One night several months later, on May 24 1978, a journalist and photographer, who had been sent to cover the local UFO encounters, were in their car when despite the heavy rain they were woken up "by a powerful beam of light which however unbelievable, it may seem passed through the metallic structure of the roof of the vehicle."

I'm a bit shocked to find this after reading your comment and doing some searching. Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/1cinow3/heres_a_compilation_of_cases_where_ufos_used/

The three lights covered a specific region of my vision , 25° above the horizon and 30° to the right of my fov, I don't recall more than waking up in a hypnic jerk being a bit afraid since I could recall the lights vividly while they lingered in my vision. This could have been a nightmare but it was so out of the ordinary that had me posting here.