Thursday, August 29, 2019
The Marshall County 2019 UFO Festival
The Marshall County UFO Fest
On Tuesday, August 27, 2019, I was an invited speaker at the
Marshall County Historical Society’s 40th Anniversary Celebration of the Marshall County UFO Incident. The case is better known as the Val Johnson
UFO encounter of August 27, 1979.
The society described the case as “The Most Famous UFO
Sighting in Minnesota,” and they are probably right on that point.
I
had been one of the original civilian investigators back in the day, traveling
there with Guy Westcott who had arrived there shortly after Allan Hendry of
CUFOS did his first examination of the site and the car.
When I organized the first national Canadian scientific
conference on ufology in 1980, I
had invited Val Johnson to be a guest, and he brought with him his
colleagues Deputy Sheriffs Greg Winskowski and Everett Doolittle. (I even found
some audio from the discussion with Johnson.)
Sherlyn Meiers is the director of the society and runs the
museum, and she organized the event. Meiers
was nervous about the event, not knowing if the turnout would be poor on a
weekday evening in a small town some distance away from the nearest city (Grand
Forks).
The museum is in the small town of Warren, Minnesota, and I have to admit, the residents did their best to support the festival, with some stores offering discounts in honour of "UFO Day."
The event had received considerable pre-publicity, with
stories in local newspapers and TV stations running the week before:
Meiers’ fears were unfounded, but her anxiety shifted
considerably when more than 300 people showed up to cram the museum seating
area, and it was standing room only.
The “UFO car” was on prominent display
against a starry backdrop and displays of other UFO cases pulled from NUFORC
and other sources. There was a binder full of press clippings and stories,
including my issue of the Swamp Gas Journal in which I described the case in
detail.
(NB: I tried to record the entire event on video, but the
camera battery died, so I have only the first two-thirds or so, as a continuous stream here. Thanks for your help and expertise, Donna!)
The event began with a welcome by Warren Mayor Mara Hanel,
who declared August 27, 2019, "UFO Day." (And then she told some
really classic "Dad" jokes about UFOs and aliens.)
That was followed by the Spaced Out Costume Contest, which
drew only a handful of cosplayers. (But hey, it’s small-town Minnesota.)
Up next was the performance of The Marshall County Incident, an
original song by recording artists The Jensen Sisters. Before singing, they talked a bit about why they composed
the song and how the stories they heard growing up influenced their
songwriting.
The Jensen Sisters
Then five actors did a
live re-enactment of the incident based on audio transcripts and other
materials, titled “What Happened?”
This was followed by a short talk by Peter Bauer, who was
the dispatcher on duty the night of the incident in 1979.
I spoke next,
describing what I had seen at the site in 1979 and what impression I had of the
car and of Val himself. I talked a bit about the possibility of traveling
between the stars and how advances in technology make it seem reasonable that
aliens could in theory visit Earth. I was told to keep my comments under 15
minutes because there were several other presentations after mine.
After me, three men from Minnesota MUFON in Minneapolis took
turns reading case reports from MUFON files, mostly from northern Minnesota but
several from the Twin Cities. Michael
Harris started by showing some slides of what the MUFON web pages looked
like, but it was hard to make them out beyond the first few rows. Dean
DeHarpporte followed, talking about some cases he had investigated, and then
Bill McNeff, former Minnesota MUFON director, gave a more approachable
presentation about some more MUFON reports. It was interesting to hear
their views.
Michael Harris
Dean DeHarpporte
Bill McNeff
All in all, the “UFO Festival” was a fine celebration. It
attracted a lot of people, and I was honoured to have been a part of it.
A review:
I commend Sherlyn and her team for coordinating and staging
the event. I’m sure it was a lot of work but it certainly drew attention to a
little known slice of Minnesota history.
# posted by rutkows @ 12:35 PM 
