UFO Spotted In Minnesota? Deputy's 1979 Experience Is 'Completely Genuine,' Says Investigator

An alleged unidentified flying object (UFO) sighting in Minnesota nearly 43 years ago was a "genuine" extraterrestrial encounter, according to an investigator.

Marshall County Deputy Sheriff Val Johnson was patrolling Minnesota Highway 220 near the town of Stephen at around 2 a.m. on Aug. 27, 1979, when he saw a beam of light that hovered above the road.

The beam engulfed Johnson and his patrol car in light, and the then-35-year-old was left unconscious for 39 minutes.

Johnson would wake up with bruises and eye irritation that a physician later compared to "welder's burns," newspaper The Kingman Daily Miner reported at the time.

His vehicle also sustained damage, with a windshield shattering and a radio antenna bending by 90 degrees.

Both Johnson's watch and the clock on his car's dashboard were reportedly 14 minutes behind as well.

Skeptics argued that Johnson's alleged encounter was a hoax and that he had damaged his squad car, but a Minnesota UFO investigator believes the incident was real.

"My opinion is that's completely genuine," Bill McNeff, the chief investigator for the Minnesota chapter of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) volunteer group, told FOX 9.

"The deputy ran into an unidentified object that was of unearthly origin and suffered these very strange effects in his car," said McNeff, a retired electrical engineer from Burnsville.

MUFON receives an estimated 100 reported sightings each year, while the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC), another nonprofit that studies UFO reports, have recorded more than 2,000 possible sightings, according to the organization's database.

In the past five years, MUFON and NUFORD recorded 449 and 425 sightings, respectively, in Minnesota.

Historically, only around 10% of UFO cases end up being unidentified, McNeff claimed.

UFO sightings can be explained by satellites, planets, twinkling stars and weather phenomena, among other things.

In one example, a straight line of lights spotted in Texas' sky Monday was attributed to aliens. But a National Weather Service branch in the state explained the phenomenon was caused by a group of communication satellites from the internet company Starlink.

However, authentic UFO sightings have increased over the past 20 or 30 years, and now approximately 20% of the reports MUFON investigates cannot be explained, McNeff said.