On the night of December 6, 1978 in Torriglia, Italy, a 26-year-old night watchman on routine patrol stumbled into a strange, terrifying encounter with alien lifeforms. The encounter would forever change his life and become the most infamous account of an alien abduction in Italy's history.
Pier Zanfretta, a husband and father of two, was navigating his patrol car along an icy road just outside the little mountain town of Torriglia heading toward the unoccupied country home of a client, Dr. Ettore Righi. He was just turning into the home's driveway when suddenly his car's engine, lights and radio all stopped functioning. When the confused Pier looked toward the house, he saw what he thought were 4 flashlights shining their beams around right next to the home. Thinking there were burglars attempting to find an entrance, he quietly exited his vehicle with his gun and flashlight at the ready.
After slipping through an open gate, he bent low and proceeded toward the intruders while hiding behind a low rock wall that surrounded the property. Carefully peeking from behind the wall, he started to jump over in order to surprise and get the jump on the criminals, but just as he began his leap upwards, a hand grabbed his shoulder from behind. In spite of the tremendous shock, he twirled around with his revolver in hand, but it wasn't an ordinary person standing there. He was just inches away from "An enormous, green, ugly and frightful creature with undulating skin as though he was very fat or dressed in a loose tunic. The monster was no less than 10 feet tall, had points on the side of his face, monstrous yellow triangular eyes and red veins across his forehead."
Pier was so startled that he dropped his flashlight, but as the creature reached toward him again, he had the sense to duck, grab the flashlight from the ground and, no doubt propelled by a burst of adrenaline, made a hasty retreat back toward his car. Afraid the being would be right behind him, he ran as fast as he could without looking over his shoulder. Just as he reached the front of his car and was reaching for the door, a brilliant beam of light appeared which illuminated everything around him as if it were a bright, sunny day. Shielding his eyes with his arm, Zanfretta dared a look toward the light source and saw a huge, triangular UFO slowly rising from behind the house. As it arose with a loud hissing sound, he could see the craft dwarfed the Righi home in size. Suddenly, Pier was hit by a blast of searing heat and the spaceship zoomed up into the sky at an unbelievable speed.
With all quiet now, he managed to get into his car and call the office on his 2-way radio. At 12:14 am, Carlo Toccalino, the security company's radio operator, logged the call. His report indicated Zanfretta spoke in a confused and very agitated fashion, almost babbling. Carlo had a hard time understanding Zanfretta, but he was able to figure out he was describing the appearance of strange creatures that were not human. When Carlo asked him who was attacking him, Pier shouted, "No, they aren't men, they aren't men! They are so ugly! My God, they are so ugly!"
The call suddenly broke off and Carlo, afraid for his officer, immediately dispatched another car with 2 guards as backup. Due to the icy conditions, the additional car took almost a full hour to reach Zanfretta. When the men arrived, they found Pier laying stiff on the frozen ground in front of the house. As they approached him, Zanfretta looked over at them, leaped up with a wild, scared look on his face and with eyes bulging, shined his flashlight on the men. More alarming, he also aimed his pistol at them. The two men, Walter Lauria and Raimondo Mascia, later said they were both shocked to see the normally timid and restrained man to be babbling irrationally, and despite having worked together for several years, showed no sign of recognizing them. When they began asking him to lower his weapon, he looked totally confused as if he didn't understand the language. When he continued to aim his gun at them, they split up and slowly advanced, one on either side of him, and were able to tackle him and wrench the gun out of his hand. They were both shocked to discover that although he had been laying on the frozen ground for over an hour, his clothes and body was very warm, almost hot.
The guards made a call to the police who were then dispatched to the scene to perform a thorough investigation. Much to their surprise, they found two very large, very deep unexplained indention's behind the Righi home. The indention's were measured to be 9 feet in diameter and shaped like horseshoes. The ground around the marks was found to not be frozen, but muddy from thawing.
Over 52 calls from Torriglia citizens were received at police headquarters with all reporting seeing a bright light coming from the direction of the Righi home. Most of them reported watching the light ascend into the sky and all of them came in within minutes of when Zanfretta made his first call.
