incident occurred about 1.40 a.m. It was 2.19 a.m. that Johnson called for help. Deputy Greg Winskowski, who was on his way to help Johnson, asked him to describe the vehicle that hit him. Johnson responded, "It wasn't a vehicle, Greg. I don't know what the hell it was."

When Winskowski got to the scene, he found Johnson's car sideways on the road. The windshield and one headlight had been smashed. There was a small, round dent in the hood. The red light atop the car was broken and two spring-mounted antenna were bent at angles of nearly 90 degrees.

Winskowski called an ambulance to take Johnson to a hospital, where he was treated for "welder burns" to his eyes. Doctors said the injury could have been caused by a bright flash of light.

Johnson's wrist watch and an electric clock in the patrol car stopped for 14 minutes. Johnson said he had set both time pieces when he began patrolling that night and had checked them several times in the evening.

Johnson pictured a few weeks after the incident, standing where he says he was engulfed by a flash of light, and indicating how big the beam of light was as it approached his car.
(Stormi Greener | Star Tribune 1979)

Hendry said he contacted five Federal Aviation Administration organizations in the area, and they all said they had no knowledge of aircraft activity in the area.

"This case has some clues," Hendry said, adding whatever hit the car "must have been travelling extremely fast to bend the antennas without moving the springs."

Brekke said he was at a loss to explain the incident. "We're not trying to scare people," he said. "We don't know what this was, maybe it's something that can be explained. But at this point, we don't have an answer to it. Even the gentleman we called in from Chicago doesn't have an answer to it."

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From The Madison Courier, 10th September 1979....

Val Johnson wishes he'd never seen that glaring light

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Val Johnson's strange encounter on a dark, lonely road last month has thrust him into the glaring light of nationwide attention and put an emotional strain on his family. The Marshall County deputy sheriff is scheduled to appear Tuesday on ABC-TV's "Good Morning America" program to talk about about a baffling UFO experience that he says burned his eyes, damaged his car and stopped his watch.

And Johnson's home in Oslo, Minn., has been flooded with telephone calls from people around the country telling him of similar experiences. "It's a tremendous strain on the family," said the 35-year-old father of three young children. "My wife's run ragged with phone calls. I hope this drops in a barrel and rests quietly so we can go back to being parents and I can go back to being a little town deputy sheriff."

Johnson said he was on patrol near Stephen, Minn., about 2 a.m. on Aug 27 when he saw a beam of light just above the road. The beam sped towards him, his squad car was engulfed in light and he heard glass breaking. Johnson said he was unconscious for 39 minutes, and when he came to, he realized his watch and the car's electric clock had stopped for 14 minutes.

Val Johnson's squad car, a 1977 Ford LTD known locally as the 'UFO Car' is preserved in the Marshall County Museum.
(Courtesy of the Marshall County Museum)

The windshield was shattered, a headlight and red light atop the car damaged and a thin radio aerial bent back. Deputies responding to Johnson's radio call for help found the squad car sideways on the road. Johnson suffered burns to his eyes which a physician called "welder's burns," caused by extremely bright light.

Because of the damage and the injury, this incident differed from most UFO reports, says Allan Hendry of the Center for UFO studies in Evanston, Ill.

Tests will be run on the squad car, Hendry said Sunday, and infrared pictures will be taken of the ground around the site of the incident "to see if the intensity of the light affected plants."

Hendry is also intrigued by a similar UFO report that came from Vermillion, S.D., two days after Johnson's close encounter was reported. Hendry said Russ Johnson (no relation to Val Johnson) of Vermillion said he was driving alone west of town about 2 a.m. when he, too, saw a light just above the road.

Russ Johnson, 33, told police the object suddenly accelerated toward him and engulfed his car in bright light, Hendry said. He kept his eyes closed as the light approached, but opened them in time to see the light speed away, then suddenly vanish.

Unlike the deputy, Hendry said Johnson suffered no injury and his car was not damaged. Hendry said Johnson told him he was not aware of the Minnesota UFO report at the time. "Only rarely do I have a repeat experence which happens right on the heels of another one," said Hendry.

Hear Val Johnson speak in a 1979 interview about the incident in this MPR news Soundcloud piece by clicking here...

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