What happens if to sight a UFO is a Pilot? Which Credibilities do have his words?
“It was like a Cilindrical Tank at least eight meters. Perhaps between five hundred years someone will say us Why and How it made to remain stops there, suspended in sky, to thirteen thousand feet height”.
Italian Air Force Marshal Pilot, Giancarlo Cecconi

The majority of the Ufologics sights are based on the reports of direct witnesses. However the reliability of the testimonies is often put in doubt from the possibility of errors or bad ones interpretations of known phenomena. An not skilled person that observe the sky can effectively be deceived from events and situations that simply do not know and that they can assume the connotations of mysteries.
But what to say about the testimonies of PILOTS (Civilian and Military) people who every day for job move in skies on board in military jets, civil airplane, helicopters…? The training of these people is very very rigorous (and I personally know some Military Pilots). Besides having to be endowed an excellent physical stationed a pilot must develop also to a remarkable spirit of mental concentration and observation and must know to recognize all this that flies to high altitude for being able to face the “unexpected”. He cannot do without this skills. It concerne of his life and also of the life of his passengers. Sometimes happens that also the pilots see something strange in the skies and, due the elevated professionality that this category characterizes, is logical to understand because the ufologists consider those of the pilots of the very precious testimonies.
However, often, the witness (pilot) is reticent to speak because she is afraid of the ridicule or because she covers a detail professional position: he talk with the enquirer on condition that his name and address or the inside informations eventually received are not disclosed, using them only for study and search.

One of the cases that I want to subject to your attention is the “Cecconi Case” an Italian UFO Cover-Up. And this is only one of thousands…

“It was like a Cilindrical Tank at least eight meters. Perhaps between five hundred years someone will say us Why and How it made to remain stops there, suspended in sky, to thirteen thousand height feet”.

Italian Air Force Marshal Pilot, Giancarlo Cecconi

The 18 June of 1979 Marshal Giancarlo Cecconi were flying over the airport of Sant'Angelo of Treviso on board of G 91 R airplane, when the Central Radar Control of Istrana (Treviso, in North-Eastern Italy) order him to intercept a strange object that hovering right over the Airport. The marshal executed the order and due that his aircraft was equipped whit a camera he began to release a photo series. At that very moment the Control Tower informed him to approach himself with secures to the object because from the ground this “OBJECT” seemed to emit a brightness blueish. The air traffic controllers, right in those moments, observed the object with their binoculars. Cecconi in reality did not notice this last detail but he continued to release photographies (84 photos!) until that after a last maneuver the object disappeared suddenly from the radar and the sight of the pilot. By the control tower Cecconi marshal was informed that the object had been suddenly vanished heading towards the high.

The Cilindrical UFO above the Airport.




Digital reconstruction


In all, the sight had lasted “five minutes” during which the marshal had the impression that the UFO moved constantly in vertical sense aiming his airplane. This denoted an “intelligent behavior”. The shape of the object was that of a “large fuel clilindrical tank”. Its length was five to eight meters and high, approximately, three meters. According to the pilot the object it had a dome on the top like a small white dome.
The interception of the UFO from the Cecconi carried out almost four thousand meters of height. To the age someone pointed out that it could be be a matter of a UFO-Solar, that is a ball plastic toy very fashionable in those years that, heated and filled up of air, were able to incidentally to reach a sure height (and right because of its characteristic that could put in danger the air traffic, the UFO-solar Toy was very soon removed by the commerce…).


However Cecconi asserted that the object seemed Solid and Rigid since it did not suffer in some way of the turbulences caused from the aircraft pursuer. Moreover the maneuver of escape carried out from the object ulteriorly excludes the hypothesis of the balloon since in order to disappear in those so short time the UFO it would have to travel like a minimum to 950 kilometers hour…!

The G-91R, as well as for missions of support to the ground forces, it was used for missions of tactical recognition, being equipped of four “Vinten cameras” (one frontal, two lateral ones left and right in the snout, one ventral) optimized for such scope.


Images from newspaper "Epoca"




What happened in18th June 1979 the, at 11,30 in a limpid day has indeed of the incredible one and it is set as one of first and more mysterious cases than Italian sights UFO from Military Pilots. To Giancarlo Cecconi, Marshal Pilot of the airport of Sant'Angelo, was ordered, officially from the radar control, to make an interception of a Unidentified Flying Object, right in the vicinities of the airport of Sant'Angelo. That day the pilot was with its G91R, equipped with a lot of cameras. But Giancarlo Cecconi is himself shrewed in a hurry that he was something different: it was a Rigid Object and moved aiming the airplane. From the control tower they said that it left a wake blue and the UFO was moving in vertical towards the high. While 84 photos were shooted, then gives to the Italian Defense Ministry and desappeared. In the 1984 the Defense Ministry closed the case saying that “it was be a matter of a plastic balloon”. This debatable behaviour, would not be justified the fear of the Italian Defense Ministry to diffuse the photos publicly…
The final statement of Italian MOD in 1995.

