Date:
November 1, 1954
Location: Cennina, Italy
Rosa
Lotti was walking into Cennina, when she perceived a big
vertical spindle, "like 2 cones joined at their bases."
From behind this craft emerged two little men, 3 ft tall,
who approached her with friendly expressions, the older
one laughing. They were speaking a language that sounded
like Chinese, 'liu, lai, loi." Approaching Lotti,
they snatched from her the carnations and one of her stockings.
Lotti ran away. A deep hole in the ground was later found
at the site.
Artist Walter Molino's impression of the incident, from
the cover of the
Nov. 14, 1954 issue of "La Domenica del Corriere,"
an illustrated
Sunday supplement to the Italian newspaper "Corriere
della Sera."
Source:
Sergio Conti, excerpt from FSR (Sept/Oct 1972)
[Excerpt
from the article]
THE
CENNINA LANDING OF 1954
Sergio
Conti
NOVEMBER
1, 1954, is a date that marks the occurrence of one of
the most extraordinary UFO landing and contact cases ever
recorded (it has already been quoted by Vallee as No.
24 in his Century of Landings).
Cennina
is a small town near Biicine, in the Province of Arezzo.
On
the morning of that day (a Monday and a feast-day in the
Catholic Church), Rosa Lotti nei Dainelli, a forty-year-old
peasant woman mother of four children, living at a farm
called "La Collina" which is situated in a lonely
region between Cennina and Capannolc, had risen early
to go down into Cennina to visit the church and the cemetery.
She was carrying a bunch of carnations, destined for the
altar of the Madonna Pellegrina, whose procession had
taken place the preceding evening.
It
was 6.30 a.m.
Rosa
Lotti rarely went into town, and spent most of her time
on her arduous duties on the farm.
On
this feast-day morning, however, she had put on her new
dress and started out along the footpath that leads, through
fields and thickets, towards the town. She went barefoot,
carrying her stockings and her "best" shoes
so as not to get them dirty. She would put them on before
she came to the first houses.
She
reached a point on this path, regularly taken by her,
where it passed through a thicket of low bushes. She knew
this path perfectly. She had even gone along it many a
time at night, without ever having any sort of unpleasant
encounter or noting anything unusual.
Arriving
in the middle of a small clearing among the shrubs and
sparse trees, she suddenly beheld, near a pine tree and
on the edge of the little grassy area, a strange and unwonted
object that at once aroused in her both curiosity and
surprise. It was a sort of huge spindle, fixed vertically
in the ground.
The
Craft and the "Little Men"
This
is how Rosa Lotti subsequently described the strange machine:
"A
sort of double cone, over 2 metres high and about a metre
wide in the middle." (In La Nazione Italiana,
November 2, 1954.)
"Like
two bells joined together at their bases." (In
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."
(In Il Giornale del Mattino, November 2, 1954,)
"The
outside of it shone as though it was of very polished
light metal. On the lower cone there was an open glass
door, and inside it could be seen two little seats, little
scats like those used by children. In the central part
of the spindle, where it was widest, there was a sort
of roundish glass, closely following the round shape of
the mysterious machine. Rosa Lotti had heard no sound
from it." (In La Nazione Italiana, November 2,
1954.)
Rosa
Lotti had stopped in her tracks, astonished and curious.
But her surprise was only just beginning. From behind
the "spindle," she beheld two strange
beings emerge. "Almost like men, but of the size
of children," was her description.
The
two little beings approached her with friendly expressions
on their faces. She had plenty of time to make a thorough
examination of them, so that she was afterwards able to
describe them in the minutest details. About 1 metre in
height, they were wearing a sort of grey overall, all
in one piece, including the feet. On their backs they
had short cloaks of a grey material, and over the one-piece
overall they wore a sort of doublet, fastened, right up
to the collar, with little buttons "like shining
stars." Their trousers were tightly-fitting,
"like the long underpants that our men wear in
the winter."
