The article below was published in the daily newspaper Le Télégramme de Brest et de l'Ouest, Brest, France, page 1, on September 20, 1954.
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Rome, 19. -- The following dispatch was wired from Rome:
A mysterious craft crossed the sky over Rome yesterday afternoon. It was observed for about 40 minutes by the observation station of the military command at Ciampino airfield. According to information provided by the airfield, it was a "device" shaped like a "half-cigar," flying at a slow speed at an altitude of about 1,200 meters. A trail of luminous smoke was emitted from its narrower end.
While tracking the maneuvers of the object, the Ciampino observation station noted that at one point, it dropped 400 meters before immediately regaining altitude, shifting from a horizontal to a vertical position. As the object moved toward the sea, the Ciampino airfield reported its presence to the military station at Pratica di Mare, about thirty kilometers from Rome, which managed to "capture" it on radar and track it for about twenty minutes. The radar reportedly detected the presence of an antenna in the center of the wider part of the "half-cigar." The presence of the object was first noticed at 4:45 p.m. (GMT) and it disappeared in a northwesterly direction at 6:28 p.m. (GMT).
Thus, this object would have been observed for nearly two hours by two military observation stations, which - according to the dispatch - were able to observe it with a precision never before achieved since the advent of flying saucers.
But a communiqué from the Air Ministry stated that no flying cigar was detected by the army's radar equipment, despite earlier claims.
