Cidersomerset
24th October 2014, 09:59
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October 2014 Last updated at 01:31
The day UFOs stopped playBy Richard Padula
BBC World Service Sport
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/78487000/jpg/_78487981_1954_2420x624.jpg
The Stadio Artemi Franchi in 1954, the year the UFOs were sighted
Sixty years ago a football match ground to a halt when unidentified flying objects were
spotted above a stadium in Florence. Did aliens come to earth? If not, what were they?
It was 27 October 1954, a typically crisp autumn day in Tuscany. The mighty Fiorentina
club was playing against its local rival Pistoiese.
Ten-thousand fans were watching in the concrete bowl of the Stadio Artemi Franchi. But
just after half-time the stadium fell eerily silent - then a roar went up from the crowd. The
spectators were no longer watching the match, but were looking up at the sky, fingers
pointing. The players stopped playing, the ball rolled to a stand-still.
One of the footballers on the pitch was Ardico Magnini - he was something of a legend
at the club and had played for Italy at the 1954 World Cup.
"I remember everything from A to Z," he says. "It was something that looked like an egg
that was moving slowly, slowly, slowly. Everyone was looking up and also there was some
glitter coming down from the sky, silver glitter.
"We were astonished we had never seen anything like it before. We were absolutely shocked."
Players pointing up at the sky
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/78473000/jpg/_78473140_f1d9ad74-9f15-47da-b9be-3e9d966a2ab7.jpg
Play was suspended because spectators saw something in the sky, according to the
referee's match report.
Among the crowd was Gigi Boni, a lifelong Fiorentina fan. "I remember clearly seeing this
incredible sight," he says. His description of multiple objects differs slightly from Magnini's.
"They were moving very fast and then they just stopped. It all lasted a couple of minutes.
I would like to describe them as being like Cuban cigars. They just reminded me of Cuban
cigars, in the way they looked."
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/78483000/jpg/_78483759_lanazionenewspapersharpx304.jpg
La Nazione had a photo of the UFO over Florence La Nazione's headline reads: Glass fibres
fall on Tuscan cities after globes and flying saucers pass by. Lower headline: The sighting
over Florence (with a photograph, now lost, of the UFO).
Boni has spent many years reliving that day in his mind. "I think they were extra-terrestrial.
That's what I believe, and there's no other explanation I can give myself."
Another of the players, Romolo Tuci, still sprightly in his 70s, agrees. "In those years everybody
was talking about aliens, everybody was talking UFOs and we had the experience, we saw them,
we saw them directly, for real."
The incident at the stadium cannot simply be interpreted as mass hysteria - there were numerous
UFO sightings in many towns across Tuscany that day and over the days that followed. According
to some eyewitness accounts a ray of white light was seen in the sky coming from Prato,
north of Florence.
Another man who relishes the chance to speak about that day is Roberto Pinotti, the president of
Italy's National UFO Centre. He has written many books about UFOs and his home in the centre of
Florence is stuffed full of alien memorabilia, posters of old Italian B-movies, framed newspaper
articles and black-and-white photographs of blurry flying saucers.
"The players and the public were stunned seeing these objects above the stadium," Pinotti says.
"At the time the newspapers spoke of aliens from Mars. Of course now we know that is not so - but
we may conclude that it was an intelligent phenomenon, a technological phenomenon and a
phenomenon that cannot be linked with anything we know on Earth."
He's also intrigued by the material that fell from the sky - what Magnini describes as silver glitter.
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/78473000/jpg/_78473137_fd9647c3-cfbd-44a3-8fea-d936b2b6c640.jpg
Illustration showing flying saucers over Florence "A wave of flying saucers over Italy," reported
the Domenica del Corriere three years later. With thanks to the Fondazione Corriere della Sera for
the use of material from their historic archives.
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/78478000/jpg/_78478350_ae64243b-fcba-41ad-bb51-bf39f13285b0.jpg
Artist's impression of UFOs over stadium A sketch of UFOs over the stadium by Silvio Neri
"It is a fact that at the same time the UFOs were seen over Florence there was a strange, sticky
substance falling from above. In English we call this 'angel hair'," says Pinotti.
"The only problem is after a short period of time it disintegrates." As a 10-year-old-boy he witnessed
this phenomenon himself. "I remember, in broad daylight, seeing the roofs of the houses in Florence
covered in this white substance for one hour and, like snow, it just evaporated.
"No-one knows what this strange substance has to do with UFOs."
"Angel hair" - the fluff that fell from the sky
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/78461000/jpg/_78461006_angels-hair-darker464.jpg
Variously described by witnesses as similar to cotton wool or cobwebs, the substance was hard to collect
because it disintegrated on contact - but some people were determined to find out what it was.