Their
faces, crowned by helmets, were normal, but small. Both
were no taller than a five-year-old infant, but their
bodies were in proportion. "It would have taken
two of those things to make a man," she said,
"but they were very fine looking, even though
rather old."
Vigorous,
lively, they were talking away "as though they
were Chinese. They kept saying: 'liu,' lai,' 'loi,' 'lau,'
'loi,' 'lai,' 'liu,' " 3
They
gesticulated, but with no trace of menace. Indeed, on
the contrary, in a friendly fashion, as though they were
trying to make themselves understood and to strike up
a rudimentary conversation.
The
older looking of the two was the more jovial, laughing
and obviously trying to establish contact with her. They
had magnificent eyes, full of intelligence. Their noses
were of normal shape, their mouths just like a man's,
but their upper lips were slightly curled in the centre,
so that even when they were not laughing their teeth were
still exposed. They were teeth like ours, broad, strong
teeth, but short (as though they had been filed down)
and somewhat protruding, like the teeth of rabbits.
Their
ears were hidden under two leather discs, and there was
a band around their foreheads, also of leather.
Approaching
Rosa Lotti, who was now terrified, they snatched out of
her hands the bunch of carnations and one of her black
stockings. When she remonstrated timidly, the one who
seemed the older of the two handed some of the flowers
back to her, but kept five of them. Then, having examined
the structure of the flowers with an air of curiosily,
and laughing the while, he wrapped them in the stocking
and threw them into the "spindle" through the
small opening.
Then
they stepped back a few paces from her, and look two "packages"
from inside the machine white objects, circular,
which they carried in the hollow of the arm, holding the
arm bent with the hand on the chest. The thing seemed
to be wrapped in a newspaper, but it was not a newspaper.
(La Nazione Sera, November 2, 1954.)
Then
they turned towards the lady again, but she had seized
the moment to escape. After running about 100 metres,
she looked back. Everything had vanished.
The
Carabinieri who went there in an effort to investigate
the affair [found] that there was indeed a deep cavity
recently made in the ground... The hole was also seen
by the Chief Inspector of Carabinieri at Ambra, Signor
Zulimo Botarelli, who happened to be out hunting in the
vicinity at the time.
The
Latest Investigation
Now,
eighteen years after the event, we have re-examined the
Cennina case and, thanks to the active support that we
have received from the Prato UFO Study Group, we have
been able to check the details and also gather valuable
pieces of supporting testimony.
Support
from Collateral Eyewitness Accounts
A
vast network of collateral eyewitness accounts is now
available to provide quite particular validity for the
Cennina phenomenon, and to cause it to acquire a value,
as an eyewitness account, that is well nigh irrefutable.
Notes
and Comments by Gordon Creighton
1.
The Italian press reports cited by Signor Sergio Conti
are as follows:
La
Nazione Indiana, November 2 and 5, 1954.
La Nazione Sera, November 2, 1954.
Il Giorno del Mattino, November 2, 3, and 5, 1954.
Il Giorno del Mattino, March 2, 1955.
La Settimana Incom, June 17, 1962 (No. 24, Year 15).
The
work of two Italian UFO investigation groups has gone
into the compilation of this report. These are (1) MUF
(UFO Section), or, to give them their full title in English,
the UFO Section of the Florentine Humanistic Cultural
Movement, in whose files the Cennina Case is listed as
No. 92, and (2) the Prato UFO Study Group (Centro di Ricerca
Per Lo Studio Sui Fenomeni UFO di Prato), whose energetic
young members have just conducted a fresh investigation
of the case and have unearthed much valuable corroborative
material for example, the story of the two boys
who were out attending to their pigs on the morning of
November 1, 1954, and are alleged to have actually seen
Signora Rosa Lotti being chatted up by her homuncules.
3.
Rosa Lotti's comparison is good. These are all very typical
sounds in Chinese.
4.
The Carabinieri are the Italian Gendarmerie.
Source:
http://www.ufoevidence.org/cases/case703.htm