Martina Franca, Italy being encounter — November 1973

Two youths, aged sixteen and seventeen, reportedly went to police after an unusual experience near the railway station at Martina Franca, Italy. David Webb’s 1976 survey places the incident on November 20, 1973, in the afternoon, and cites Gordon Creighton’s Flying Saucer Review coverage. Hatch preserves only November, which should not be mistaken for independent confirmation of the more precise day. The youths said a ball of fire came down near the station. When its glow went out, they saw a roughly human but globular form with two eyes in a white face and small red and yellow lights on its head. They hid behind a wall, said the form followed them, threw stones and ran to the police station. The summary supplies no identifiable speech, contact, photograph or secured physical trace. A separate Martina Franca story from October 10–11 involved a tall robotlike figure and was later attributed by local investigators to a prank. Its confession cannot automatically be transferred to the November station report. Nor does a descending fireball securely establish a separate mechanical craft. The illustration labels the earlier luminous-ball and later rounded-figure phases as a composite, with two representative teenagers. It avoids turning the form into a conventional grey or inventing a detailed spacecraft.