What’s the story behind Minnesota’s ‘UFO car’?

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Many see evidence of an extraterrestrial encounter in the cracked windshield and bent antennas of the amber-colored Ford LTD squad car permanently parked inside a museum in Warren, Minn.

The “UFO car” draws visitors from around the country — some driving more than 1,000 miles — to the Marshall County Historical Society museum in the small town near the North Dakota border.

“People come from all over and that’s the only thing they want to see. They look at the car. And away they go,” said Kent Broten, the society’s president.

Manuel Zuniga of St. Paul wanted to know more about Warren’s UFO car after reading the book “Imminent.”

Luis “Lue” Elizondo’s 2024 bestseller about his experience investigating UFOs for the Pentagon left Zuniga wondering about strange encounters closer to home.

Zuniga reached out to Curious Minnesota, the Strib’s reader-powered reporting project, to ask: “What’s Minnesota’s local UAP story?” (The term UFO is out of favor these days. Sightings are now more commonly called unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAPs.)

While the more than 40-year-old incident that damaged Marshall County deputy sheriff Val Johnson’s car didn’t get a mention in Elizondo’s book, Newsweek ranked it among modern history’s most credible UFO encounters in 2019.

“Everybody believed the deputy that something happened,” said Broten, the Marshall County Historical Society president. “That it wasn’t anything that he did.”

Johnson was on patrol, driving desolate roads west of tiny Stephen, Minn., in the early hours of Aug. 27, 1979, when he saw a light in the sky.

It was “like a spotlight,” he later told an Associated Press reporter.

He turned off County Road 5 onto Hwy. 220 to check it out, thinking it was a small plane’s landing light.

Then it came at him.

“It sat there and appeared to be stationary,” he told the Associated Press. “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.”

He lost consciousness. When he came to about 40 minutes later, he radioed for help.

“Something just hit my car. I don’t know how to explain it. Strange. Something attacked my car,” a groggy-sounding Johnson told dispatcher Pete Bauer, according to a recording of the call reported by the AP and other media in the days that followed.

“Are you all right?” Bauer asked.

“I think so. I can’t see very well. I don’t think I’m losing any blood anywhere,” Johnson said.

Deputy Greg Winskowski, who was driving to the scene, called to ask Johnson what kind of vehicle hit him.

“It wasn’t a vehicle, Greg. I don’t know what the hell it was,” Johnson said.

Winskowski found Johnson’s squad car sideways on the road with a smashed windshield and bent antennas. The red light on the top of the car and one headlight were broken, and there was a dent in the hood.

The dashboard clock and Johnson’s watch had stopped for 14 minutes before starting up again.

Sheriff Dennis Brekke told the AP that Johnson was treated at the local hospital for “welder burns” to his eyes.

An investigator with the Center for UFO Studies flew in from Chicago to look into the mysterious incident and told the press that its “unusual clues” added up to a good case.

In the days and weeks that followed, Johnson talked to the local and national press about his experience — even appearing on “Good Morning America.”

Soon, however, he wished for the attention to blow over, telling the Associated Press that “it’s a terrible strain on the family.”

“My wife’s run ragged with phone calls,” he said. “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.”

The squad car could have been fixed up, said Broten, the historical society president.

“But the sheriff went to the county commissioners and said, you know, this is … it’s an oddity. It’s never been explained,” he said. “We should keep it as is.”

The squad vehicle ended up in the historical society’s collection, becoming known as the UFO car. These days, the museum sells “UFO car” T-shirts.

In 2019, Warren celebrated the 40th anniversary of the encounter with a re-enactment of Johnson’s radio call and a kids’ alien costume contest.

Johnson, who now lives in Eau Claire, Wis., didn’t attend. In the decades following the incident, he rarely spoke publicly about it, avoiding the limelight even as his old squad car continued to pop up in documentaries, books and online discussion forums.

Johnson didn’t return a recent call for comment. In 2015, however, he told Minnesota Public Radio that he doesn’t think about that night much anymore.

“I saw a ball of light,” he said. “I drove toward it, and suddenly it was in the car with me. It’s unexplainable, and will remain so. I’m happy with my mental stability.”

The former deputy said he looked up and told himself, “Well, shucks, what happened?” he said. “And then I shuffled on with my life.”

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