by Charles Lear
Reported police encounters with UFOs have been a common occurrence throughout modern history. Records show that police have seen them in the sky, hovering above the ground and landed. They’ve chased them, been hit by them and been taken aboard them. As police officers are usually the first responders to citizen UFO reports, the frequency of their involvement makes sense. For an officer to go on the record with his or her encounter takes courage in light of the fact that fellow officers are quite likely going to have a few laughs at their expense. Quite often, however, they are supported by their fellows and superiors when facing public scrutiny. Public reaction can be brutal and in the case of Patrolman Herbert Schirmer, it was particularly so.
On December 3, 1967, 22 year-old Schirmer was making his rounds in the town of Ashland, Nebraska at around 2:30 a.m. He was driving on Highway 63, just past the intersection with Highway 6, when some flashing red lights caught his attention. He thought they might have been coming from a truck and went closer to investigate. His headlights revealed a classic flying saucer with a polished metallic surface. A catwalk went around it and the red lights he’d seen were blinking through its portals. It was hovering six to eight feet above the ground and then it rose while emitting a siren-like sound. There was a flame-like display on the underside and Schirmer watched with his head out the open door of his patrol car as it moved almost directly overhead. It then shot suddenly out of sight.
Schirmer examined the area where the object had been hovering and then drove back to the police station. He wrote in the logbook, “At 2:30 a.m. December 3, 1967, I saw a UFO at the junction of 6 and 63. Believe it or not.” By his estimation, the sighting had only lasted ten minutes, but he saw it was 3:00 a.m., which meant that there was a period of around 20 minutes he couldn’t account for. He then experienced an increasingly painful headache, a buzzing in his ears and noticed he had a 2-inch long by ½-inch wide welt just below one of his ears. He later suffered nightmares and, reportedly, woke up trying to strangle his wife on one occasion and handcuff her ankle on another.
What makes this case special is that it was investigated by the Condon Committee at the University of Colorado as part of the study they were doing on behalf of the Air Force. It is listed as case 42 in “The Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects” published in 1969. Staff members from Colorado flew out to Ashland for a preliminary investigation. According to the report, Schirmer’s “superior officer” described him as being honest and trustworthy. He said that Schirmer had been given a polygraph examination at his own request and the results indicated he was telling the truth. The officer also provided the investigators with a small chip of material he had recovered from the site the next day. The material was tested and found to be mostly iron and silicon but, because of its “tenuous” relationship to the UFO, no further effort was made to determine its origin. The investigators concluded it was plausible that it was “earthly waste.” The site was checked for radioactivity and none was detected. There was no evidence that anything unusual had been there.
Schirmer was flown to Colorado. There, he was subjected to a battery of psychological evaluation tests. In addition, a test involving “partial hypnotic techniques” was conducted by Dr. R. Leo Sprinkle. The details of the hypnosis session are not in the report but it is noted that Schirmer added more information to his story. While the authenticity of the story could not be established, Sprinkle was said to be of the opinion that Schirmer believed what he was saying was true.
In a post on his blog, “A Different Perspective”, researcher Kevin Randle includes Sprinkle’s written description of the session:
“He [Schmirer] stated that a bright light had shone from the object upon the car and that he saw a ‘white blurred object’ which came toward the car. He said he felt he was in communication with someone in the object, and that he also felt the communication was in effect during the interview. ”
After returning from Colorado, Schirmer was made chief of police after the retirement of his superior, Bill Wlaskin. Schirmer quit his job within two months due to “personal problems” and headaches that had him “gobbling down aspirin like it was popcorn.” He wanted to know more about his experience and contacted Warren Smith, who wrote about UFOs, and Smith suggested he undergo hypnosis again. Schirmer was put in touch with professional hypnotist, Loring G. Williams, and underwent regression with Smith and his friend, well-known researcher and author, Brad Steiger, both present. Warren wrote about Schirmer’s case in the 1970 book, “Gods, Demons and Space Chariots” under the pseudonym, Eric Norman.
During this session, details came out that read like a combination of an abduction account and a contactee story. Schirmer said that after he shone his spotlight on the object, it flew over to a nearby field and landed. He followed it and then his car and radio went dead. The occupants approached his car and one used a device to cover the car in a green gas. Schirmer went to draw his gun and the creature pulled something out of a holster and pointed it at him. It emitted a flash of light that caused him to be paralyzed. He then described having his neck grabbed on the left side below his ear. He was asked if he was “the watchman” of the town and he replied that he was a policeman. He was invited onboard the craft and he went in, climbing up a ladder that had dropped down through a circular door that opened underneath.
Additional information came out in future sessions and Schirmer drew pictures of the craft and its occupants while under hypnosis. He described the crew as being 4 ½ feet tall, with unblinking cat-like eyes. They wore what looked like silvery diving suits and had an antenna on the left side of their head coverings. On their right breasts were emblems with a winged serpent. He was told that the craft was made of pure magnesium and that it operated using “reversible electro-magnetism.” They said they had bases on other planets, including Venus as well as underground facilities on Earth at one of the poles and off the coast of Florida. They had a “breeding analysis” program and had been observing Earth for a long time. They wanted contactees to slowly release information about them but still wanted to maintain some mystery. He was told, “You should believe in us some, but not too much.” He was then informed that it was time to leave and that he was to report seeing the ship land and then take off and nothing more. After being told they would return to see him two more times, he was escorted to his car and he watched as the craft lifted up and flew away.
In a speech Schirmer gave in Florida in 1974, he added more details, the most significant being, that his car was pulled off the road, up a bank toward the landed object. He described the onslaught of press and then the ridicule that followed two days later. First a man who owned a tire store ran three blocks to catch up to him just to say, “Herb, if you ever see another flying saucer and it lands, you tell ’em I wanna sell ’em a set of tires.” Then there were prank phone calls. Schirmer then said that, on the night he left for Colorado, “the city fathers” hung an effigy from a tree in a cemetery. It had a cowboy hat and a star with his name on it. They shot it full of holes and painted the holes red. Then they had the ambulance from the morgue come and take it away. Schirmer said he laughed when he read about the incident and saw pictures in a newspaper. What made him mad was when his car was blown up by dynamite.
In addition to losing his job, his car and being subjected to ridicule, Schirmer’s wife left him. He eventually moved from Nebraska and spent time in the Pacific Northwest. Then, in 2011, Los Angeles based illustrator, Mike Jasorka, published a graphic novel that told Schirmer’s story. Jasorka had been inspired by the sincere matter-of-fact delivery of Schirmer’s Florida speech. A CD containing the speech was included with the book. After finding out about the book, Schirmer contacted Jasorka and the two spoke on numerous occasions. Schirmer told Jasorka that he had developed a religious view of his experience.
Schirmer died in 2017 and in 2019, his story was celebrated with the release of Star Snake Dank IPA by Nebraska’s Kinkaider Brewing Company. Kinkaider hosted a series of events in Broken Bow, Grand Island and Lincoln, Nebraska with Jasorka offering signed copies of his book. A job, a car and a wife for immortalization in ale and comics. For some, this wouldn’t be a fair trade. For others it might be, depending on the job, the car and the wife.