On April 24, 1950, at a place called Abbiate Guaz-zone (Varese region — 45D 49 N., 8° 50 E.), which lies slightly to the east of Lake Maggiore in Northern Italy, the 42-year-old worker Bruno Facchini was the protagonist of a truly mind-boggling experience which, at the time, received widespread treatment both in the Italian regular press and in the "Rivista Aeronautica " (Aeronautical Review).
Facchini, a capable and highly esteemed worker, employed at the time in a local firm, was living in a little house on the outskirts of the village. He had stepped outside from the house [and noticed a flash.] [When he went to investigate], he perceived an enormous black shadow, almost round, "like a ball flattened from above". In the middle of it there was a small ladder, from the top of which was coming a faint greenish light, and he was now able to see at close hand the source of the flashing. An individual wearing a "diver's suit" and a mask, on top of a sort of pneumatic lift, seemed to be welding something. The hull of the craft, lit by the glow from the welding, gave off metallic reflections. Two other individuals, about 1 m 70 in height, also in "divers' suits", were moving very slowly around the craft, as though hampered by the suits they were wearing. Over their faces they wore masks of the same dark colour as the "divers' suits", terminating at the level of the mouth in a tube with a little opening at the end.
Facchini's first thought was that it was a military aircraft in difficulty (the military airfields of Vergiate and Venegono were only a few kilometres distant), and he went up and asked if he could be of any help. The response was some incomprehensible guttural sounds. Meanwhile, in the interior of the object, he had caught sight of a second ladder, and all around on the walls, tubes, cylinders, and gauges. At the same time, he noticed a noise "like the sound of a gigantic beehive".
At that point it was that Bruno Facchini grasped that he was in the presence of no aeroplane. Seized with panic, he took to his heels.
Turning back as he ran, he saw one of the crew point at him a sort of "photographic apparatus" that he was wearing round his neck, and shoot a beam of light at him. He felt immediately as though he had been struck by a powerful jet of compressed air and it sent him rolling on the ground. Bruised and aching, but perfectly conscious, Facchini then saw the lift descend, bringing down with it the individual with the welding equipment, and then reduce in size until it (the lift) was a sort of small box. Then the crew put it into the craft. The ladder was now drawn in and the door closed. Then the hum that Facchini had heard right at the start became louder and, a few instants later, the craft rose and vanished at a fantastic speed into the darkness of the night.
Next day, Facchini reported the matter to the Police Station in Varese, and the Authorities started their investigations at the spot. On the ground, which was quite hard, were visible four round impressions about one metre in diameter and distant about six metres from each other and set in a square. The grass was scorched or withered, and some small fragments of metal were found at the site; probably the remains from the welding. They were of a shiny metal with a granulous surface which, when analyzed, was defined as "an anti-friction metal", very resistant to heat.
With a view to completing the investigative picture, the journalist Renato Vesco subsequently had an analysis made of a few metal fragments from a piece that Facchini had kept.
[The conclusion was that the fragments] are... of a "lead bronze", with a high content of tin. -Ezio Bernardini - C.U.N., Italian National Ufological Centre
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LOCAL MEDIA REPORT
The most important ufology case in the Varese area happened on April 24. 1950 at Abbiate Guazzone, neighborhood Tradate. Bruno Facchini, mechanical worker, aged 40, married, father of two sons, claimed to have had an encounter with humanoid beings, attempting the repair of a flying disc. The case quickly became famous, in our region as well as in the whole of Italy. In the September 1973 issue of "Giornale dei Misteri" ("Mysteries Journal"), Sergio Conti, a ufology fan, cleared some aspects of this event, criticizing the exaggerations due to the clamor of the press of that time. Conti met Facchini at his home, in Bainsizza street, Abbiate Guazzone. The man had moved to this new home, but at the time he lived in front of the shack where the event occurred. Here the reconstruction that could be done.
That April 24, 1950, there was a violent storm in the area. At about 10:00 P.M. Facchini opened the door of his colonial house in order to go to the toilets located outside of the house in a shack. It was a rural area then, slightly distant from the center of the small village. There was a violent flash. He thought that the thunderstorm had damaged the power lines. He approached cautiously the light source, thinking that a possible fallen power cable may be a danger for his still young sons. He advanced in a path that limited the grounds of a nearby furnace. After some meter he saw a figure, bent on a platform, who held some sort of tool in the hand. With this, he seemed to be repairing a small disc-shaped craft. Close to this figure he saw other figures moving, wearing heavy coveralls. He approached them, asking him if they needed help. The figure doing the repair seemed to be dressed like a diver; from the top of a helmet to the mouth, he had a thirty centimeters tube. The beings emitted guttural sounds and seemed to make gestures inviting him to come ahead. Facchini, frightened, did this, but he hardly had the time to see the "humanoid" point some sort of camera at him, from which light beam was emitted that hit Facchini on the back, and made him fall to the ground. He struck his head against a stone on the ground. It bled, but he remained conscious. He was sufficiently conscious to see a ladder that retired in the disc, and to see the disc take off towards the sky with a buzzing sound.
The case created a huge fuss. Facchini became famous but this brought him a lot of troubles in return. In a country where peasant and workers are used to talk as much as they breathe, to claim that he saw humanoids could not bring him great fortune. All in all the mechanic became "the disc guy" and after some year, to calm down the passion around the story and him, he stopped speaking about it. Bruno Facchini died eighteen years ago. And his sons by now have nearly forgotten. The wife of one of his sons explained: "No, my husband's not here, he is at work. Yes, I remember that story, but it is damn old."
The story of Facchini sums up a lot to the ideas of the directors of the first American science fiction movies. But if we want to give credit to the mystery, these aspects can help us: Facchini recovered metal pieces on the ground at the location of the encounter. He handed them all at the Istituto di Ricerche per lo Studio dei Metalli (The research institute for the studies of metals) in Novara, but he never received the full response on the nature of the material. He was only told that it was some antifriction material. - Varese News - Italy
NOTE: Jacques Vallée's Magonia database listing of this incident can be found at Abbiate Guazzone, Italy, April 24, 1950. Bruno Facchini suffered from lifelong hot flashes after encounter...Lon
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