ITALIAN UFO REPORTER 2:4

10 Oct 1996
Source: Centro Italiano Studi Ufologici (CISU)
(This is only a part of the newsletter.ed)

UFO CRASH AT GUARDIAREGIA?
In search of a mystery craft fallen onto a mountain in Molise
_by Renzo Cabassi_

Two different news reports in early March, 1994 alerted those CISU members active in Project Aircat (collection and analysis of Italian UFO reports by pilots). Both reported events took place on March 6th in the province of Campobasso. At 16.30 two m

en were flying an ultra-light aircraft Zenair 70 at 200/250 feet above Termoli, at a speed of about 80 mph when they noticed a small sphere reflecting the setting sun light and moving on a north horizontal path at about the same altitude as theirs, seemin

gly 6 kms away. The mystery object suddenly disappeared after 5 or 6 seconds.

On the following day the local newspapers _Il Tempo_ reported that a mystery craft had crashed on Mount Mutria that same afternoon, around 4 p.m. and that research teams were still looking for it. But nothing was allegedly found, according to later news items.

We launched an investigation, at first by phone calling and letter writing to local witnesses, journalists and authorities, since weather conditions prevented us from a direct on place expedition among the snow mountains at 1,800 meters above the sea. What we were told was more intriguing than what expected: helicopters over the area in the night (well before the official arrival of the one who found nothing on the following morning); the whole area cordoned off by a very heavy police and military activity. Locals rumoured a sort of plane had crashed, and authorities had it secretly retrieved at night.

We waited impatiently till Renzo Cabassi and Roberto Raffaelli could organize a field investigation, on May 28, in order to directly interview the witnesses on the place.

"A PLANE HAS CRASHED"

The main one was 18 years old Angelo Giambattista: between 2 and 2.20 p.m. of that Sunday afternoon he was to get home in Guardiaregia (730 mt. above the sea, facing Mount Mutria) when he saw a dark object flying from east and seemingly landing onto the mountain, or better bouncing on the snow and stopping as a black spot. He called his father, 45 years old Franco Giambattista, a policeman and a former airman, telling him a plane had fallen. Franco runned out and could easily see two dark shadows on the snow in a ravine about 100 meters below the mountain top (1823 m.). Through his binocular he clearly distinguish an oval shape with swept snow all around and, 20 or 30 meters lower, a 3 to 4 meters long black "aeronautical fuselage" with a vertical flag and a row of small portholes around.

He called the emergency number and at 4 p.m. an officer of Carabinieri (military police) arrived and could see the craft. The air accident alarm took another 90 minutes before the area was cordoned off by Police and Carabinieri, and a Civil Protection team arrived, formed by Alpine Rescue volunteers. The fire brigade placed a powerful light beam, while at 8 p.m. eight volunteers began climbing the wooded mountain in the dark. According to at least four witnesses we interviewed, at the same hour no less than three helicopters were hovering near the impact spot. Unverified rumours even told of two copters having retrieved a... missile!

At their second attempt, the volunteers got to the mountain top by 1 a.m., and two of them began descending into the ravine, with precise instructions by Carabinieri not to get close to anything they might find, but only report by radio. People down at Guardiaregia could see their light beacons in the right place, but they could neither find or see anything unusual, not even broken branches of snow traces. They only reported briefly seeing like a fable flame. The volunteers remained up there until dawn, when a Fire Brigade helicopter rescued them and flew with them all over the area, finding nothing at all. People down at Guardiaregia, including Franco Giambattista, could no longer see any dark shape on the snow.

ON THE FIELD

On our second trip to Guardiaregia, on July 9, we could once again interview local residents (except young Angelo, who wants not to talk any more about it, after having been interrogated by Carabinieri) and suddenly realized at least 15 of them had been gazing for hours to the wrong area on the mountain, watching nothing but an odd, big stone curiously similar to a plane.

