The Alien. Italy

On June 24, 1947, airman Kenneth Arnold startled the world with his claim to have seen nine disc shaped objects travelling in line ahead, and at fantastic speed, through the skies over Mount Rainier. Arnold likened the objects, and their movements, to “saucers skimming over water”. The era of the flying saucer was upon us.

Seven weeks later, according to Italian artist R. L. Johannis, there took place what was probably the first post-Arnold “landing with entities” case in Europe. The story has been recorded in the May 1964 edition of Clypeus (organ of Centra Studi Clipeologici of Turin), and by Antonio Ribera in his book El Gran Enigma de los Platillos Volanies.

Signor Johannis was out painting near the Chiarso creek, at Villa Santina, close by Carnia (Friuli), on August 14, 1947. The time was about 9 a.m. Suddenly he noticed a 30 ft. disc-shaped object that had alighted some little distance from him. Next, Signor Johannis saw two child-sized beings standing alongside the object. The artist said that they were about 3 feet tall, and were wearing dark blue coveralls with a bright red collar and belt. They also wore spherical helmets on heads that seemed larger than normal, but their faces were not covered. Their faces had a greenish colour, their eyes were large and plum coloured with a vertical line (the pupil?) in the centre, and they had no eyelashes or eyebrows. Each had a straight and rather large nose. Their hands were claw-like, greenish in colour, and with eight fingers on each, four opposed to four in the same way that our thumbs are opposed to our fingers.

With his paint brushes still in his hand, the artist hailed the creatures. It is possible that this was interpreted as a hostile gesture, for one of the beings touched the centre of its belt and projected a thin vapour which caused the artist to fall dazed onto his back. The creatures then approached to within two yards of the prostrate artist and stood examining his easel. Although weak, the artist contrived to roll over, and saw the beings pick up the easel which had been knocked down; he perceived that it was taller than both of them. He also noticed that they were panting heavily. They then returned to the disc-shaped object and entered it, whereupon it rose from the ground, hovered and, according to the account, disappeared.

When the unfortunate artist had sufficiently recovered his strength to be able to stand, he saw that his easel had disappeared.

There has been some criticism that the artist saw rather a lot, particularly the colours, in a very short time. Surely, however, this is where artists have a great advantage over ordinary mortals: an artist’s eye is quicker than a camera, and I do not find it surprising that Signor Johannis’s brain could record such a mass of detail.

The description of the belts is interesting, and it calls to mind the belts of the entities in the Antonio Villas Boas case—see Gordon Creighton’s article. Also intriguing is the account of the gas or vapour, heralding as it does the incident of Cisco Grove which Mrs. Lorenzen describes elsewhere in this issue.

[We are indebted to Jacques Vallee and Donald HanIon for their translation (paraphrased) from Antonio Ribera’s version of the incident—-Editor.]

The Villa Santina is in Friuli, in the extreme northeastern province of Italy, north of Venice and bordering on Austria and Yugoslavia. It is a mountainous area. The witness was Professor R. L. Johannis, and he saw a classic flying disk, except that it was bright red, stuck in the side of a mountain, as well as one of the few known examples of “little green men.” They weren’t that little, being about the size of the San of the Kalahari, and they weren’t that green, being a kind of earthy green (Bowen, p. 188 ff.). Gordon Creighton presented this case.

Professor Johannis said he knew nothing about flying saucers, because the Italian press had not begun to mention them. This happened only a few months after the Kenneth Arnold sighting, and a few weeks after Roswell. These small earth green characters with bright colored clothing are clearly not the same species as the small grays of Roswell (see the book by Col. Corso).

The Johannis humanoids were less than 90 centimeters tall, wearing dark blue overalls with vivid red collars and belts and cuffs on the legs. Their heads were bigger than human, their skin was an earthy green, and they had 8 fingers without joints, with 4 opposing 4, so their precision grip was the same as their power grip. Their eyes had a vertical pupil, like terrestrial reptiles or cats.

They were very interested in the professor’s climbing stick since it had a glacier climbing ice axe and pick on one end. In fact, they temporarily paralyzed the Professor and took his walking stick. The two figures that had approached Johannis returned to their disk.

It shot straight out from the rock, with a shower of stones and earth and rose silently into the air.

“The disc suddenly grew smaller, and vanished. Immediately afterwards, I was struck by a tremendous blast of wind (the air shock?) that rolled me over and over…”

(Bowen, p. 193).

Did the craft really grow smaller, or was this an 2 optical illusion as it simply moved straight away from Professor Johannis at a tremendous speed?

Disguise, misdirection and disinformation are all ways of obeying the Prime Directive.