by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear
Throughout 1954 in France, there was a wave of humanoid reports that received national and international press coverage. That same year, Italy experienced a wave of its own that didn’t get nearly as much attention, although one particular case has since become a classic. A detailed account (page 12 of the pdf) of the case and a follow-up investigation 18 years later is presented in the Vol. 18, No. 5, Flying Saucer Review. Jacques Vallée included a brief account in his catalogue titled Une Siècle d’Atterisages” (a Century of Landings) published as a series in Lumières dans la Nuit starting with the April 1969 issue and ending with the February 1970 issue. However, according to editor Gordon Creighton, “so far as I am aware, no full description of it has ever appeared in English.”
The account, by Sergio Conti, appears on page 11 (page 14 of the pdf) under the headline, “The Cennina Landing of 1954.” It was translated by Creighton from Il Giornale dei Misteri No.17, published in August of 1972.
According to Conti, on the morning of November 1, 1954, Rosa Lotti nei Dainelli, a 40-year-old mother of four, left her farm to go into Cennina. It was a Catholic feast day, and she planned to visit the church and cemetery there. She brought a bunch of flowers for the altar of the Madonna Pellegrina (a procession for her had taken place the night before) and was also carrying her stockings and good shoes so she wouldn’t get them dirty.
As she walked barefoot on the path to town that went through fields and thickets, she came upon a strange object. Conti includes quotes from Lotti describing it that appeared in three publications:
“A sort of double cone, over 2 metres high and about a metre wide in the middle.” (La Nazione Italiana, November 2, 1954.)
“Like two bells joined together at their bases.” La Settimana Incom, No. 24, Year XV.)
“The object was very swollen out in the middle and pointed at the two ends. It seemed to be covered with leather.” (Il Giornale del Mattino, November 2, 1954.)
A quoted portion of the La Nazione Italiana article adds the details that it made no sound, shone like polished metal, and had a glass door in its lower part, through which, Lotti could see two child-sized seats.
According to Conti, as Lotti stood there in astonishment and curiosity, two little creatures with friendly expressions came out from behind the object and walked towards her. She described them as about one metre tall; wearing helmets, grey overalls, and short grey cloaks. Over the overalls, they wore doublets with small buttons that were, in her words, “like shining stars,” along with pants that were tight like long underwear. Lotti is quoted as saying, “they were very fine looking, even though rather old.”
In what seemed to be a friendly attempt to strike up a conversation, they gesticulated and spoke in a “lively” manner. According to Lotti, they sounded “as though they were Chinese,” using the words “liu,” “lai,” “loi,” and “lau.”
Conti provides more details of the creatures’ faces including “magnificent eyes, full of intelligence,” and noses and mouths like those of humans except that their upper lips were curled and exposed their teeth. Their teeth are described as “short (as though they had been filed down) and somewhat protruding, like the teeth of rabbits.” He adds that, “Their ears were hidden under two leather discs, and there was a band around their foreheads, also of leather.”
According to Conti, they grabbed the flowers (carnations) and one of Lotti’s stockings (black), and after “she remonstrated timidly” the older looking one handed back all but five of the flowers. After examining “the structure of the flowers with an air of curiosity, and laughing all the while,” the older creature wrapped the flowers in the stocking he kept and threw the bundle into the craft.
The creatures then stepped back from Lotti and each took a circular object from the craft. The objects were wrapped in something that looked like, but wasn’t, newspaper. They put the objects under their arms and turned towards her, but she had taken the opportunity to run away when their backs were to her. When she looked back, the creatures and the craft were gone. At this point Conti cites the November 2, 1954, “La Nazione Sera.”
The remainder of Conti’s account seems to come from the La Nazione Italiana. According to Conti, Lotti arrived in Cennina gasping for breath, terrified, and unable to remember what had just happened. She apparently recovered her memory (it seems she got it back in church and told her story to the parish priest, as Conti says at the end of the account) because the next thing Conti tells the reader is that she reported her experience to Brigadier Rocco Benfanti and Corporal Nello Focardi of the local Carabinieri (Italian national police) and repeated it for officers of the Búcine region.
Her report got out, and Carabinieri investigators ended up examining the location amidst many curiosity seekers. A hole was found where Lotti said she’d seen the craft, but any possible footprints had been wiped out by the throng.
The bonus in this report is that Conti provides details from a follow-up investigation conducted 18 years later by the Prato UFO Study Group. According to Conti, its members visited the site, found corroborating witnesses, and interviewed Lotti.
Lotti stuck to her story, but made some corrections to what was reported in the press. She said that she only experienced fear after the encounter, and she described the craft this way:
“In the thickened part of the spindle, it had two port-holes, on opposite sides to each other, and in the centre, between them, there was a little door, enabling me to see, inside, two little kiddie-chairs set back to back, each of them facing towards one of the port-holes.”
Lotti said that the creatures’ lips were not curled, but normal, and emphasized that their faces were “well shaven.” She said they took all the flowers and that none were returned; that only the older creature brought out an object; that it was round, dark brown, and looked like it was wrapped in cardboard; and that the creature held it up to his chest and pointed it at her as if he was taking a photo. Finally, she said that as she was running away, the creatures and the craft were still there when she looked back.
As for the corroborating witnesses, according to Conti, one reported seeing something land, one something taking off, and one something flying in the air, all in the area of Lotti’s reported encounter. But for Conti, the most impressive corroboration came from an investigation in March 1955 by the Giornale del Mattino: Ampelino Torzini, a student in a junior elementary class in Ambra, had written in a class scrapbook that while tending to their pigs, he (then age 6) and his brother (age 9) had, in Conti’s words, “seen a lady ‘chatting with the men’ and that he had seen the ‘spindle’ but had mistaken it for an animal.”
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