-No other informations or photos is available.
-No relationship of the Pilot or the Radars recorders or the Meteorological conditions of the day of the sight is available.
-The Defense Ministry is at least interested to start a study on the single phenomenon in consideration of the impact on the national security.

An Italian Cover-up!!


It would be interesting if other ATSers inserts own subjects on this kind of issue: UFOs & Pilots!

Very interesting man, thanks for posting this, haven't heard of this before, I gave you a flag. The pictures are really what strikes me, seeing it, I just don't know what it is right off, but you know my skeptic mind is trying lol.

[edit on 11-1-2010 by Mr_skepticc]

That was a very nicely written piece which provided an interesting tale I hadn't heard of before, a possible sceptical solution and some good photographs.

If those 84 photographs could be analysed that would be very useful in determining what the object was. Also if any photographs or data from the ground exist they would help with the story.

S+F - Thanks!

-m0r

Star and Flag from me, very well presented and thanks for reminding us of the good cases that the Internet forgets about, this cilindrical objects were very active in the 70s, very interesting...

Cheers!!

Camilo

Finally, i see this very interesting case being presented as it deserves;
the explanation provided was totally inconsistent with Giancarlo Cecconi's account:
first, in order to stay (for a while) at the same exact altitude, it would need to be anchored to the ground; but since Cecconi reported to have flown even below the object, any possible row/rope anything can be ruled out.
According to Cecconi himself, the manoeuvre perfomed by him right after taking one of the close-up photos, was made so close to the object that if it was some plastic ballon then it would have melted instantly because of the heat; not to mention that the alleged ballon, despite seven/eight passages made in its immediate closeness by cecconi, kept being motionless, which is not exactly what you would expect by some hot air balloon; plus, the pilot noticed some kind of white dome on its top (no known versions of the solar balloon had this feature, and despite he could make seven or eight passages near the trying to photograph its longer side, he couldn't manage to, as if the object always did keep setting itself in frontal position relatively to the plane
Plus the size of the object; the pilot reported it was eight meters wide x three meters tall, while according to the official explanation, its lenght was supposed to be three meters: here facts were made up to match, the explanation, since they knews that three meters was approx the lenght of the widely spreaded solar balloon. When it has been pointed out multiple times that what can be seen was NOT any known model of solar balloon, a new story came out: basically they said that there was a competitor of the biggest manifacturer of Solar Balloons in Italy that was doing some tests with some prototypes: strangely enough, neither the alleged competitor nor his prototype have ever surfaced.
Plus; the military personel, from the ground, kept googling the object, and some reported that the object was leaving some "bluish trail".
Last but not least:

82 photos-
4 photos (3 of which are fishy)
= 78 photos: where are them?

My best quesses is this, its either a balloon of some sort, it could be some kind of debree that fell off his plane, or space debree (yes we had it in 1979) or just some sort of thing some guy in his garage made and tried it out, who knows, but if you expect me to believe theres little green men sitting in that thing flying around, not going to happen. I mean it doesn't look like it has any kind of purpolsion system, no wings, and who would design such an un-common and proven to be un-airobatic effency design. Maybe he didn't get that close to melt the balloon. Whatever it is, I would bet my home that its not aliens.

S&F of this!! I think I've heard about this from UFO Hunters, is my only guess, but I've never seen such a clear pic of UHO (Unidentiifed Hovering Object, heh my term I now use for this type of phenomona such as this)

Thx you for posting! It reaffirms my belief system!

Yep, total cover up IMO!

Ottimo lavoro ragazzi! bravi avete ripescato un caso molto interessante!
Star, flag e tricche e ballacche!

Very good job! This case is really interesting! S&F

[edit on 3-2-2010 by ImShrike]

Originally posted by Mr_skepticc
My best quesses is this, its either a balloon of some sort, it could be some kind of debree that fell off his plane, or space debree (yes we had it in 1979) or just some sort of thing some guy in his garage made and tried it out, who knows

And I'm sure there are plenty of objective reasons why you think this is so, right?

Here's a free clue regarding your suggestion that the object is a piece of debris which fell off the pilot's plane. Please explain how such a piece can be 8 meters in length and 3 meters high. Which piece would that be? Also do explain how this piece of debris, while falling off the plane, managed to stay up in the air long enough for him to take over 80 photographs.

You see, and I don't want to give the clue away, but your explanations have all the characteristics of the pseudo-skeptic.

You round it off by stating:

but if you expect me to believe theres little green men sitting in that thing flying around, not going to happen. I mean it doesn't look like it has any kind of purpolsion system, no wings, and who would design such an un-common and proven to be un-airobatic effency design. Maybe he didn't get that close to melt the balloon. Whatever it is, I would bet my home that its not aliens.

Great, another silly negativist who "knows" how advanced alien technology and craft would look.

Originally posted by Mr_skepticc
Whatever it is, I would bet my home that its not aliens.

A friendly advice: Don't BET YOUR HOME about this UFO Case.
You must hold to brake your pathological skepticism or you could be found to ramble like a new HOMELESS, depriving of hope.