Volusia County deputies say they’ve heard plenty of excuses over the years, but this one landed in a category all its own.
In a FOX 35 Orlando report, Chancelor Winn walks viewers through body camera footage of a Florida man accused of stealing a BMW convertible, driving it at extreme speeds, and then trying to explain it all with one repeated claim: he “teleported” into the car.
The case is packed with sharp turns – some dark, some surreal—and it ends the way most high-speed theft stories do: a violent crash, injuries, and criminal charges.
But along the way, there’s a trail of moments that feel almost unreal, even though deputies say the damage was very real.
“I Teleported Or Something”
Winn’s report begins with the body cam exchange that set the tone for everything that followed.
Deputies confront a man with a bloody face, later identified by authorities as 36-year-old Calvin Curtis Johnson, and ask him the basic question: where did the car come from?
On the footage, Johnson doesn’t give a normal answer. He seems dazed, confused, and stuck on the same line.
“I don’t know, I teleported or something,” he says, according to the body camera video highlighted in Winn’s report.
When pressed again – “Where’d you get the car from?” – he repeats the idea, saying he doesn’t know and that he teleported.
A deputy orders him to move and put his hands on the patrol car. Johnson complies, but even then, the “teleport” claim continues, like it’s the only explanation he has left.
Winn frames it plainly: deputies hear a lot when they ask someone “why did you do it,” but this was a new one.
And while it’s easy to laugh at the headline line, it’s hard to ignore what it might suggest underneath – panic, intoxication, mental health issues, concussion, or some mix of all of it. None of that excuses what investigators say happened, but it does help explain why the scene sounded so bizarre.
The Moment It Started At The Park
According to Winn’s reporting, this didn’t begin with a dramatic carjacking or a smashed window in a dark parking lot.
Deputies say it started at Bicentennial Park in Ormond Beach, where a man walking his dog left the keys inside his BMW convertible.
Winn describes it as the kind of small mistake people make when they feel safe in a familiar place. You step away for a few minutes, you assume your car is fine, and you don’t expect someone to pounce.
Deputies, however, say a thief did exactly that – jumped on the opportunity and took off with the BMW.
A witness told investigators he saw a strange interaction before the car was taken. In the body cam footage shown in the FOX 35 report, the witness says the man he saw kept asking for a light.
The witness’s logic was simple and blunt: how does someone have a BMW if he doesn’t even have a lighter for his cigarette?
That detail matters because it paints the suspect as someone not acting normal even before the crash. Not confident. Not calm. More like confused, drifting, or disorganized.
It also shows how people in public sometimes pick up on warning signs in real time, but don’t realize what they’re seeing until afterward.
130 Miles Per Hour, Then Fire
Just minutes after the park encounter, Winn says the situation escalated fast.
In the footage included in the report, a bystander describes seeing a vehicle moving at what they believed was 130 miles per hour.
The bystander says, “130 miles an hour,” and then identifies it as the same vehicle.
Deputies say the stolen BMW crashed at Old Dixie Highway and Plantation Oaks Boulevard. Winn describes Good Samaritans stopping to help, and video showing the BMW engulfed in flames.
That’s the part of the story that strips away any temptation to treat this like a goofy “only in Florida” clip.
At speeds like that, the outcome is usually fatal – or close. Not just for the driver, but for anyone unlucky enough to be nearby.
If this crash had happened a little earlier or later, or at a slightly different intersection, it could have ended with an innocent family in the path of a missile on four wheels.
Winn notes that rescuers had to cut Johnson from the driver’s seat. In the body cam audio, one helper says, “I had to cut him out of his seat,” emphasizing how severe the wreck was.
Those are the words of someone who didn’t stop to watch – they stopped to act.
“You Saved Me From The Aliens”
After the flames and the chaos, the body cam footage shows another moment that people will latch onto – because it’s so far outside what you expect after a crash.
“You saved me from the aliens,” Johnson tells a deputy, according to the footage aired in Winn’s report.
It’s a line that sounds like a joke until you picture the actual scene: a man injured, a car burning, strangers pulling him out, law enforcement trying to secure the area, and an investigation already forming.
If you take the words at face value, they don’t connect to reality. If you take them as a symptom, they might.
Winn doesn’t present the “aliens” statement as proof of anything beyond what it is – something Johnson said after a devastating crash. But it adds another layer to the question everyone watching will have: what state of mind was this man in, and how did it get this far before it ended in flames?
What also stands out is how quickly the story flips from bizarre talk to practical police work.
Winn notes that after a deputy deals with the lingering fire, Johnson is driven – very much not teleported – to the hospital and then to jail.
That’s Winn’s point in a nutshell: whatever Johnson claimed, the physical facts tell a clearer story.
Charges, And A Reminder That This Was Preventable
Deputies say Johnson faces charges including grand theft and driving while his license was canceled, suspended, or revoked.
Those charges fit the basic timeline laid out in the FOX 35 report: stolen car, reckless driving, crash, arrest.
What’s harder to quantify is the cost beyond the charges.
A stolen vehicle is already a violation. But the real damage here is what this kind of incident does to a community’s sense of safety. People hear “park,” “dog walk,” “keys left inside,” and they recognize their own habits in it.
Then they hear “130 miles per hour,” and they realize how fast a small lapse can turn into something that risks multiple lives.
It’s also a reminder that theft and reckless driving aren’t separate problems. One can become the engine for the other, especially when the person behind the wheel is desperate, impaired, unstable, or simply doesn’t care.
And yes, it’s easy to reduce this to the punchline line – teleporting, aliens, Florida.
But the fact that Good Samaritans had to cut a man out of a burning BMW should keep this anchored where it belongs: on consequences, not comedy.
The Uncomfortable Part People Don’t Like To Talk About
Here’s the part that doesn’t fit neatly into a viral clip: when someone is making irrational claims after a crash – teleporting, aliens – it can be tempting to mock them and move on.
But those moments can also point to bigger issues that show up again and again in police body cam footage: mental illness, drug-induced psychosis, head injuries, or some mixture of all three.
None of that erases responsibility. The alleged theft still happened. The extreme speed still happened. The crash still happened.
But it does raise a serious question for the rest of us: how many people are out there one bad decision away from becoming a public danger, and how often do we only find out when the wreckage is already smoking?
Winn’s report doesn’t try to diagnose Johnson. It simply shows what he said and what deputies say happened.
And that’s enough to leave viewers with the same feeling the story started with – shock, disbelief, and a quiet gratitude that, this time, nobody else appears to have been killed by a 130-mph mistake.
If there’s a takeaway that isn’t sensational, it’s the boring advice that keeps getting proven right.
Don’t leave keys in your vehicle, even for a short walk. Don’t assume a park is automatically safe because it’s daylight or because you’ve been there a hundred times.
And if you see someone acting strangely around a vehicle that doesn’t seem like theirs – hovering, asking odd questions, looking confused – trust your instincts enough to create distance and notify someone.
Because as Chancelor Winn’s FOX 35 report shows, the line between “something weird is going on” and “a car is doing 130 and bursting into flames” can be just a few minutes.
A former park ranger and wildlife conservationist, Lisa’s passion for survival started with her deep connection to nature. Raised on a small farm in northern Wisconsin, she learned how to grow her own food, raise livestock, and live off the land. Lisa is our dedicated Second Amendment news writer and also focuses on homesteading, natural remedies, and survival strategies. Lisa aims to help others live more sustainably and prepare for the unexpected.
