Near Modena, ITL being encounter — November 30, 1952

Harold T. Wilkins’s Flying Saucers on the Attack attributes this near-Modena story to farmer Nello Ferrari, aged forty-one, describing a statement allegedly made to police. Wilkins assigns 30 November 1952 at 10 a.m.; Italian catalogue research places the closely corresponding Castelfranco Emilia account on 16 November around 9:30. The imported “Missouri” region is a geographic coding error for this Italian record. In Wilkins’s rendering, Ferrari saw a gold-and-copper disc surrounded by reddish mist, estimated at roughly 130 feet across and thirty-five feet overhead. Its upper section separated from the lower one, revealing three human-shaped figures with partly masked faces. A cylinder projected from the opening. The figures spoke words he could not understand, withdrew, and the upper section closed like a clam. The disc rose quickly with a fluttering sound. Italian comparisons describe ordinary-sized people in rubberlike suits and transparent eye masks, rather than establishing the import’s small-Grey classification. They also give different dimensions and mechanical details. Renzo Cabassi’s later inquiry occurred after the witness had died, leaving a press-based account with unresolved particulars. The distinct dates and versions should remain visible; none supplies authenticated photographs, recovered machinery or a verified extraterrestrial identity.