No one has ever come up with a satisfactory explanation for the day on which an awe-inspiring fleet of UFOs brought a massive Italian soccer match to a halt in 1954. Via the BBC, witnesses describe it as transcendent:
It’s October 1954. A game between Fiorentina and nearby rivals Pistoiese is under way at the Stadio Artemio Franchi. A crowd of around 10,000 has gathered to watch. Among them is Fiorentina fan Gigi Boni. Now in his eighties Boni still has vivid memories of watching in disbelief as UFOs hovered above the stadium.
“I remember clearly seeing this incredible sight. They were moving very fast and then they just stopped. It all lasted a couple of minutes. I would like to describe them as being like Cuban cigars, in the way they looked.” The stadium fell silent as the players and fans stood transfixed, staring at these strange objects in the crisp blue autumn sky.
So, was it aliens? Pistoiese players Romolo Tuci and Ronaldo Lomi have no doubt that it was. Tuci, still sprightly in his seventies, feels blessed to have witnessed such a strange event. “I was so curious and I was also so, so happy because in those years everybody was talking about aliens, everybody was talking UFOs and we had the experience, we saw them, we saw them directly, for real.”