The weather was sunny and clear in Florence on October 27, 1954. The football match between one of the best teams of the time, Fiorentina and the equally titled Pistoiese team, promised to be exciting.
Several thousand fans gathered in the stands of the Artemio Franchi stadium and watched with interest the fight of their favorites. And suddenly, in the midst of the second half, the game stopped. Spectators and football players froze, as if spellbound, and began to look into the sky, where unidentified flying objects circled.
CUBAN CIGARS
At first there was silence over the stadium, but soon the temperamental Italians began to shout, gesticulate violently, point fingers at something. The footballers also forgot about the ball and looked at the strange aircraft with all their eyes.
Ardico Magnini, football fan idol, local legend, participant in the 1954 World Cup, later recalled:
“I remember everything from A to Z. Above the stadium, something that most of all looked like an egg floated slowly, slowly. Everyone was looking up. In addition, a silvery glow spread across the sky. We were just shocked because we had never seen anything like it before. We were just shocked."
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Everyone - both players and spectators - was as if mesmerized by the incredible spectacle. The referees had to stop the game. Then they were forced to write in the report that "the audience saw something in the sky."
Among the many spectators in the stands was Gigi Boni, one of Fio Rentina's most loyal supporters. He also left his memories of that unforgettable day:
“I remember this incredible sight very well. Some objects appeared in the sky above the stadium. At first they moved very quickly, and then somehow stopped immediately. Most of all they resembled Cuban cigars. As soon as I saw them, cigars came to my mind, and they were Cuban ones. I know what I'm talking about: my grandfather loved Cuban cigars and always wrote them out for himself. Therefore, I immediately remembered them."
Boney spent a lot of time replaying the events of that time over and over again in his head:
“It seems to me that an object from another galaxy is hovering over the stadium. How else to explain this phenomenon ?! In any case, it was an object of extraterrestrial origin. I believe in it.
Another witness, footballer Romolo Tuci, is sure: “We all then became eyewitnesses of the most incredible spectacle in our life. Nothing more impressive, at least to me, has ever happened again. Then all over the world everyone was just talking about aliens, about UFOs, and we all saw it in reality, with our own eyes. Romolo Tuchi has lived a long life and knows what he is talking about.
The incident at the Artemio Franchi stadium cannot be explained as a massive hallucination - for several days, UFOs were observed over many cities in Tuscany. Some eyewitnesses claimed that a bright white beam hung in the sky over the city of Prato, north of Florence.
ANGEL'S HAIR
Roberto Pinotti, president of the Italian National Center for UFO Research, ate a dog on the topic of unidentified flying objects. He has many books and articles on aliens to his credit. And his house in the center of Florence resembles an old archive: it is simply packed with old posters of Italian films about aliens, newspaper clippings and black-and-white photographs of flying saucers.
Needless to say, Roberto firmly believes in the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations? Yes, he is ready to lay down his life, just to prove that they exist. Therefore, the story of that football match in Florence is a real balm for the soul. Roberto is familiar with many eyewitnesses of those events. He talks about them with such fervor, as if he himself were present at the stadium and with his own eyes saw "Cuban cigars" in the air. Surely he would give a lot to witness such a sight.
“The players and spectators were just shocked when they saw these objects above the stadium,” says Pinotti. - Then the newspapers wrote about the invasion of the Martians. Of course, we now know that this is not the case. But we can come to the conclusion that intelligent beings are responsible for this phenomenon - with highly developed technologies, clearly of extraterrestrial origin."
Of course, Pinotti is aware that some strange white substance was poured into the stadium at that time - a “silvery glow,” as eyewitnesses said.
“Experts call this substance“angel hair”. The problem is that after a relatively short period of time it completely collapsed."
Pinotti himself observed the mysterious phenomenon at the age of ten: “In broad daylight, a white substance like snow fell on the roofs of Florentine houses. And after an hour, it completely melted. And no one knows what connection the strange white substance had with the UFO."
Of course, the fantasy of a 10-year-old boy can play out great, and he is quite capable of mistaking snow for anything, but the phenomenon did not take place in January or February - it happened in the summer!
WITNESSES FROM VENICE
When describing the white substance, witnesses claimed that it looked like cotton or cobwebs. However, it was not possible to collect it: it completely disintegrated in the hands, leaving no traces. And yet there were people who decided by all means to find out what it was.
One of them is the late Giorgio Batini, a correspondent for the Florentine newspaper La Nazione. In 2003, he told the Italian television program The Traveler how hundreds of people called the newspaper that day to report on the mysterious phenomenon.
Batini himself at that moment was at work. The editorial building was located in the very center of the city, and from its windows the sky was not visible: it was blocked by neighboring buildings. Then Batini, driven by curiosity, climbed onto the roof. What can't you do for an interesting story? But he was unlucky: the UFOs over the city have already disappeared. Since then, Batini has been infected with the idea of understanding whether extraterrestrial intelligence exists and whether UFOs can throw white, "powder" on the earth.
Batini traveled far and wide across Italy, often traveled to other countries - to where there were reports of new visits by aliens. It was Batini who managed to find two eyewitnesses from Venice, who were the first to spot a UFO on that significant October day in 1954. It was a sensation. It turns out that on October 27, some gentlemen Luchetti and Lastrucci, who went out onto the hotel balcony to admire the views of St. Mark's Square in Venice, noticed flying "luminous spindles" in the sky, leaving a strange white trail.
Objects flew at high speed one after another. Then the object, flying behind, caught up with the leader. Then they turned around and flew towards Florence. After some time, several thousand stunned spectators in Florence watched the spectacle described above.
Today, there are plenty of opinions about what the “hair of angels” is. For example, a ufologist from the United States, Charles Maney, claims that this is some kind of excess materialized energy of these objects. When they dissolve, they return to their dimension back or to another space-time continuum.
Another ufologist, Englishman Brinsley Le-Poer Trench, claims that "hair" is a kind of ectoplasm that appears during spiritualistic séances.
Entomologists (scientists who study insects) claim that there is no mystery, and the fibrous matter is just a mass of broken cobwebs carried by the wind. In support of their theory, they cite the example of tiny liniths, which, although they do not have wings, are able to fly through the air in a rather original way.
The spider simply unfolds its body in the wind and releases a long thin thread from the back. As soon as the wind lifts it into the air, the spider clings to it tightly and thus travels fairly decent distances.
Of course, no self-respecting ufologist will ever agree with this version. Therefore, they are ready to continue their research. And the secret is still a secret.
Sergey KUNITSYN