Before long, the press got wind of this strange tale and almost without exception proclaimed Zanfrettta must be either crazy or a liar. Pier shunned all notoriety possible and rarely left his home except for work. He refused offers of payment for his story and did not want his picture taken. He told all who would listen that he wished he had not had this awful experience, but he was neither crazy nor a liar. In hopes of proving himself to be sane and truthful, he agreed to be hypnotized.
On December 23rd, 17 days after the incident, Zanfretta submitted to the session at the office of Dr. Mauro Maretti in Genoa, a fully accredited psychoanalyst of high regard in the field.
Under hypnosis, in addition to confirming he had seen beings from another planet, Zanfretta was able to recall that he had actually been abducted by them! He stated the beings had taken him into "a hot, luminous location" where they stripped and thoroughly examined him. He also reported the creatures did not speak Italian, but used a strange-looking device to translate what they said into thoughts which he could understand. They told him they were from the planet "Teetonia," located in "the 3rd galaxy" and that they want to talk to us and will "soon" return in large numbers.
Dr. Maretti later said on a personal level he, like everyone else, found Pier's story to be so incredible it was hard to believe, but on a professional level, Zanfretta's demeanor, his voice, his reactions - all indications were that he was telling the truth.
Just three days later at 11:45 pm on December 26, Zanfretta was back at work patrolling when he once again radioed into dispatch. He frantically told the radio operator that his car was driving itself and he could not get it to stop or respond to turning the wheel. He said he was driving in the Bargagli tunnel near the Scoffera Pass when the car came under the control of someone else. In a panic-stricken voice, he described mashing on the brakes, trying to turn the steering wheel and even trying to turn the engine off, all to no avail. Emerging from the tunnel, the car swerved off the dark road and up a steep embankment. Suddenly, Zanfretta's voice became very calm and measured as he reported, "The car has stopped. The light is back. It has me. I'm getting out of the car now."
Like before, another car with 2 more guards was dispatched, but due to a pouring rain, it took a while to find the car. Finally, at 1:10 am, Sergeant Emanuele Travenzoli radioed in that they had found Pier's car, but there was no sign of him. The police were called to the scene and a few minutes later Sergeant Travenzoli said they had just found Zanfretta in an open field they had already searched before. First he wasn't there, then a few minutes later they saw a movement and he was standing in the middle of the field. Upon reaching him, the guards were astonished to find that despite the downpour of rain, his clothes were dry and very warm. They claimed he was in shock, his body quivering uncontrollably and he was crying. He said, "They say I must go with them, but I don't want to. What about my children? I can't leave my children!" He then began repeating over and over, "I don't want to. I don't want to. I don't want to."
When the police arrived and began investigating, they were astonished to see steam rising off the roof of Zanfretta's Fiat. They found that despite being in the heavy rain for an extended time, the roof was extremely hot. Inside, it was "hot as an oven," as if the heater had been on full blast, but the control was only in the low position and the car had been turned off for at least an hour or more. They then noticed the car was surrounded by very large footprints measuring 20" long and 8" wide, with a distinctive bare spot between the sole and the heel. Searching the field where Zanfretta had been found, they discovered his revolver, a Smith & Wesson .38 revolver laying in the mud. The gun had been fired 5 times, but Pier later insisted he couldn't remember who or what he had fired it at.
For the next 6 months everything was calm. Gradually, poor Pier began coming out of his house for an outing with his family or for drinks with the fellows at the local pub. He claimed he was relieved to have shed the notoriety. His request had been granted by his employer to be assigned to sectors in Genoa, far from the area of the encounters. Life was good. Until he once again disappeared.
On the night of July 30, 1979, Pier was on motorcycle patrol in the residential area of Quarto in Genoa. Several residents reported seeing him riding down one of the streets, turning a corner onto a second street and then just vanishing! When he failed to report in at the scheduled time and couldn't be raised on his 2-way radio, a notice went out to the patrols in the area and the proper authorities were alerted. 2 hours later, Zanfretta was located on the top of nearby Mt. Fasce. There was only 1 road leading to the top with numerous houses along the route, but residents claimed they had not seen Pier or any motorcycle on the road.
