The article below was published in the daily newspaper Combat, Paris, France, page 10, on October 20, 1954.
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ROME, October 19. -- Flying discs continue their dance in the skies over the peninsula, and in Capri, one of these mysterious craft landed on the terrace of the villa of writer Curzio Malaparte.
A painter, Mr. Raffaele Castello, who was on a nighttime walk at Cape Massulo, saw a disc about five meters in diameter flying at an altitude of about one hundred meters. The craft slowly descended and landed on the terrace of the writer's villa.
Mr. Castello, who at first thought it was a helicopter, approached Curzio Malaparte's summer residence and was greatly surprised to see four small men get out of the disc. The passengers, dressed in suits, stayed around the disc for about half an hour.
I had the impression, said the witness of the landing, that they weren't speaking, or if they were, they were speaking very softly, because from where I was, I couldn't hear a sound. What is certain is that bluish flashes were constantly shooting out from the disc, like pins and as fast as lightning, going off in all directions.
After some time - about half an hour - the four men got back into the disc, which, with a slight humming sound, rose gently, vertically, and then rapidly gained altitude.
It disappeared in the direction of Sicily.
Another luminous disc was seen by residents of Salerno and Vietri Sul Mare, who described it as a ring of fire that circled above the civilians before moving off, leaving behind a luminous trail.
LIVORNO. -- "They're persecuting me... They're coming for me... I saw them land in a field... Saucers, big and small... Lights and smoke... The Martians... The Martians..." It was while shouting these fragments of sentences, expressing his deep agitation, that Mr. Bruno Senesi, 34, arrived at the Livorno hospital.
But when the nurse returned with the doctor on duty, Senesi had disappeared. He was found hiding under a bed, trembling violently, his expression leaving no doubt about the terror that gripped him, and he cried out to the doctor: "There they are... They're coming..." The staff reassured him with promises of protection from the Martians, and Senesi - the first Italian victim of the "flying saucer psychosis" - was admitted to the Livorno mental asylum.
Two residents of Saint-Cirgues (Haute-Loire) saw two luminous balls at very high altitude in the sky, which seemed to be connected by a rod. The craft remained stationary for about fifteen minutes before vanishing at very high speed.
Meanwhile, Mr. Jean Augard, a farmer in Sisternes-La Forêt (Puy-de-Dôme), and Jean Chanzotte, a former miner, reported seeing, in a field along the roadside, an egg-shaped craft topped with a shiny white dome. As the two men approached the "saucer," it rose vertically and disappeared, leaving behind a reddish trail.
A few days earlier, in nearby Gelles, several people had seen a similar craft, also resting in a field.
