The Val Johnson UFO Incident on August 27, 1979 Marshall County, MN 1:40 a.m.
Deputy Sheriff Val Johnson is on duty in the west end of Marshall County, Minnesota, driving on County Highway 5 west of Stephen when he sees a light through his side window. The light is to his south, shining from a grove of trees standing along State Highway 220 near the Red River. He thinks it might be from a downed drug-smuggling airplane. He turns south on 220, accelerates to 65 mph, and moves closer. The light moves toward him, traveling so fast that it crosses the 1.5 miles separating them almost instantaneously. It makes no sound and still looks just like a blinding light.
Johnson hears glass breaking and sees the inside of the patrol car light up. After the light hits, he loses consciousness. When he wakes up, his head is resting on the steering wheel and his eyes are staring at the red “engine” light on the dashboard. He looks out the window and sees the car has skidded sideways across the northbound lane and now faces eastward. The front tires are touching the gravel on the shoulder. He can see only with difficulty and feels like he is moving in slow motion. At 2:19 a.m., he radios headquarters and asks for assistance. Deputy Greg Winskowski arrives on the scene shortly. Johnson is still inside the car with a red bump on his forehead, so he calls an ambulance.
At the hospital, Dr. W. A. Pinsonneault examines Johnson’s eyes, but the probe light hurts so much that Johnson cannot stand it more than a few seconds at a time. Pinsonneault suspects corneal flash burns and covers his eyes with bandages. Sheriff Dennis Brekke drives Johnson’s 1977 Ford LTD patrol car back to the garage. The inside light on the driver’s side is smashed. On the hood, 4 feet 4 inches behind the smashed light and close to the windshield, is a flat-bottomed, circular dent, half an inch in diameter. A crack in the windshield on the driver’s side about 18 inches behind the dent runs top to bottom, with four apparent impacts; it looks as if a cluster of small objects, stones perhaps, have done the damage.
The car’s battery-powered clock, set correctly at 7:00 p.m. when Johnson came on duty, is 14 minutes late. So is Johnson’s wind-up wristwatch, set at the same time. The red plastic lens covering the roof light on the driver’s side shows a triangular puncture, and the lens is dislodged from the housing. A radio antenna shaft is bent over at a 60° angle. The large “bubble” lamp just inches in front of the antenna is unscathed. The trunk antenna for CB radio is bent at 90°. Brekke, after calling the Center for UFO Studies in Evanston, Illinois, takes Johnson to Grand Forks, North Dakota, at 11:00 a.m. for an eye examination by ophthalmologist Leonard Prochaska, who finds that Johnson’s problems have cleared up. Allan Hendry of CUFOS determines that the car damage is inconsistent with anything an airplane could have caused.
Meridan French, a windshield expert with the Glass Division of Ford Motor Company, concludes that a flat-ended object had made a forceful impact with the hood and then tilted toward the windshield. A team of engineers at Honeywell’s materials testing laboratory indicates that flying particles were responsible for the damage to the headlight glass and lamp plastic. [Eberhart]
Sources: Jeff Knox F.B.
“Deputy’s UFO Story Evokes Other Tales,” Minneapolis Star, September 11, 1979, pp. 1, 5;
“Minnesota CEII: The Val Johnson Story,” IUR 4, no. 3/4 (Sept./Oct. 1979): 4–9;
“Minnesota CEII: The Val Johnson Story, Part Two, Laboratory Analyses and Conclusion,” IUR 4, no. 5 (November 1979): 4–11;
Allan Hendry, “UFO Bangs up Police Car.” Fate 33, no. 5 (May 1980): 55–64;
Chris Rutkowski, “Special Report: Stephen, Minnesota; Not Proof, But…” Swamp Gas Journal 1, no. 6 (April 1980): 1–4;
Mark Rodeghier, “UFO/Vehicle Very Close Encounters,” IUR 27, no. 1 (Spring 2002): 25;
Jerome Clark, The UFO Encyclopedia, 3rd Ed., pp. 713–716;
Mark Rodeghier, UFO REPORTS INVOLVING VEHICLE INTERFERENCE: A Catalogue and Data Analysis, Center for UFO Studies (Oct. 1981), p. 75;
Wikipedia, “Val Johnson incident”;
NICAP, “Val Johnson Case”;
"That’s Incredible! – Val Johnson Case," Paranormal Videos You may have Missed Youtube channel, November 4, 2015;
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