One of them was a journalist at the Florentine newspaper La Nazione, the late Giorgio Batini. In 2003 he
told an Italian television programme, Voyager, how on that day he received hundreds of phone calls about
the sightings. From the offices of La Nazione in the centre of town his own view of the sky was blocked by
the Cathedral, so he went up to the top of the newspaper's building to see what everyone was talking about.
The 81-year-old recalled seeing "shiny balls" moving fast towards the dome of the Cathedral.
Continue reading the main story
Find out more
The players and fans from that legendary game spoke to World Football on BBC World Service.
Listen via the iPlayer
Batini ventured out to investigate. He came across a wood outside the city that was covered in the white fluff.
He gathered several samples by rolling them up on a matchstick, and took them to the Institute of Chemical
Analysis at the University of Florence. When he got there he found that others had done the same.
The lab, led by respected scientist Prof Giovanni Canneri, subjected the material to spectrographic analysis and
concluded that it contained the elements boron, silicon, calcium and magnesium, and that it was not radioactive.
Unfortunately this did not provide any conclusive answers - and the material was destroyed in the process.
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/78483000/jpg/_78483766_d226969f-e42f-4a76-8a92-dac3facc1516.jpg
A sample of the mysterious "angel hair" A sample of the mysterious "angel hair" was photographed for the
newspapers Could it have come from a UFO? "It's an absolutely silly idea. Science totally rejects this idea,
" says US Air Force pilot-turned-astronomer James McGaha. From the Grasslands Observatory in South
Eastern Arizona he has spent more than 40,000 hours staring at the night sky. Not to mention the additional
hours he's spent in the cockpit of US fighter jets.
"You know the whole UFO phenomenon is nothing but myth, magic and superstition, wrapped up in this idea
that somehow aliens are coming here either to save us or destroy us," he says.
In McGaha's view, the whole spectacle, "angel hair" and all, was nothing more than migrating spiders.
"When I looked at this case originally I thought perhaps it was a fireball, a very bright meteor breaking up in
the atmosphere. They can be cigar-shaped with pieces breaking off. But it became fairly apparent that this
was actually caused by young spiders spinning webs, very, very thin webs.
"The spiders use these webs as sails and they link together and you get a big glob of this stuff in the sky and
the spiders ride on this to move between locations. They just fly on the wind and these things have been
recorded at 14,000 feet above the ground. So, when the sunlight glistens off this, you get all kinds of visual effects.
Short vid on migrating spider webs on link...http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29342407
"As some of this stuff breaks off and falls to the ground, this all seems magical of course," says McGaha.
"But I'm fairly confident that's what happened that day."
This theory is backed up by the fact that September and October are the months when spiders in the northern
hemisphere migrate - and spectacular spider migrations still make headlines today. But it hasn't convinced everyone.
"Of course I know about the migrating spiders hypothesis - it's pure nonsense. It's an old story and also a stupid
story," says Pinotti.
He disputes the spider theory because of the chemical analysis of the "angel hair" samples. Spider silk is a
protein - an organic compound containing nitrogen, calcium, hydrogen and oxygen - not the elements
reportedly found in the samples Batini and others brought to the university.
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/78473000/jpg/_78473136_624fiorentina.jpg
The witnesses reunite at Stadio Artemi Franchi: Ardico Magnini, Gigi Boni, Ronaldo Lomi and Romolo Tuci Players
Ardico Magnini, Ronaldo Lomi and Romolo Tuci with their fan Gigi Boni (second left), at the ground
Sixty years on, the chances of determining the cause of the incident are slim. "I wouldn't trust any reports of an
old and strange event like this unless I'd seen the data," says science writer Philip Ball. He agrees that the
elements said to have been observed in the "angel hair" don't seem to tally with the spider theory.
"Magnesium and calcium are fairly common elements in living bodies, boron and silicon much less so - but if these
were the main elements that the white fluff contained, it doesn't sound to me as though they'd come from spiders," he says.
So it all remains a mystery. No matter what the scientists say, those who were there are convinced that what
they saw was unlike anything on earth.
Romolo Tuci just feels lucky to have been there. His eyes dance excitedly as he remembers that curious day.
"I was spell-bound and I was also so, so happy."
Video of spiders ballooning courtesy of Rob Ferber, Little Grove Farm
Additional research by Vibeke Venema
Listen again to the Mystery of the Fiorentina UFOs as featured on World Football on BBC World Service.
Subscribe to the BBC News Magazine's email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29342407
=======================================================
YJPrZWsz5TM
======================================================
UFO Files of the Italian Air Force
7MTRqq8w008
Published on 16 Dec 2013
Dr. Roberto Pinotti.
For more information, visit http://www.SiriusDisclosure.com.
