Navelli unidentified light report — December 12, 1978

Alfonso Marinelli reportedly encountered two unusual figures while driving a new Mercedes near Navelli in Italy’s Abruzzo region in December 1978. The imported catalogue uses December 12, while Moreno Tambellini’s version gives December 7 and a CUN listing reproduced by Patrick Gross uses December 11. The illustration therefore retains the month rather than choosing one conflicted day. At approximately 11:45 p.m., Marinelli said his engine unexpectedly failed. Two approaching lights gradually resolved, at a distance of ten to fifteen metres, into short humanlike forms. They wore luminous silver astronaut-style suits and large oval helmets with dark front visors. Straps crossed their upper bodies around bright round lights on their chests. The fuller descriptions estimate their stature at about eighty to ninety centimetres; this should not be confused with the height at which they reportedly floated. The figures moved upright above the ground, passed near or over the car, and returned in the direction from which they had come. Marinelli reported no engine or propeller sound and eventually resumed driving, shaken. No separate craft is described in the fuller account, despite the incident’s inclusion in UFO catalogues. The plate shows the driver and the two suited airborne figures, preserving their specific helmets and chest lights without adding a saucer or invented faces.