Magenta 1933 — 'Mussolini's UFO' and the Gabinetto RS/33

OVERVIEW

The Magenta incident, known in Italian ufology as 'Mussolini's UFO' or 'the fascist UFO', is the centre of theories that on 13 June 1933 an unidentified flying object crashed in Lombardy, between Magenta and Vergiate. It became known only in the late 1990s, when Roberto Pinotti, president of the Centro Ufologico Nazionale (CUN), published documents he said he had received in 1996 from the anonymous 'heir' of a member of a secret 'Gabinetto RS/33'.

HISTORY

In the story, a greyish metal object about 15 m across — a cigar with a bell-shaped dome, 'like two flying saucers joined' — came down in the Magenta area; the secret police (OVRA) recovered the wreck, the press was told by a Stefani agency dispatch to call it a meteor, and two 'non-human' bodies — in one version identical blond, blue-eyed 'Nordic' men — were found. The wreck was hidden in the Siai-Marchetti hangars at Vergiate, and on 24 August 1933 Mussolini set up the 'Gabinetto RS/33' ('Special Research') under Guglielmo Marconi; after 1939 its studies were shared with Germany, and in 1944–45, the legend says, the Americans, tipped off by Pius XII, took wreck, bodies and papers to the United States. In July 2023 David Grusch repeated this in testimony to a US House committee; in June 2024 the Vatican Apostolic Archive denied it outright.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

The supposed Stefani dispatch has never been found in any archive. Forensic and historical analysis, including by the skeptical ufologists of CISU, concluded that 'the forgers' fatal mistake was underestimating bureaucracy': the documents have no protocol numbers, no stamps and nothing verifiable, while the Central State Archive holds millions of files on every aspect of the regime and no trace of such a commission — no appointment, no budget, no report. The 'Nordic pilots' tie the tale to esoteric 'Nazi UFO' and Vril mythology. The legend explains the lack of witnesses by saying two of the three who could have testified died at sea and the third killed himself. Filed UNVETTED.

VISITING

The pin marks the town of Magenta; the alleged crash site is not fixed.