Florence, 27 October 1954 — the day UFOs stopped play

OVERVIEW

On Wednesday 27 October 1954 unidentified white objects were reported in the sky over Florence, chiefly in two places: the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore and the Stadio Comunale (today the Stadio Artemio Franchi). Witnesses described them as shaped like 'seagull wings' or 'a Chinese mandarin's hat'.

HISTORY

The first sighting came at about 14:20 over the Duomo, where the objects were visible for some fifteen minutes. At 15:27, in the second half of a friendly between ACF Fiorentina and Pistoiese, spectators turned from the pitch to watch two flying objects pass at high altitude; the referee stopped the match so the players could watch too, and play resumed when they vanished a few minutes later. Witnesses put their course north-west to south-east, from the Cascine toward Rovezzano. For about half an hour afterwards filaments of a whitish, sticky material fell 'like snow' — the press called it 'bambagia silicea' ('angel hair'). Witnesses included Giorgio Batini, chief reporter of La Nazione, and the players Ardico Magnini, Romolo Tuci and Ronaldo Lomi.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

A CICAP investigation found that during that week (21–27 October) US Navy Fighter Squadron VF-84, from the carrier USS Lake Champlain then at Livorno, was exercising over Tuscany and using chaff — clouds of radar-reflective strips — which would have glinted in the sky and been taken for flying objects. The 'angel hair' was first put down to ballooning spiders, whose migration season it was; later studies attributed it to the chaff too, whose composition matched samples collected in 1954 and which, like the Florence threads and unlike cobweb, crumbled on contact. The BBC World Service retold it in 2013 and 2014 as 'The day UFOs stopped play'. It belongs to the autumn 1954 wave of sightings in Italy and France.

VISITING

The stadium is in the Campo di Marte quarter; the first sighting was over the cathedral.