By Charles Lear
Occasionally, a good, solid, interesting UFO case will slip away from memory only to be rediscovered, years later by an alert researcher. A 1967 case involving a New York woman, Emma Funk, is a perfect example. This case was found recently by New York based researcher and author, Linda Zimmermann, and discussed on the Hudson River Radio show she hosts, “UFO Headquarters.” The Hudson River Valley of New York has long been an active area for UFO sightings and is particularly well known for a wave in the 1980s involving low flying, silent, black triangles, some the size of a football field. The incident involving Funk occurred in Millerton, NY, which is just east of the Hudson River Valley near the Connecticut border. It involved a collision with an object while driving and was remarkably similar to a case familiar to many, the “Val Johnson Incident”, that happened 12 years later.
On Tuesday morning, July 18, 1967, Emma Funk reported an incident to local police. Village patrolman Lewis Lindsay described the report for an article, which appeared in the July 19th edition of the Poughkeepsie Journal. According to the article, Funk was driving home after work on Monday at 11:25 PM. She was heading north on route 22, when an object the size of a softball hit her windshield. At that moment, her headlights went out, her car stalled and the inside of the car was filled with a bright light. Funk was dazed and when she regained her composure and got the car back in motion, she realized she was driving south, in the opposite direction. Lindsay checked the car, saw that there was a crack in the windshield and noted that he couldn’t make a determination as to its cause. The article mentions that there had been “recurring reports of unidentified flying objects in Northeast Dutchess County.” Lindsay said that there was a search planned in the area to try to locate “the sphere” but wouldn’t speculate whether the incident had any connection with the reported UFOs.
A follow up article in the August 5th edition of the same paper describes a meeting at LaGrange Town Office hosted by Aerial Investigations Research Corps Inc. where Funk’s windshield was on display. The object is described in this article as baseball sized and black with an orange glow. A.I.R.’s president, William Donovan, announced at the meeting that the windshield would be sent to the physics department of Syracuse University for “chemical and ballistics tests” and that pictures of it would be sent to the Condon committee. The Condon committee was a group at the University of Colorado that was studying the UFO phenomenon on behalf of the Air Force.
The case made the rounds among many researchers of the day and found its way into various publications and newsletters. An article in the August 10, 1967 Poughkeepsie Journal, mentions that John Fuller, an editor of Look magazine, expressed interest in the case to Donovan. Further details brought out in this article include that Funk had actually lost consciousness, was a mile away from the occurrence when she regained consciousness, and that there were fifteen minutes she couldn’t account for. Donovan mentioned that they were seeking a hypnotist to help recover her memory. They found someone after the article was published and the session was filmed by the BBC that September. The additional details that came out during the hypnosis were that her radio filled with static just before the impact and that “they” turned her car around after hitting her in the chest with a rod.
Zimmermann’s research revealed that Donovan ended up sending the windshield to the Corning glass factory for an evaluation. They noted that the cracks had been fused as if by heat. Zimmermann also found reports involving similar orange orbs around the same time period in different areas around the country.
In order to look at the similarities between this case and the “Val Johnson Incident”, here is a review of that case, which occurred in Marshall County, Minnesota. At around 1:40 AM on August 27, 1979, Deputy Sheriff Val Johnson was driving on duty close to the North Dakota Border when he saw a light. He described it in a taped statement for UFO investigator, Guy Wescott, as “a very bright, brilliant light, eight to twelve inches in diameter, three to four feet off the ground” with well-defined edges. Thinking it was a landing light from a distressed aircraft, Johnson drove towards it, traveling a little over a mile, when it suddenly came towards him and “intercepted” the vehicle. Johnson lost consciousness for “approximately thirty-nine minutes” and came to with his car stopped sideways across the road at the end of 99 feet of skid marks, and a total of 953 feet from the site of impact. He radioed for help and Deputy Sheriff Everett Doolittle was the first to arrive. Doolittle found Johnson sitting in the driver’s seat, in a state of mild shock, with his head against the steering wheel. Johnson complained of pain in his eyes that reminded him of burns he’d experienced after welding and said his head felt as if he’d been hit “in the face with a four-hundred pound pillow.” Doolittle called for an ambulance and Johnson was taken to a hospital where his eyes were treated with salve and bandaged.
What followed was an investigation by the Marshall County Police and three UFO investigators that left all parties mystified. The car had sustained minor damage including a smashed inside left headlight (there were two lights on each side), a small half-inch circular dent with a flat bottom on the left side of the hood close to the windshield and the windshield had a crack from top to bottom with what looked like four points of impact. The windshield was examined at Ford and the expert there, Meridan French, was baffled by what appeared to have been inward and outward forces acting on the glass simultaneously. The roof antenna was bent 60° at a point six inches above its base and the trunk antenna had a 90° bend near its top. The electric clock in the car was 14 minutes slow as was Johnson’s wristwatch, which was a windup and spring-powered. In addition to the physical damage, the car battery was unable to hold a charge.
While researching the Emma Funk incident, this author came across another event involving a car and a mysterious object that took place four days prior. The following is taken from Richard Dolan’s version of the events, found in the 2002 revised edition of his book, “UFOs and the National Security State.” On July 13, 1967, near Whitehouse, Ohio, Robert Richardson was driving with a friend, Jerry Quay, in the passenger seat. At 11:30 PM, as they came around a curve, they saw an object that gave off a brilliant blue light directly in front of them. Richardson could do nothing but close his eyes, hit the brakes and brace for impact. Even though they felt a collision, the object was gone. They were unhurt but shaken up and reported the incident to the police. The local police dismissed their story but the state police followed them out to the site and made note of the skid marks. Richardson’s car had only slight damage in the form of scratches and dents on the hood and a loss of some chrome from the front bumper.
The next day, Richardson returned and found two (the number is somewhat ambiguous in Dolan’s account but two seems to be the case) small pieces of metal, which eventually came to be tested as part of the University of Colorado study along with pieces of fibrous metal taken from the bumper. The pieces of metal were found to be iron and chromium with traces of nickel and manganese while the fibers were found to be 92 percent magnesium.
Richardson sent a telegram to Jim and Coral Lorenzen of the Aerial Phenomena Research Association and gave them his phone number. On July 16th, at 11:00 PM, two men, who appeared to be in their twenties, stopped by Richardson’s house and, although they were pleasant, didn’t identify themselves. After asking him some questions, they left in a 1953 black Cadillac with a license plate reading 8577-D, which was found to have never been issued. A week later, two men with dark complexions and black suits visited who were not pleasant at all. They tried to convince Richardson that he hadn’t hit anything and demanded he give them the metal he’d found. He told them he’d given the pieces to A.P.R.O. and couldn’t get them back. As the men were leaving, one of them told him he’d better get the metal back if he wanted his “wife to stay as pretty as she is.”
As the years go by in the modern era of the UFO mystery, the recorded cases become more and more numerous. It’s inevitable that some will disappear from the discussion, but thanks to diligent researchers it’s not always forever.