This time the shaken Zanfretta seemed to be more mad about the abduction than frightened. He insisted on another session with an expert of unquestioned credentials and he also insisted on being given sodium penathol, the infamous truth serum. Two days later, Pier was injected with the sodium penathol in a session with Professor Marco Marchesan at the Center of Medical and Psychological Hypnosis in Milan.
While under the effects of the truth serum, Pier claimed that he and his motorcycle were lifted into an alien spaceship by a green light. He said his abductors had stripped him and forced him to wear a strange helmet that allowed him to understand their language, but gave him a tremendous headache. He said he was then given a short tour of the spaceship accompanied by one of the large aliens. During the tour, he saw a number of large, clear cylinders filled with a blue liquid. In one of the cylinders was a large frog-shaped body. The alien told him it was "an enemy of ours from another planet." Another cylinder contained a large bird-like creature and a 3rd contained the body of a being that looked like "a Neanderthal or a caveman." The alien then told Pier that he needed to come with them, but Zanfretta told him, "No, I don't want to. I know you need me, but I have two children and I don't want to leave them. I don't want to go with you because you aren't human. You are horrible!" Pier then found himself on top of the mountain with no memory of how he got there.
When the session was over, Professor Marchesan stated, "No human is able to knowingly lie while under sodium penathol so I have to say it is most probable Zanfretta had these encounters."
Four months later, at 10:30 pm on December 2, 1979, Zanfretta disappeared yet again. As before, he failed to call in at the appointed time and an alert was sent out. This time however, the worst was yet to come. This time, Zanfretta would not be the only one to have an encounter with the aliens.
While out looking for Pier in the hills around Genoa, four different guards claimed they had clearly seen a very large, strange craft floating above them before it quickly rose and vanished into the night sky. A few minutes later, two patrol cars were stopped next to each other to discuss matters when suddenly two rays of incredibly bright lights beamed down from a "strange cloud" illuminating the vehicles. Both car engines suddenly quit and the lights went out. Although frightened, the guards, Lt. Cassiba and Germano Zarnardi, got out of the cars and looked up. According to Zarnardi, Lt. Cassiba suddenly screamed in terror as he looked upward, pulled his gun and fired several shots at a huge craft that seemed to be hovering within the cloud. At this point, the lights were extinguished and the cloud and strange aircraft rose up "at an incredible speed."
A few minutes later, Zanfretta was again found. Standing in an open field as before with extremely warm clothes in spite of the winter chill, he was shaking and crying, "Make it stop! Make it stop!"
Both Lt. Cassiba and Zarnardi sought counseling after their encounter, but unfortunately, Zarnardi never seemed to regain mental stability. 3 months later while sitting in a chair at his home, Zarnardi took his own life by shooting himself in the head with his service revolver. A short note in his handwriting was found on the table beside the chair. "I saw it." was all it said.
In the years since, Zanfretta reports he has been abducted a total of 11 times. He had to retire from his job as a guard due to the repeated disappearances and the notoriety resulting from 2 books which have been written and a 2-part documentary broadcast on Italian television. In his last hypnosis session, Pier said he warned the aliens, "I know you are trying to come more frequently, but you have to stop. No, you can't come to earth; people get scared when they look at you. You can't make friendship." Evidently they listened because they did not appear again.
At least not until recently when Pier reported, "They're back. I'm not sure what for."
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| Torriglia |
After slipping through an open gate, he bent low and proceeded toward the intruders while hiding behind a low rock wall that surrounded the property. Carefully peeking from behind the wall, he started to jump over in order to surprise and get the jump on the criminals, but just as he began his leap upwards, a hand grabbed his shoulder from behind. In spite of the tremendous shock, he twirled around with his revolver in hand, but it wasn't an ordinary person standing there. He was just inches away from "An enormous, green, ugly and frightful creature with undulating skin as though he was very fat or dressed in a loose tunic. The monster was no less than 10 feet tall, had points on the side of his face, monstrous yellow triangular eyes and red veins across his forehead."
