Aeronautica Militare OVNI Historical Dossier 1972-1990

Brief

The Aeronautica Militare's Stato Maggiore assembled this tabular archive of OVNI incidents spanning 1972 to 1990, covering the period before and after Italy's 1978 formal designation of the Air Force as the nation's official OVNI-reporting body. Each entry records location, date, time, shape, color, speed, direction of movement, altitude, weather, and witness identity, followed by a uniform archival finding. The vast majority of cases were formally catalogued as O.V.N.I.; a small number received conventional attributions, including one assessed with 'reasonable certainty' as a particularly luminous star and one attributed to a civil aircraft on approach to Linate. The 208 pages of extractable text include Alitalia flight crew reports, five-witness joint Army-Air Force observations, Carabinieri filings, and a single-entry multi-location event spanning five regions in ten minutes.

Metadata

Agency

Aeronautica Militare (Italian Air Force) — Stato Maggiore

Release

2023-05-15

Type

PDF • .pdf

Length

227 pages

Tags

disc, sphere, ovoid, triangular, right-angle turns, Italy, 1972–1990, multi-location event, low altitude, alleged landing, horseshoe shape, commercial aviation witness, military witness, Carabinieri report, high-speed estimate

Key points

• The document's standardized finding formula — 'SULLA BASE DELLA DISAMINA DEI DATI IN ARCHIVIO, L'EVENTO È STATO CATALOGATO COME O.V.N.I.' — is applied uniformly to the overwhelming majority of entries, indicating a bureaucratic classification rather than a case-by-case analytical conclusion.p.2
• Alitalia flight AZ 122, traveling the Fiumicino–Palermo route at approximately 4,000 meters altitude, reported two intense white lights moving at high speed from northeast to southwest on December 14, 1972 — the archive's first commercial aviation entry.p.3
• A DC-9 ATI commander and Italian Air Force personnel over Ronchi dei Legionari (Vicenza) observed a circular object at approximately 6,000 meters making right-angle turns on September 29, 1973; the document records its motion as 'VARIE DIREZIONI CON VIRATE AD ANGOLO RETTO.'p.7
• At least two entries received conventional explanations: Otranto (July 20, 1973) was attributed with 'reasonable certainty' to a particularly luminous star, and Pavia (July 10, 1974) was attributed to a civil aircraft on approach to Linate airport by Air Force investigators.p.6
• Three Army aviation pilots and two Air Force personnel simultaneously observed a spherical orange luminous source over Elmas (Cagliari) for 75 minutes — from 17:35 to 18:50 — on October 27, 1977; a second independent sighting at the same location followed six days later.p.26
• A single March 9, 1978 table entry covers simultaneous reports from five distinct locations — Terni, Bologna, Gran Sasso, Vicenza, and Ancona — all within a ten-minute window (20:30–20:40), filed by both Air Force personnel and civilian pilots, treated as one incident.p.29
• September 14, 1978 generated at least nine separate O.V.N.I. reports across Italy within hours, from Lampedusa in the south to Cisano sul Neva in the northwest, involving Carabinieri, State Police, Air Force personnel, firefighters, and private citizens.p.41
• The Amendola (Foggia) sighting of June 6, 1978 recorded an estimated speed of 400 knots (approximately 740 km/h) for a red-orange luminous source observed between 500 and 1,000 meters altitude by Air Force personnel.p.33
• A private citizen near Monte Serra (Pisa) on May 8, 1978 reported a discoid object with an 'ASSERITO ATTERRAGGIO SUL MONTE SERRA' — an alleged landing on the mountain — catalogued as O.V.N.I.p.31
• The Pisa sighting of December 4, 1973 places a circular object with variable luminosity (red, violet, white) at approximately 50 meters altitude moving at 60–70 knots, making it one of the lowest-altitude events in the visible archive.p.12

Verbatim

• RISCONTRI: SULLA BASE DELLA DISAMINA DEI DATI IN ARCHIVIO , L'EVENTO È STATO CATALOGATO COME O.V.N.I.

  p.2

• LE INFORMAZIONI IN ARCHIVIO EVIDENZIANO CHE GLI APPROFONDIMENTI ALL'EPOCA ESPERITI CONSENTIRONO DI AFFERMARE, CON RAGIONEVOLE CERTEZZA, CHE SI TRATTASSE DI UN ASTRO DI PARTICOLARE LUMINOSITÀ .

  p.6

• VARIE DIREZIONI CON VIRATE AD ANGOLO RETTO

  p.7

• STIMATI 400 NODI

  p.33

• 3 PILOTI AVIAZIONE ESERCITO E 2 MILITARI DELL'AERONAUTICA MILITARE

  p.26

• ASSERITO ATTERRAGGIO SUL MONTE SERRA

  p.31

Most interesting

• September 14, 1978 is the single most active date in the visible archive, with at least nine distinct reports filed from sites spanning the length of Italy within hours — a national wave that drew witnesses from Lampedusa to Friuli.
• The Loreto (Ancona) entry for December 14, 1978 describes an object shaped like a 'FERRO DI CAVALLO' — a horseshoe — traveling at very high speed from south to north at elevation, as reported by Carabinieri personnel.
• The Chignolo d'Isola (Bergamo) sighting of October 22, 1973 places a discoid, multi-colored object at only 30 meters altitude, the lowest recorded in the visible entries.
• The Cagliari-Elmas area produced two separate O.V.N.I. entries within one week in late 1977 — October 27 and November 2 — each independently witnessed by military personnel, suggesting a persistent local anomaly during that period.
• Only 208 of 227 pages have extractable text, leaving approximately 19 pages that may be image-only or blank, likely covering some portion of the 1979–1990 period which is absent from the provided excerpts.
• The Barletta (December 8, 1978) Carabinieri report describes an object that was simultaneously conical in shape, white-luminous, and stationary while rotating — a combination that resists easy conventional attribution and was nonetheless catalogued as O.V.N.I.
• A Pescara entry from September 29, 1978 describes two circular bodies 'TRA LORO COLLEGATI' — linked together — at approximately 300 meters altitude, one of the few multi-body connected-object reports in the visible text.