Tortoreto, ITL being encounter — August 1978

Near Tortoreto at the end of August 1978, four young women from Sant’Egidio were reportedly driving home around one in the morning. The two in front noticed a brilliant white sphere descend toward a hill beside an abandoned house. They woke the two passengers in the back, stopped the car, and got out to watch the phenomenon. The account attributed to Moreno Tambellini places three figures near the sphere. They were about normal human height, wore white astronaut-like suits and white helmets, and moved in small steps with their arms slightly away from their bodies. They appeared interested in the ground and acted separately. The observation allegedly lasted nearly an hour. The object then departed, apparently leaving the figures behind. Another version describes revolving white, red and green illumination and a bright departure flash. An important transmission difference concerns the figures’ location: the Tambellini account puts them outside, while Rosales’s ITACAT-derived summary puts them inside the globe. Patrick Gross’s source comparison notes that the original witness report is unavailable and the first certain publication located was much later. The reconstruction explicitly follows the exterior-figure version. Neither that editorial choice nor the reported white suits establishes who the figures were or whether the encounter occurred as described.