On the following morning Renzo Cabassi and Roberto Raffaelli were taken on the mountain top by the same Civil Protection rescue team, in bad weather conditions (a few meters of visibility, strong wind, winter cold). Raffaelli and the same two rescue members of that night finally descended down into the ravine, getting nothing more than a lot of photos.

HYPOTHESES AND QUESTIONS

We can guess the crashed craft might have been a military unmanned reconnaissance drone (see box). Roberto Raffaelli analyzed this side of the affair in an article he had published in the specialized journal "Aerei" (october '95), but if true such possibility would request a whole series of science fiction-like activities in order to retrieve the crashed vehicle and cancel any trace of the event: an immediate arrival of helicopters which retrieve it, then three more ones for cleaning the area, then repeated fly-overs to check it had been done OK; plus a large-style alarm, but "piloted" so to take as long as possible to arrive (precious daylight hours being wasted, so that the civil rescue team could only leave in the dark; more nighttime helicopter activity, with at least 11 hours of darkness to complete the work). Such an operation, if real, would rather point to a military secret linked with war operations in the former Jugoslavia. If so, an ethical question may be raised: do we have a right to interfere in such matters? Moreover, shouldn't the government issue an brief - even undetailed - official release, not to let legends and folklore of a new Roswell case be born and diffused?

Another hypothesis we considered is that a scientific research high altitude balloon might have momentarily collapsed, his load looking like the reported vertical flag. Such balloon might have later taken off because of a subsequent higher temperature and some wind. But this would not justify the large-style rescue operations.

A third hyothesis is the mistake by witnesses, in evaluating and interpreting what they saw. Angelo might have seen any aircraft flying behind the mountain top, and think it might have crashed on it while he only saw its shadow on the snow. The others might have seen a broken trunk or wathever else (but what? Nothing was found, nothing was visibile any longer from Guardiaregia, on the following day).

Any hypothesis wa may prefer, we have to keep the huge unfolding of men, means and energies, and we have to ask why. Why did rescue operations only begin three hours later? What controls were done in the meantime? Who took the responsibility to send a Civil Protection team in a dangerous nighttime operation? Since 2.30 p.m. (first alarm) until 5.30 p.m. (beginning the resue operations), since 5.30 p.m. until 1 a.m. (when the rescue team descended into the ravine), did nobody get certain that nothing had crashe u pthere? Why were two helicopters still surveying the mountain? Why all such operations did take to no official report, no explanation to Guardiaregia mayor, no press release at all?

Such questions are only made more insistent by the last developments: on August 10, 1994 the district attorney asked (and obtained) that Franco Giambattista be penally sentenced a fine by the Campobasso Tribunal because, "by announcing with thoughtlessness an inexistent accident of an alleged vehicle, he caused unjustified alarm of authorities, agencies and people".

So, what are the responsibilities of those reporting an alleged air accident? What then the responsibilities of those not reporting it? Where was the thoughtlessness by Franco Giambattista? Is is always possible for a UFO-crash witness to be charged for "causing unjustified alarm"?

All those questions, as of now, remain unanswered.

DRONE: UNDETERMINED COMPONENT
_by Nico Sgarlato_

Drones (remotely piloted vehicles, RPV; unmanned aerial vehicles, UAV) are often accused of causing UFO sightings. Until the late 1980's, that would have been a very rare possibility, in Italy, since they were rarely used outside military test areas, even in war theaters.

During the Gulf War (1990/91) and more recently in the former Jugoslavia they began having an intense, though largely unpublished, use. Italian newspapers only reported the Pentagon (unaccepted) request to base DARO and CIA drones in an Italian airport on the Adriatic, but such vehicles had already been used by the French Army (Fox AT-1) in Bihac and the US Gnat 750 (also called Tier I) were later based in Albania and Croatia. Newer Tier II (Predator) were also based in Albania in 1995, but rumours have it that they had been unofficially operating from an Italian base, too). Two Predators were admittedly lost in August, 1995, but rumours are known of at least another one retrieved by Serbians. More recently US Marine Corps are to send twenty Pointers, US Army the Hunters and US Navy the Pioneers.