Pier was so startled that he dropped his flashlight, but as the creature reached toward him again, he had the sense to duck, grab the flashlight from the ground and, no doubt propelled by a burst of adrenaline, made a hasty retreat back toward his car. Afraid the being would be right behind him, he ran as fast as he could without looking over his shoulder. Just as he reached the front of his car and was reaching for the door, a brilliant beam of light appeared which illuminated everything around him as if it were a bright, sunny day. Shielding his eyes with his arm, Zanfretta dared a look toward the light source and saw a huge, triangular UFO slowly rising from behind the house. As it arose with a loud hissing sound, he could see the craft dwarfed the Righi home in size. Suddenly, Pier was hit by a blast of searing heat and the spaceship zoomed up into the sky at an unbelievable speed.
With all quiet now, he managed to get into his car and call the office on his 2-way radio. At 12:14 am, Carlo Toccalino, the security company's radio operator, logged the call. His report indicated Zanfretta spoke in a confused and very agitated fashion, almost babbling. Carlo had a hard time understanding Zanfretta, but he was able to figure out he was describing the appearance of strange creatures that were not human. When Carlo asked him who was attacking him, Pier shouted, "No, they aren't men, they aren't men! They are so ugly! My God, they are so ugly!"
The call suddenly broke off and Carlo, afraid for his officer, immediately dispatched another car with 2 guards as backup. Due to the icy conditions, the additional car took almost a full hour to reach Zanfretta. When the men arrived, they found Pier laying stiff on the frozen ground in front of the house. As they approached him, Zanfretta looked over at them, leaped up with a wild, scared look on his face and with eyes bulging, shined his flashlight on the men. More alarming, he also aimed his pistol at them. The two men, Walter Lauria and Raimondo Mascia, later said they were both shocked to see the normally timid and restrained man to be babbling irrationally, and despite having worked together for several years, showed no sign of recognizing them. When they began asking him to lower his weapon, he looked totally confused as if he didn't understand the language. When he continued to aim his gun at them, they split up and slowly advanced, one on either side of him, and were able to tackle him and wrench the gun out of his hand. They were both shocked to discover that although he had been laying on the frozen ground for over an hour, his clothes and body was very warm, almost hot.
The guards made a call to the police who were then dispatched to the scene to perform a thorough investigation. Much to their surprise, they found two very large, very deep unexplained indention's behind the Righi home. The indention's were measured to be 9 feet in diameter and shaped like horseshoes. The ground around the marks was found to not be frozen, but muddy from thawing.
Over 52 calls from Torriglia citizens were received at police headquarters with all reporting seeing a bright light coming from the direction of the Righi home. Most of them reported watching the light ascend into the sky and all of them came in within minutes of when Zanfretta made his first call.Before long, the press got wind of this strange tale and almost without exception proclaimed Zanfrettta must be either crazy or a liar. Pier shunned all notoriety possible and rarely left his home except for work. He refused offers of payment for his story and did not want his picture taken. He told all who would listen that he wished he had not had this awful experience, but he was neither crazy nor a liar. In hopes of proving himself to be sane and truthful, he agreed to be hypnotized.
On December 23rd, 17 days after the incident, Zanfretta submitted to the session at the office of Dr. Mauro Maretti in Genoa, a fully accredited psychoanalyst of high regard in the field.
Under hypnosis, in addition to confirming he had seen beings from another planet, Zanfretta was able to recall that he had actually been abducted by them! He stated the beings had taken him into "a hot, luminous location" where they stripped and thoroughly examined him. He also reported the creatures did not speak Italian, but used a strange-looking device to translate what they said into thoughts which he could understand. They told him they were from the planet "Teetonia," located in "the 3rd galaxy" and that they want to talk to us and will "soon" return in large numbers.
Just three days later at 11:45 pm on December 26, Zanfretta was back at work patrolling when he once again radioed into dispatch. He frantically told the radio operator that his car was driving itself and he could not get it to stop or respond to turning the wheel. He said he was driving in the Bargagli tunnel near the Scoffera Pass when the car came under the control of someone else. In a panic-stricken voice, he described mashing on the brakes, trying to turn the steering wheel and even trying to turn the engine off, all to no avail. Emerging from the tunnel, the car swerved off the dark road and up a steep embankment. Suddenly, Zanfretta's voice became very calm and measured as he reported, "The car has stopped. The light is back. It has me. I'm getting out of the car now."