October 2014 Last updated at 01:31
The day UFOs stopped playBy Richard Padula
BBC World Service Sport
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/78487000/jpg/_78487981_1954_2420x624.jpg
The Stadio Artemi Franchi in 1954, the year the UFOs were sighted
Sixty years ago a football match ground to a halt when unidentified flying objects were
spotted above a stadium in Florence. Did aliens come to earth? If not, what were they?
It was 27 October 1954, a typically crisp autumn day in Tuscany. The mighty Fiorentina
club was playing against its local rival Pistoiese.
Ten-thousand fans were watching in the concrete bowl of the Stadio Artemi Franchi. But
just after half-time the stadium fell eerily silent - then a roar went up from the crowd. The
spectators were no longer watching the match, but were looking up at the sky, fingers
pointing. The players stopped playing, the ball rolled to a stand-still.
One of the footballers on the pitch was Ardico Magnini - he was something of a legend
at the club and had played for Italy at the 1954 World Cup.
"I remember everything from A to Z," he says. "It was something that looked like an egg
that was moving slowly, slowly, slowly. Everyone was looking up and also there was some
glitter coming down from the sky, silver glitter.
"We were astonished we had never seen anything like it before. We were absolutely shocked."
Players pointing up at the sky
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/78473000/jpg/_78473140_f1d9ad74-9f15-47da-b9be-3e9d966a2ab7.jpg
Play was suspended because spectators saw something in the sky, according to the
referee's match report.
Among the crowd was Gigi Boni, a lifelong Fiorentina fan. "I remember clearly seeing this
incredible sight," he says. His description of multiple objects differs slightly from Magnini's.
"They were moving very fast and then they just stopped. It all lasted a couple of minutes.
I would like to describe them as being like Cuban cigars. They just reminded me of Cuban
cigars, in the way they looked."
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/78483000/jpg/_78483759_lanazionenewspapersharpx304.jpg
La Nazione had a photo of the UFO over Florence La Nazione's headline reads: Glass fibres
fall on Tuscan cities after globes and flying saucers pass by. Lower headline: The sighting
over Florence (with a photograph, now lost, of the UFO).
Boni has spent many years reliving that day in his mind. "I think they were extra-terrestrial.
That's what I believe, and there's no other explanation I can give myself."
Another of the players, Romolo Tuci, still sprightly in his 70s, agrees. "In those years everybody
was talking about aliens, everybody was talking UFOs and we had the experience, we saw them,
we saw them directly, for real."
The incident at the stadium cannot simply be interpreted as mass hysteria - there were numerous
UFO sightings in many towns across Tuscany that day and over the days that followed. According
to some eyewitness accounts a ray of white light was seen in the sky coming from Prato,
north of Florence.
Another man who relishes the chance to speak about that day is Roberto Pinotti, the president of
Italy's National UFO Centre. He has written many books about UFOs and his home in the centre of
Florence is stuffed full of alien memorabilia, posters of old Italian B-movies, framed newspaper
articles and black-and-white photographs of blurry flying saucers.
"The players and the public were stunned seeing these objects above the stadium," Pinotti says.
"At the time the newspapers spoke of aliens from Mars. Of course now we know that is not so - but
we may conclude that it was an intelligent phenomenon, a technological phenomenon and a
phenomenon that cannot be linked with anything we know on Earth."
He's also intrigued by the material that fell from the sky - what Magnini describes as silver glitter.
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/78473000/jpg/_78473137_fd9647c3-cfbd-44a3-8fea-d936b2b6c640.jpg
Illustration showing flying saucers over Florence "A wave of flying saucers over Italy," reported
the Domenica del Corriere three years later. With thanks to the Fondazione Corriere della Sera for
the use of material from their historic archives.
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/78478000/jpg/_78478350_ae64243b-fcba-41ad-bb51-bf39f13285b0.jpg
Artist's impression of UFOs over stadium A sketch of UFOs over the stadium by Silvio Neri
"It is a fact that at the same time the UFOs were seen over Florence there was a strange, sticky
substance falling from above. In English we call this 'angel hair'," says Pinotti.
"The only problem is after a short period of time it disintegrates." As a 10-year-old-boy he witnessed
this phenomenon himself. "I remember, in broad daylight, seeing the roofs of the houses in Florence
covered in this white substance for one hour and, like snow, it just evaporated.
"No-one knows what this strange substance has to do with UFOs."
"Angel hair" - the fluff that fell from the sky
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/78461000/jpg/_78461006_angels-hair-darker464.jpg
Variously described by witnesses as similar to cotton wool or cobwebs, the substance was hard to collect
because it disintegrated on contact - but some people were determined to find out what it was.