SOME TIMES THEY FALL... IN ITALY, TOO
A Catalogue of Italian Alleged UFO Crashes
_by Giuseppe Stilo_

On December 13, 1884 a shining body came down from the sky crashing onto a field in Sorisole, near Bergamo. That was the first known case of a series of possibly UFO accidents in Italy. Since spring, 1995, we decided to collect and analyze them all in a research project called CRASHCAT, including all Italian reports of a seeming fall of flying objects onto the ground (or a water surface), that is all potential UFO crashes. On the contrary, we are not including traditionally fortean phenomena of things fallen from the sky (ice, fishes or animals, vegetables, sand, blobs, etc.).

Such reports does show some peculiarities: for example, 75% of them are so much alarming that government agencies (military or civil)are called in action, often with an aura of secrecy.

As of present, 102 reports have been filed in four classes: a) retrieved objects (52 reports); b) fallen but unretrieved objects (15); c) fallen into a water surface (31); d) retrieved entities (with or without a vehicle (4). A larger part of them can be explained as fallen balloons, meteorites, planes (or parts of planes), satellites or hoaxes. But 31% of our reports still show unclear details, worthy to be give a deeper analysis. None of these is by now classified as a true unidentified, but only as "insufficient information" because a serious investigation is lacking or did take no concrete fact. Some reports refer to planes seen falling down in flames, but never either found or reported missing. As for the four entity retrievals, they are all just rumours and refer to: a little green man capture in Puglia in 1910/15; six aliens capture by the Italian Army north of Rome in 1959; an undated capture by the Fire Brigade in Veneto; and an alleged autopsy of alien bodies in a USAF base near Savona, following a UFO shot down in 1974.

INVESTIGATIONS



THE MILO BALLOONS
Sicilian Sightings of Summer 1995
_by Antonio Blanco_

On August 20, 1995, between 10 a.m. an 10.30 p.m., a small UFO flap took place all over Sicilia, as reported by local newspapers and TV stations on the following days. Here follows a collection of reports investigated directly by the Sicilian branch of CISU.

The first witness was a naturalist in Caltabellotta (Agrigento), who watched through his binocular a sun/reflecting spherical object with an irregular surface and two protruding legs below, for two hours between 10 a.m. and noon.

Around noon, a policeman in San Giuseppe Jato (Palermo) recorded a strange white dot in the blue sky with his home/camera.

A whole family of eight people in Vassallaggi watched and also video-recorded a bright white globe high and motionless in the sky at 12.30 p.m. in San Cataldo (Caltanissetta).

At 1.30 p.m., two witnesses in San Leone (Agrigento) watched what they described as either an aluminium/covered sphere with ropes below or as a grey balloon, motionless and far away.

Between 3.30 and 4 p.m., a few people from Nicolosi (Catania) a silvery dot or an oval with a darker line below, hovering high in the sky. They try to photograph it but the thing is much too small. At 4.30 p.m. the object is still visible from Catania, though slightly more to the east.

The last report came to us from Siracusa, at 10.30 p.m., where dozens of people watched a strong light at first hovering above the sea, then speeding away. A second light arrived but also departed the same way.

It was soon clear all daylight sightings looked like describing the same and one object. The chronology of sightings (gradually moving from western to eastern Sicily as the hours passed) also confirmed an hypothesis first proposed by a Palermo astronomer: a balloon launched by the Italian Space Agency base in Milo (Trapani). We could confirm that by asking the directors of the project, who kindly provided all data of their summer campaign: a first launch failed in June; a second one suceeded on July 29; the third one was on August 10 and the last exactly on August 20. They all concerned a single stratospheric balloon of very large dimensions. The second and third launches had astronomical and astrophysical survey aims, and went westwards (toward Spain), so that they caused no UFO sightings over Italy (though they did cause an uproar in the Baleares Isles, where one was sighted and video/recorded by many locals and also by Italian tourists, as we reported in ITUFOR 2:3).

