The year is 1979, the place, Marshall County, Minnesota. A Deputy Sheriff had a daring encounter with a strange, brilliant light that seemingly crashed into him, damaging his patrol car. The incident left him blacked out with his vehicle still in motion.

On August 27th, 1979, at approximately 01:40 hours, Deputy Sheriff Val Johnson was on patrol in Marshall County, approximately ten miles outside the town of Stephen on Marshall County Road 5. When he approached the intersection with Minnesota State 220, Johnson looked out for traffic before continuing. Just then, he witnessed what he described as a “very bright, brilliant light” that seemed to be heading in his direction. What alarmed him was the fact that it didn’t appear to be on the road, nor did it look like it came from the headlights of an oncoming car.

It was roughly four feet off the grown with “very defined edges”. The sheriff wondered if it was a small aircraft making an emergency landing, and cautiously, he proceeded down the road. Almost in an instant, as if the light had accelerated, it was right in front of him and clashed with his patrol car. Sounds of breaking glass and damaged metal filled his ears as his sight was overtaken by the brilliant glow. Then, with his car still in motion, Johnson blacked out.

When he regained consciousness, his vehicle was roughly eight hundred feet from its last known position, and now stood sideways on the road. Johnson checked the clock on the dashboard, which read 02:19 hours. He seemingly lost almost 40 minutes. When he looked back, there were black brake marks which have clearly been made by his patrol car. Johnson claimed something “unknown” had applied the vehicle’s brakes in an effort to stop it. 

Following the incident, the sheriff underwent several examinations and x-rays, which revealed damage to his eyes, or more specifically, the inner eye, consistent with being exposed to a particularly bright light at close range. What was perhaps the most intriguing detail of this encounter was that Johnson’s wristwatch and a clock in his car were both exactly 14 minutes slow.

There was considerable damage to the windscreen of his vehicle, as if something collided square on with it, which caused the glass to crack. In addition, the antennas near the back of the top were completely bent out of shape. When tests were performed in Honeywell Labs, they concluded that the antennas were bent “by force”, not by the intense heat or whipping motion. In other words, something physically struck Johnson’s patrol car. 

Meridan French, an expert from the Ford Motor Company, examined the damage thoroughly over a course of several days. Interestingly, he concluded that …the crack patterns and apparent sequence of fractures seem to be due to inward and outward forces acting almost simultaneously! He would then elaborate that the damage on the windscreen was caused by “mechanical forces of unknown origin”.

Sheriff Deputy Johnson’s physical injuries would heal quickly, any solid memories from the event, however, would remain distant in the back of his mind. Predictably, his colleagues were skeptical that a ball of lightning was responsible for this damage, and pointed out that it could have been caused by the overhead powerlines, but the finer details in the evidence hint otherwise.

My Take: I see little reason to call Val Johnson a liar. What would a small-town cop gain from stirring up such a conspiracy? Unless he was trying to cover something up that night and blinded himself to make it seem more authentic, I do believe he saw something that night. A professional from Ford and medical examiners made it clear this wasn’t an everyday car accident. Was it perhaps a UFO? I’ll leave that to your imagination

The year is 1979, the place, Marshall County, Minnesota. A Deputy Sheriff had a daring encounter with a strange, brilliant light that seemingly crashed into him, damaging his patrol car. The incident left him blacked out with his vehicle still in motion.

On August 27th, 1979, at approximately 01:40 hours, Deputy Sheriff Val Johnson was on patrol in Marshall County, approximately ten miles outside the town of Stephen on Marshall County Road 5. When he approached the intersection with Minnesota State 220, Johnson looked out for traffic before continuing. Just then, he witnessed what he described as a “very bright, brilliant light” that seemed to be heading in his direction. What alarmed him was the fact that it didn’t appear to be on the road, nor did it look like it came from the headlights of an oncoming car.

It was roughly four feet off the grown with “very defined edges”. The sheriff wondered if it was a small aircraft making an emergency landing, and cautiously, he proceeded down the road. Almost in an instant, as if the light had accelerated, it was right in front of him and clashed with his patrol car. Sounds of breaking glass and damaged metal filled his ears as his sight was overtaken by the brilliant glow. Then, with his car still in motion, Johnson blacked out.

When he regained consciousness, his vehicle was roughly eight hundred feet from its last known position, and now stood sideways on the road. Johnson checked the clock on the dashboard, which read 02:19 hours. He seemingly lost almost 40 minutes. When he looked back, there were black brake marks which have clearly been made by his patrol car. Johnson claimed something “unknown” had applied the vehicle’s brakes in an effort to stop it. 

Following the incident, the sheriff underwent several examinations and x-rays, which revealed damage to his eyes, or more specifically, the inner eye, consistent with being exposed to a particularly bright light at close range. What was perhaps the most intriguing detail of this encounter was that Johnson’s wristwatch and a clock in his car were both exactly 14 minutes slow.

There was considerable damage to the windscreen of his vehicle, as if something collided square on with it, which caused the glass to crack. In addition, the antennas near the back of the top were completely bent out of shape. When tests were performed in Honeywell Labs, they concluded that the antennas were bent “by force”, not by the intense heat or whipping motion. In other words, something physically struck Johnson’s patrol car. 

Meridan French, an expert from the Ford Motor Company, examined the damage thoroughly over a course of several days. Interestingly, he concluded that …the crack patterns and apparent sequence of fractures seem to be due to inward and outward forces acting almost simultaneously! He would then elaborate that the damage on the windscreen was caused by “mechanical forces of unknown origin”.

Sheriff Deputy Johnson’s physical injuries would heal quickly, any solid memories from the event, however, would remain distant in the back of his mind. Predictably, his colleagues were skeptical that a ball of lightning was responsible for this damage, and pointed out that it could have been caused by the overhead powerlines, but the finer details in the evidence hint otherwise.

My Take: I see little reason to call Val Johnson a liar. What would a small-town cop gain from stirring up such a conspiracy? Unless he was trying to cover something up that night and blinded himself to make it seem more authentic, I do believe he saw something that night. A professional from Ford and medical examiners made it clear this wasn’t an everyday car accident. Was it perhaps a UFO? I’ll leave that to your imagination