by KEN KORCZAK
New witnesses, remote viewing, shed light on the famous incident sometimes called ‘Minnesota’s Roswell’
When I was growing up in the tiny Minnesota town of Greenbush, population 714, just across a narrow dirt alley from our house was the small home of a pleasant woman who worked as a nurse. Her name was Daisy.
Daisy’s daughter was named after a flower, too. Her name is Rose, short for Roseanne.
Rose grew up and married a guy from a nearby small town. That man was Val Johnson, a sheriff’s deputy in northwest Minnesota’s Marshall County. One late summer night in 1979, Deputy Johnson would be thrust into international headlines and gain a lot more than his proverbial 15 minutes of fame.
That’s because his police car collided head-on with a 6-foot-wide orb-like “UFO.” The sensational nature of his bizarre encounter garnered Johnson a lot more than his allotted “15 minutes.” Indeed, the event would follow him incessantly for the rest of his life.
Now more than 40 years later — to this day — Johnson still gets calls from journalists, podcasters, UFO buffs, and sundry curiosity seekers from around the world. Several times a year, strangers show up at his doorstep hoping to talk to him about his literal run-in with a UFO.
Val Johnson summarily turns them all away.
A UFO STORY GOES GLOBAL
The initial exposure he received from the media was on an international scale. He appeared on top-rated American TV shows of the day, including ABC’s Good Morning America and prime time’s That’s Incredible, hosted by NFL Hall of Famer Fran Tarkington and glittering blonde TV personality Kathy Lee Crosby. The story was picked up by major publications, including the New York Times, Newsweek, and The London Times. The story was later recreated and dramatized on NBC’s top-rated Unsolved Mysteries program.
The Val Johnson incident is among the most scientifically investigated UFO cases in history.
It helped that certain hard evidence existed and was easy for investigators to get their hands on. That came in the form of Johnson’s curiously damaged Ford LTD police cruiser. It had a cracked windshield, two antennas bent at right angles, dents in the hood, scratched chrome, a smashed headlight, and other sidelights cracked.
The damage was analyzed by Roland Wardell, a top metallurgical engineer with Minneapolis-based Honeywell. Also, the Ford Motor Company’s elite windshield expert, Meridian French, traveled from Detroit to the remote town of Warren to study the car’s glass. Experts with a hyperspectral imagery lab in Brainerd, Minnesota, pored over various other points of evidence.
Mr. French’s examination of the broken glass concluded that what caused the damage was “an unknown force.” But he also made the intriguing observation that whatever hit the outside of the car’s windshield also came back from the inside of the car.
It bears repeating: The windshield was pushed inward and then pulled outward again. Whatever hit Val Johnson was inside the car with him at least for an instant. He reported a “brilliant light inside the car.”
Honeywell engineer Wardell was left baffled. While he believed some of the damage could be explained in prosaic terms if isolated, what puzzled him was the cumulative damage, which would have required multiple dissimilar materials and varied sources of force. For example, what would crack a windshield (perhaps like a rock) but also bend over an antenna at a perfect right angle? What would pound dents into the hood but also stop the car’s clock?
The case bears multiple puzzling details, such as:
–> Both Val Johnson’s wristwatch and the clock on his police cruiser showed 14 minutes of missing time. It was routine for Johnson to synchronize his watch and car clock at the beginning of each shift.
–> Metal alloys that made up some of Johnson’s new dental work had fragmented and deteriorated in his mouth despite being just a week old.
–> Johnson was diagnosed with “burning of the eyes,” which is produced by unprotected exposure to a welding torch. His retinas were “scorched.”
–> Johnson sat slumped and unconscious in his police cruiser for about 40 minutes before waking up to radio for help.
–> His car continued forward for another 1,000-plus yards after being hit before skidding to a halt with the vehicle stopping at a 90-degree angle to the road. Tire skid marks of 150 yards were found on the highway at the site..
Metallurgist/engineer Roland Wardell’s report included these statements:
“The inspection points to a highly charged electrical ‘thing’ with enough mass and momentum to break the left headlight, crack the windshield, bend two antennas, disrupt the car’s electrical system and stop both the car clock and Johnson’s wristwatch for 14 minutes.”
Wardell added:
“With a manmade charge, one would have expected to see more evidence that the light arced from one point to another … any statement as to what damaged the car would be speculation.”
Wardell also believed an ordinary lightning strike could be ruled out as inconsistent with the aggregate forms of damage that would have resulted from that kind of energy source.
Incidentally, Wardell claimed to have no interest in UFOs before examining the Johnson vehicle, and he did not become a UFO buff after reaching his conclusions. However, he included this statement in his final report on his study of Johnson’s car:
“We live in an age that tells us there are likely civilizations more advanced than ours. We, as a civilization, are accomplishing extensive space travel. We know how to use intense electrical fields for accelerating particles and producing forces. In this case, we cannot rule out some kind of vehicle from outer space.”
Wardell died in 2006. His obituary, published in the Minneapolis StarTribune, noted that he was a man of:
“Astonishing curiosity and breadth of insight into astronomy, geology, paleontology, and archeology. He was a person of unwavering honesty, integrity, and community service — his mind was vibrant to the end.”
VAL JOHNSON JUST WANTED OUT
Val Johnson was off work for about a week as his eyes recovered from their burns. After the story was picked by local media, it quickly did the 1970’s version of “going viral.” At first, Johnson felt no qualms about simply telling his story to any reporter or TV show that came calling. In fact, he felt it was his duty as a police officer to provide the public with information about what he encountered on a remote rural highway traveled by his fellow citizens. After all, if it happened to him, it could happen to others.
After a flurry of national and international appearances on TV and radio, however, Val and his wife soon began to severely regret their decision.
