Tuesday, October 17, 2006

 

Those Elusive Multiple Witnesses

We are often told that UFOs are real "structured craft" because there are many multi-witness sightings, including some with idependent witnesses. Unfortunately, most multi-witness sightings are of the "lights in the sky" type which usually have fairly obvious explanations. Others fail to stand up to critical examination, as in the notorious Trindade case, where investigators failed to obtain any statements from the alleged multitude of witnesses, apart from the photographer Barauna and a few of his associates. Also, investigators seemed strangely unperturbed by their failure to obtain the negatives of the UFO photographs.

At least a great deal has been written about Trindade, both pro and con, but, so far as I know, the following report, recorded by Jacques Vallée ("The Pattern Behind the UFO Landings", Flying Saucer Review: The Humanoids, October/November 1966) has aroused no interest whatsoever:

In Monza (Italy) a man saw a light in a stadium and soon a crowd of 150 people gathered, destroyed the barriers and rushed to get a closer look. They saw a disc set on three legs, emitting a blinding white light. Figures dressed in light colours and wearing transparent helmets were standing close by. They seemed to communicate with "guttural sounds". One of them had a dark face and a sort of trunk, or hose, coming up to his face. The craft flew away without noise.

Vallée certainly doesn't have much to say about the case. All I can find is the following sentence in his book Challenge to Science (Jacques and Janine Vallée, Neville Spearman, London, 1967), which presumably refers to it:

In one case a crowd of 150 people reported seeing the craft and its operators.

So there we have it. On the face of it one of the most well-witnessed, close-up UFO landing and occupant reports ever, and nobody is interested. So is this a made-up story or a distorted account of a real incident? Does anyone have any further information about it?

Comments:
Oh, no! Not again...

It's one of the best renowned hoaxes of that year in Italy (and Giuseppe Stilo gives it a wide treatment in his recent book, "Il quinto cavaliere dell'Apocalisse", UPIAR, Torino 2006, on pages 492-508 (http://www.cisu.org/stilo54.htm).

But, most important, it's long been known and published as a hoax even in the international UFO press (I can remember Roberto Pinotti in FSR May-June 1970 issue, for example), also giving the correct data: Monza (Milano), November 8 (a national newswire date) was a complete mistake, since the fact happened in Tradate (Varese), on October 28, 1954, and this may have made things more difficult.

Both Giuseppe and Maurizio Verga (the man behind ITACAT, the Italian Catalogue of UFO landings) will surely be able to quickly add a carload of international references to it, both as a true event and as the real hoax it was (confessed by pranksters as early as the following day).

Best regards

Edoardo Russo
Centro Italiano Studi Ufologici
 
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