Like before, another car with 2 more guards was dispatched, but due to a pouring rain, it took a while to find the car. Finally, at 1:10 am, Sergeant Emanuele Travenzoli radioed in that they had found Pier's car, but there was no sign of him. The police were called to the scene and a few minutes later Sergeant Travenzoli said they had just found Zanfretta in an open field they had already searched before. First he wasn't there, then a few minutes later they saw a movement and he was standing in the middle of the field. Upon reaching him, the guards were astonished to find that despite the downpour of rain, his clothes were dry and very warm. They claimed he was in shock, his body quivering uncontrollably and he was crying. He said, "They say I must go with them, but I don't want to. What about my children? I can't leave my children!" He then began repeating over and over, "I don't want to. I don't want to. I don't want to."
For the next 6 months everything was calm. Gradually, poor Pier began coming out of his house for an outing with his family or for drinks with the fellows at the local pub. He claimed he was relieved to have shed the notoriety. His request had been granted by his employer to be assigned to sectors in Genoa, far from the area of the encounters. Life was good. Until he once again disappeared.
On the night of July 30, 1979, Pier was on motorcycle patrol in the residential area of Quarto in Genoa. Several residents reported seeing him riding down one of the streets, turning a corner onto a second street and then just vanishing! When he failed to report in at the scheduled time and couldn't be raised on his 2-way radio, a notice went out to the patrols in the area and the proper authorities were alerted. 2 hours later, Zanfretta was located on the top of nearby Mt. Fasce. There was only 1 road leading to the top with numerous houses along the route, but residents claimed they had not seen Pier or any motorcycle on the road.
This time the shaken Zanfretta seemed to be more mad about the abduction than frightened. He insisted on another session with an expert of unquestioned credentials and he also insisted on being given sodium penathol, the infamous truth serum. Two days later, Pier was injected with the sodium penathol in a session with Professor Marco Marchesan at the Center of Medical and Psychological Hypnosis in Milan.
While under the effects of the truth serum, Pier claimed that he and his motorcycle were lifted into an alien spaceship by a green light. He said his abductors had stripped him and forced him to wear a strange helmet that allowed him to understand their language, but gave him a tremendous headache. He said he was then given a short tour of the spaceship accompanied by one of the large aliens. During the tour, he saw a number of large, clear cylinders filled with a blue liquid. In one of the cylinders was a large frog-shaped body. The alien told him it was "an enemy of ours from another planet." Another cylinder contained a large bird-like creature and a 3rd contained the body of a being that looked like "a Neanderthal or a caveman." The alien then told Pier that he needed to come with them, but Zanfretta told him, "No, I don't want to. I know you need me, but I have two children and I don't want to leave them. I don't want to go with you because you aren't human. You are horrible!" Pier then found himself on top of the mountain with no memory of how he got there.
When the session was over, Professor Marchesan stated, "No human is able to knowingly lie while under sodium penathol so I have to say it is most probable Zanfretta had these encounters."
Four months later, at 10:30 pm on December 2, 1979, Zanfretta disappeared yet again. As before, he failed to call in at the appointed time and an alert was sent out. This time however, the worst was yet to come. This time, Zanfretta would not be the only one to have an encounter with the aliens.
A few minutes later, Zanfretta was again found. Standing in an open field as before with extremely warm clothes in spite of the winter chill, he was shaking and crying, "Make it stop! Make it stop!"
Both Lt. Cassiba and Zarnardi sought counseling after their encounter, but unfortunately, Zarnardi never seemed to regain mental stability. 3 months later while sitting in a chair at his home, Zarnardi took his own life by shooting himself in the head with his service revolver. A short note in his handwriting was found on the table beside the chair. "I saw it." was all it said.
In the years since, Zanfretta reports he has been abducted a total of 11 times. He had to retire from his job as a guard due to the repeated disappearances and the notoriety resulting from 2 books which have been written and a 2-part documentary broadcast on Italian television. In his last hypnosis session, Pier said he warned the aliens, "I know you are trying to come more frequently, but you have to stop. No, you can't come to earth; people get scared when they look at you. You can't make friendship." Evidently they listened because they did not appear again.
At least not until recently when Pier reported, "They're back. I'm not sure what for."