The telephone at their rural home outside the tiny town of Oslo, Minnesota, started ringing — and it kept on ringing — a lot.
It went on for days, then weeks, and then months. Although they were engulfed in what some people might see as a public relations bonanza, the Johnsons had no use for that kind of thing. They weren’t selling a book, cobbling together a screenplay for a Hollywood movie, or seeking in any way to capitalize on their sudden fame.
Strangers started showing up at their door.
Most of them were UFO buffs seeking more information. Others were UFO buffs who wanted to tell Johnson their pet theories about what he encountered. The latter group felt compelled to tell Johnson who “The Others” really were. Some of them were slightly unhinged but most were polite inquisitors — some of them just a tad kooky but harmless, Johnson said.
His approach was to simply let them sit on his porch for a while and talk while he listened and nodded. He thanked them, and then they went away. This scene played out countless times in the first years after the incident.
As for Johnson, his curiosity level about what had happened to him rapidly devolved to zero. For him, it was a “one and done” event. As for UFOs, aliens and all things paranormal, well, Johnson’s interest in that was also a “big fat zero.” The only thing he wanted was to return to his normal life as a small-town cop, be a good dad to his kids, and enjoy his life with Rose.
After a couple of more years in law enforcement and a short stint as chief of police for the city of Roseau, Minnesota, Johnson cycled out of police work and sought different opportunities. He and Rose soon moved out of the area and settled in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, where the couple lives today.
A TOP TOURIST ATTRACTION
The police car remains on display in the County Seat city of Warren, population 1,500. Lovingly waxed and gleaming, the burgundy-bronze cruiser has a special place of honor in a roped-off section of the Marshall County Historical Society building. It’s the facility’s №1 draw for tourists who still trickle in from around the world to have a look. It’s not uncommon to see travelers from Japan, Australia or Russia breeze in for a look.
Surrounding the police car is an array of other UFO-related exhibits, including a department store mannequin dressed up in Johnson’s ‘70s-era deputy sheriff uniform.
Nearby is a display of 5-by-8-inch square panels printed with text that describes other UFO sightings — including many sightings of flying orbs — that have occurred within about a 50-mile radius of Val’s encounter. On my recent visit, I was delighted to see a couple of entries describing UFO sightings over the skies of Greenbush, my hometown.
On the 40th anniversary of the event, the Marshall County Historical Society held an event to commemorate the event. Historical society director Sherlyn Meiers said she was surprised when nearly 400 people showed up.
Val Johnson was not one of them. Yes, he was invited.
THE UFO STORY THAT WOULD NOT DIE
Known today as Minnesota’s “most notorious UFO incident,” the investigative phase of the case nevertheless went cold not long after all the initial fanfare died away.
True, it has remained a top-referenced story ever since in UFO books, articles, websites, and ancillary subject matter for paranormal podcasts originating internationally.
Occasionally, over the ensuing years, some scientists made news by floating a new theory to explain the Val Johnson incident.
Such was the case when noted Canadian neurobiologist Dr. Michael Persinger proposed that what rammed Johnson’s car was an “earthquake light” — a phenomenon produced by something called “tectonic strain” created by fault lines. This is known as TST or tectonic strain theory.
Persinger stated further that exposure to plasma formations in the form of orbs generated by high pressure in fault lines creates electromagnetic fields which might influence the temporal lobes of the brain.
This, in turn, could cause people to have bizarre paranormal perceptions, such as seeing aliens, feelings of floating, out-of-body experiences, feelings of fear and anxiety, and so on.
Persinger’s work elevated the Val Johnson event in 1982 because his theories were presented on the highly respected PBS science program, NOVA. Persinger made specific reference to the Johnson incident on the show.
At the time, I recall numerous skeptics eagerly jumping on the theories of Persinger to explain away the Johnson encounter. Some went as far as to proclaim the case “solved” based on TST.
Unfortunately for skeptics, TST has not stood the test of time well. Obtaining robust data on TST has proven elusive. TST has since petered out among the academic and scientific community. Other problems exist as well, such as the fact that the northern Minnesota location where Johnson encountered the object is hardly a suitable candidate for even minor earthquake or fault-movement activity.
This location is flat-as-a-pancake Great Plains prairie land. It does not bear the geologic structure optimal to generate plasma balls as produced by the theory of TST. In fact, Minnesota is one of the least seismically active states in the U.S.
Furthermore, Persinger’s famous lab experiments in which he exposed the brains of subjects to artificially created electromagnetic frequencies — causing some to experience out-of-body sensation and see aliens — were not successfully replicated in other labs around the world.
After Persinger, the Val Johnson case receded once again into dormancy and settled back into the fodder of UFO legend — until now.
AFTER 40 YEARS, NEW WITNESSES ARE UNCOVERED
I have “re-opened” (so to speak) the investigation of Minnesota’s most notorious UFO incident because I have uncovered a series of new witnesses. They say they encountered an object that bears an identical description to what struck Val Johnson’s cop car in August of 1979.
Furthermore, these additional encounters happened in nearly the same location and timeframe. As you will see, their stories add significant weight and provide an aura of legitimacy to the account of Val Johnson. These new witnesses deal a significant blow to one of the pet theories of skeptics — that Johnson hoaxed the event.
Additionally, and in Part 4 of this series, I will present fascinating insights about the nature and origin of the object Johnson encountered using data obtained via remote viewing, the “psychic spying” protocol developed by the CIA and Pentagon in the early 1970s.
In the meantime, please continue to Part 2, where you will read the amazing story of a second law enforcement officer who tangled with a 6-foot-wide “flying orb” on a lonely Minnesota highway on a dark night.
CLICK HERE TO: READ PART TWO OF THE VAL JOHNSON UFO SAGA
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