The launch we are concerned of had an opposite course, westward, as its aim was to try to recover it off eastern Sicily coast, in order to simulate a retrieval operation of a 3 tons space/capsule at sea. The balloon arrived up to 200/300 meters in diameter, had a 250 meters long chain holding its charge and was kept up and driven through telemetric and radiocontrol equipments. Through an apt use of hig altitude winds, it took off at 8 a.m. and moved at about 20 km/h up to 6 p.m., where it discharged the capsule into the sea as programmed.

The only anomalous sighting would seem to be the last one, which probably referred to the helicopters taking part in the retrieval operations at sea.

The flap also teach us that witnesses are usually accurate in their testimonies, so that we should alway listen to them respectfully; at the same time it tells us they need our help in order to correctly understand what they saw, since their interpretations may be quite off reality.

ANOTHER FLYING HUMANOID?
Flying Object over Sardinia
_Investigated by Antonio Cuccu_

Around 9 p.m. on July 27, 1993 a dozen of people sighted a strange object over the Calabona beach, near Alghero (Sassari), for three to four minutes. The first witness was a four years old boy, who called out his father and a hotel barman asking to take him "that balloon". A whole group of tourists could so watch aound, black object hovering at about 30 meters away. A short rope below made him look quite like a toy balloon, but its shape soon changed to an oblong, irregular one, also beginning to wave, then it got out of their view. The witnesses ran down the stairs and got out into the street, and saw the object enlarging and changing again its shape into what looked like an helicopter with a red pulsating light on top. Suddenly it took off and sped away in just a few seconds on a southwestern path.

Shape and behaviour are strongly similar to the strange wave of flying humanoids over Central Italy in that same summer of 1993, as reported in several previous issues of ITUFOR.

SOME TIMES THEY COME BACK...
Another Flying Humanoid at Rocchetta Sant'Antonio
_Investigated by Arcangelo Cassano_

Nearly an year after the hovering humanoid seen on October 1994, a new case was reported in Rocchetta Sant'Antonio (Foggia) on September 11, 1995. At 7.45 a.m. a woman of 20 years old was taking her sheeps pasturing in a valley when she noticed something shining. She got closer and suddenly the thing turned toward her and showed itself to be a small smiling humanoid with a brown coverall within a sort of transparent space-suit. It was about 50 centimeters tall, had two eyes and a nose, two legs and seemingly neither arms nor mouth. A sort of silver half-sphere was on its shoulders and an antenna was above it.

She remained gazing at it for about 5 minutes from a distance of 200-250 meters, then decided to get back home, but soon found the creature was now following her. Panicked she began to run to the road, and met a passing driver, telling him of the thing. The man tried to get closer to the being and later described it as a dwarf walking to and from in the valley, later began trotting along on its short legs and took off while the woman (but not the man) heard a noise like a motorcycle. The man also described a sort of white trail coming from the half-sphere on the humanoid back, while it was flying away. Two more people also saw the flying thing from the little town.

FISHING SUBMERGED UFOs
An Unidentified Submerged Object in Puglia
_Investigation by Arcangelo Cassano_

On the night of August 26, 1984, at 3 a.m., three fishers were sitting in a boat 2 miles off Campo Marino (Taranto), when they saw a whitish light moving under the sea in the opposite direction, at a distance of 500-1000 meters from them. At first they thought a submarine was to emerge, but suddenly a round, metallic-grey object came vertically out of the sea, then changed its path of 60-70 degrees and moved away very fast disappearing within a few seconds. No sound was heard, no wave or water sprout were noticed, no trail was seen: these details seem to point against the possibility of missile launche from a submarine.

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