Ashland patrolman Herbert Schirmer reported an unusual object beside a Nebraska highway early on 3 December 1967. The account later grew to include an encounter with occupants and a visit inside a craft, chiefly through hypnosis. The historical problem is to distinguish the roadside report from those later additions and to compare the actual investigations without turning their disagreements into established facts.
The first reported sighting
The November–December 1967 APRO Bulletin places the incident near Ashland’s Highway 6 and Highway 63 junction at about 2.30 a.m. It describes Schirmer checking restless cattle earlier in his patrol, then initially taking lights on the highway for a truck. He said that illuminating the object revealed a bright metallic form resembling two saucers joined together.
The bulletin records an estimated close approach, red lights, an unusual sound and a rapid upward departure. These are reported observations, not measurements from another observer. Its investigator-derived account also includes equipment difficulties and a period Schirmer could not explain. The magazine’s joint November–December masthead matters: the shortened filename does not date a December incident to an earlier month.
What the Colorado investigation recorded
The University of Colorado study treated the incident as Case 42, using an anonymised location and referring to a state trooper. It recorded an initial forty-foot distance estimate later measured as 150 feet, a subjective twenty-minute time discrepancy, and a small metallic-looking chip collected from ordinary roadside litter.
Analysis found iron and silicon in the chip, but its connection to the reported object was weak; the study found no unusual radioactivity or other physical evidence of a landing. Psychological and partial hypnotic work did not establish the experience’s physical reality. The project’s conclusion was negative about the evidence, rather than an identification of a particular ordinary vehicle.
Those distinctions matter. An unexplained piece of roadside waste does not become spacecraft material because it was collected near a claimed sighting. Conversely, failure to find a trace is not a reconstruction of everything a witness perceived. The two questions require different kinds of evidence.
Discrepancies that should remain visible
APRO’s account reports a half-hour gap and an elevated radiation reading, whereas the Colorado account gives approximately twenty minutes and says no unusual radioactivity was found. They also differ in how the officer’s background is described. The present review does not have original instrument records or an original police log with which to resolve those differences.
It would therefore be misleading to combine the strongest-sounding detail from each account into one uniformly corroborated narrative. A discrepancy may reflect different visits, methods, recollections or reporting, but choosing among those possibilities requires evidence. The mismatch itself is part of the surviving record.
Hypnosis and the February 1968 report
In March 1968, NICAP reported that Schirmer had undergone sessions with psychologist R. Leo Sprinkle on 14 and 15 February. Its story attributed details to police chief William Wlaschin’s notes and described a paralysing beam, an approaching small figure and communication associated with the object. These were additions reported during hypnosis, not a separately witnessed incident.
The alleged communication included claims about an origin beyond the familiar planets and bases within the solar system. NICAP did not authenticate those statements. It described further investigation and explicitly distinguished an unconfirmed contact story from an established encounter. Its publication is evidence that the claims were being reported, not confirmation of their asserted origin.
The distinction also governs the date. February 1968 is an investigation date for the December 1967 experience. It is not an additional incident year simply because more detail appeared then, and a prediction of future meetings is not a record that those meetings occurred.
A later session and an edited narrative
A further important source is Eric Norman’s Gods, Demons and UFO’s, published by Lancer in 1970, with copyright credited to Warren Smith. In its Schirmer chapter, the narrator says he and Brad Steiger attended a later hypnotic session conducted by Loring G. Williams in Des Moines, Iowa. The narrative describes an alleged boarding and technical explanations attributed to occupants.
The author also states that the printed transcript was tightly edited and that the hypnotist’s questions were removed for space. That is a significant limitation. Readers cannot reconstruct the full questioning from the selected answers or assume the printed passages are a complete recording. The source reports the author’s involvement and interpretation; it does not independently verify the scenario described under hypnosis.
Details appearing only at that later stage should retain that provenance. A vivid description of an interior, uniform or propulsion system can be historically important to a contact narrative while remaining unverified. Descriptive richness and independent corroboration are different evidential qualities.
What credibility tests can establish
The sources discuss the officer’s reputation and a polygraph, while the Colorado account reports that Sprinkle considered him sincere. A sincere belief, a favourable character assessment or a reported test result does not establish the external cause of an experience. They should not be presented as instrument confirmation that a craft or its occupants were present.
Nor does a negative assessment authorise a new clinical diagnosis or an allegation of deliberate fabrication. This article records the investigators’ conclusions at the level supported by their published accounts. It does not reproduce private psychological profiles or attempt to infer a medical condition from a historical UFO narrative.
Outcome: Insufficient evidence
The reviewed material preserves a substantial witness report, different investigative interpretations and later hypnosis-derived contact claims. It does not supply independent observation of the close encounter, securely associated physical material or a demonstrated cause. The Colorado study’s negative evidential findings and the unresolved differences between reports are material limitations.
The alleged occupants and non-human contact are included as reported subjects, with their hypnotic origin explicit. They are not treated as verified identities. The original sighting and the expanded contact narrative remain one canonical case rather than separate additions manufactured from successive retellings.
Location, access and reading the originals
The pin is an approximate Ashland city reference from the US Census Bureau’s Nebraska place gazetteer. It is not the highway junction, an alleged field landing position or directions onto private land. This historical case does not certify a visitor attraction or permission to investigate an incident site. The 2011 town photograph is context only.
The review covered Colorado Case 42, the relevant APRO account on pages 3–4, NICAP’s March 1968 report on pages 1 and 3, and selected Schirmer passages in Norman’s book, particularly its explanation of the later edited transcript. Original police records, complete session recordings and raw radiation data were not reviewed. Source and outcome assessment: 13 November 2026.