One of them was a journalist at the Florentine newspaper La Nazione, the late Giorgio Batini. In 2003 he
told an Italian television programme, Voyager, how on that day he received hundreds of phone calls about
the sightings. From the offices of La Nazione in the centre of town his own view of the sky was blocked by
the Cathedral, so he went up to the top of the newspaper's building to see what everyone was talking about.
The 81-year-old recalled seeing "shiny balls" moving fast towards the dome of the Cathedral.
Continue reading the main story
Find out more
The players and fans from that legendary game spoke to World Football on BBC World Service.
Listen via the iPlayer
Batini ventured out to investigate. He came across a wood outside the city that was covered in the white fluff.
He gathered several samples by rolling them up on a matchstick, and took them to the Institute of Chemical
Analysis at the University of Florence. When he got there he found that others had done the same.
The lab, led by respected scientist Prof Giovanni Canneri, subjected the material to spectrographic analysis and
concluded that it contained the elements boron, silicon, calcium and magnesium, and that it was not radioactive.
Unfortunately this did not provide any conclusive answers - and the material was destroyed in the process.
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/78483000/jpg/_78483766_d226969f-e42f-4a76-8a92-dac3facc1516.jpg
A sample of the mysterious "angel hair" A sample of the mysterious "angel hair" was photographed for the
newspapers Could it have come from a UFO? "It's an absolutely silly idea. Science totally rejects this idea,
" says US Air Force pilot-turned-astronomer James McGaha. From the Grasslands Observatory in South
Eastern Arizona he has spent more than 40,000 hours staring at the night sky. Not to mention the additional
hours he's spent in the cockpit of US fighter jets.
"You know the whole UFO phenomenon is nothing but myth, magic and superstition, wrapped up in this idea
that somehow aliens are coming here either to save us or destroy us," he says.
In McGaha's view, the whole spectacle, "angel hair" and all, was nothing more than migrating spiders.
"When I looked at this case originally I thought perhaps it was a fireball, a very bright meteor breaking up in
the atmosphere. They can be cigar-shaped with pieces breaking off. But it became fairly apparent that this
was actually caused by young spiders spinning webs, very, very thin webs.
"The spiders use these webs as sails and they link together and you get a big glob of this stuff in the sky and
the spiders ride on this to move between locations. They just fly on the wind and these things have been
recorded at 14,000 feet above the ground. So, when the sunlight glistens off this, you get all kinds of visual effects.
Short vid on migrating spider webs on link...http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29342407
"As some of this stuff breaks off and falls to the ground, this all seems magical of course," says McGaha.
"But I'm fairly confident that's what happened that day."
This theory is backed up by the fact that September and October are the months when spiders in the northern
hemisphere migrate - and spectacular spider migrations still make headlines today. But it hasn't convinced everyone.
"Of course I know about the migrating spiders hypothesis - it's pure nonsense. It's an old story and also a stupid
story," says Pinotti.
He disputes the spider theory because of the chemical analysis of the "angel hair" samples. Spider silk is a
protein - an organic compound containing nitrogen, calcium, hydrogen and oxygen - not the elements
reportedly found in the samples Batini and others brought to the university.
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/78473000/jpg/_78473136_624fiorentina.jpg
The witnesses reunite at Stadio Artemi Franchi: Ardico Magnini, Gigi Boni, Ronaldo Lomi and Romolo Tuci Players
Ardico Magnini, Ronaldo Lomi and Romolo Tuci with their fan Gigi Boni (second left), at the ground
Sixty years on, the chances of determining the cause of the incident are slim. "I wouldn't trust any reports of an
old and strange event like this unless I'd seen the data," says science writer Philip Ball. He agrees that the
elements said to have been observed in the "angel hair" don't seem to tally with the spider theory.
"Magnesium and calcium are fairly common elements in living bodies, boron and silicon much less so - but if these
were the main elements that the white fluff contained, it doesn't sound to me as though they'd come from spiders," he says.
So it all remains a mystery. No matter what the scientists say, those who were there are convinced that what
they saw was unlike anything on earth.
Romolo Tuci just feels lucky to have been there. His eyes dance excitedly as he remembers that curious day.
"I was spell-bound and I was also so, so happy."
Video of spiders ballooning courtesy of Rob Ferber, Little Grove Farm
Additional research by Vibeke Venema
Listen again to the Mystery of the Fiorentina UFOs as featured on World Football on BBC World Service.
Subscribe to the BBC News Magazine's email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29342407
=======================================================
YJPrZWsz5TM
======================================================
UFO Files of the Italian Air Force
7MTRqq8w008
Published on 16 Dec 2013
Dr. Roberto Pinotti.
For more information, visit http://www.SiriusDisclosure.com.