Posted by ‘Oh my God, how ugly! They’re not men, they’re not men!’
These are the words that some night watchmen heard their colleague Pier Fortunato Zanfretta say over the radio on the night of 6 December 1978.
This is the most famous and best documented case of abduction in Italy. Zanfretta is now retired, but when he was on duty he experienced 11 close encounters of the fourth kind with reptilian aliens. Zanfretta claims that these beings, called Dargos and almost 3 metres tall, come from the third galaxy, specifically from the planet Titania. They are evaluating Earth as a planet to move to in the future.
An unusual childhood
Before becoming the protagonist of one of Italy’s most famous UFO cases, Pier Fortunato Zanfretta had lived a life that was anything but ordinary. Born in Nova Milanese in 1952, he grew up in an unusual environment: his family was part of the circus world. As he recounts in an interview with La Repubblica in 2023, his father was a trapeze artist, while his aunt was the queen of the Italian circus, Moira Orfei.
‘I grew up among lions, tigers and snakes,’ he says. A childhood spent in contact with exotic animals and travelling shows may have contributed to shaping a character accustomed to extraordinary situations. But his nomadic circus life came to an end when, while still a boy, he lost his father and his family moved to Genoa. After his years in the circus, Zanfretta joined the Italian Navy at the age of 16, where he developed a preference for night shifts, almost a foreshadowing of his future job as a night guard. It was while working as a night watchman in 1978 that his life would change forever.
His unusual background, combining circus skills and military life, made him an unlikely witness: not a visionary, but a man accustomed to practicality. Yet, on the night of 6 December 1978, he found himself shouting the famous phrase.
The night of the close encounter
It was a cold December evening in 1978 when Pier Fortunato Zanfretta, during his usual night patrol in the hills of Torriglia, saw something that would change his life forever.
While checking on an isolated villa, he noticed an intense, pulsating light among the trees. Thinking it was burglars, he got out of his car to investigate. What he saw terrified him:
‘They were almost three metres tall, with green skin that was wrinkled like a reptile’s. They had yellow, triangular eyes and spikes on their heads. They spoke, but their mouths didn’t move… I could hear their words directly in my mind!’
According to his account, the mysterious beings, whom he called Dargos, took him and brought him aboard a huge cone-shaped spaceship, as big as Piazza De Ferrari in Genoa. Here he was subjected to strange medical examinations, while the aliens communicated telepathically that they came from Titania, a dying planet in the “third galaxy”.
When his colleagues, alarmed by his cries over the radio, found him an hour later, Zanfretta was in a confused state, his uniform torn and his body incredibly hot despite the winter cold. On the lawn, the circular footprints left by the UFO were still visible.
That night marked only the first of 11 alleged encounters that Zanfretta would have with the Dargos between 1978 and 1981, transforming a simple night watchman into the protagonist of one of the most documented and controversial UFO cases in Italy.
The story seems incredible, especially since other UFO sightings were reported in the area during the period of his encounters. The protagonists of the other sightings were not only his colleagues and local residents, but also Brigadier Antonio Nucchi.
Who are the Dargos?
According to Zanfretta’s detailed account, the Dargos represent a highly advanced extraterrestrial race, originally from Titania, a dying planet that he places in what he calls “the third galaxy”. His descriptions paint a picture of disturbing creatures: beings about three metres tall with greenish, scaly skin, triangular yellow eyes with no pupils, elongated heads adorned with strange bony growths and hands with three long clawed fingers.
Their technology appears to be very advanced, with spaceships capable of teleporting and moving between different dimensions. Their method of communication is particularly interesting because the Dargos do not speak through their mouths, but transmit their thoughts into the mind of the listener.
The purpose of their presence on Earth is linked to the survival of their species. According to Zanfretta, the Dargos are conducting an assessment of our planet as a possible new habitat, given that Titania is gradually becoming uninhabitable. This would explain the repeated encounters and examinations that Zanfretta claims to have undergone.
The sphere and the golden tetrahedron
One of the most mysterious aspects of this story concerns the gift that the beings gave him. It is a transparent sphere containing a golden tetrahedron that floats and rotates independently inside it. The man claims that only he can approach this object, while it would belethal for anyone else who tries to get close. He also claims to be mentally compelled to go to the place where he hid the sphere twice a month, without understanding the reason for this need.
Attempts to photograph the object have proved futile: the images taken show only five bright spots, without ever revealing the true nature of the sphere. This mysterious artefact raises numerous questions: why was it entrusted to Zanfretta? Is it a control device, a coded message or something even more enigmatic? And if the Dargos really intend to move to Earth, when and how will this happen?
The official investigation and regressive hypnosis
After this initial meeting, the Carabinieri of Genoa launched an investigation led by Brigadier Antonio Nucchi, who collected 52 statements from Zanfretta’s colleagues and members of the public. Many of them had seen strange lights in the sky on the night of Zanfretta’s alleged abduction.
The evidence gathered:
- On the lawn where Zanfretta claimed to have been abducted, circular footprints 3 metres wide were found, as if something heavy had landed there.
- In the same area, that night, there was an unexplained blackout, which was also reported by residents.
- Zanfretta’s body temperature was very high when he was found, despite the freezing cold.
However, some evidence mysteriously disappeared during the investigation, including a sample of the soil taken from where the footprints were found.
An investigation was opened but was closed in 1980. Zanfretta underwent regressive hypnosis by two well-known psychoanalysts, Mauro Moretti and Cesare Musatti, where Zanfretta recounted being subjected to examinations aboard a UFO, describing the UFO in detail: metal walls, unknown instruments and painful examinations. The two psychoanalysts found no signs of deception in the man’s account and concluded that Zanfretta truly believed what he was saying.
However, regressive hypnosis is not recognised by science to date.
The Zanfretta case is closed
Despite the extensive evidence gathered and dozens of corroborating testimonies, in January 1980, the Genoa Magistrate’s Court decided to close the investigation due to “lack of evidence of a crime”. Brigadier Antonio Nucchi, the lead investigator in the case, revealed years later that he had been pressured to close the investigation quickly. ‘I was advised not to pursue the matter,” he confessed during an interview with Il Bivio, adding that some of the documentation, including analyses of soil taken from the alleged UFO landing site, had mysteriously disappeared from the archives.
At the same time, strange attempts were made to discredit Zanfretta: a few months after the investigation began, his gun licence was revoked, putting his job at risk. Some ufologists have put forward disturbing hypotheses to explain this cover-up. According to them, the Dargos may have been mistaken for a military threat, triggering the interest of the secret services.
Questions remain unanswered: why did Nucchi’s superiors order him to keep quiet despite the fact that he and fifty other witnesses had seen something unusual? Who made the physical evidence disappear? And if it really was a hoax, why discredit Zanfretta so systematically instead of just ridiculing him publicly?
The official closure of the case did not convince either the ufologists, who speak openly of a cover-up, or Zanfretta, who still bitterly maintains: “They knew I was telling the truth, but the truth is sometimes inconvenient”. This hasty closure of the case is perhaps the darkest aspect of the whole affair, hinting at even more disturbing truths behind the scenes of power.
The eleven encounters
Between 1978 and 1981, Pier Fortunato Zanfretta had ten more encounters with the mysterious Dargos. The second episode occurred exactly one year after the first, on the night between 2 and 3 December 1979. Zanfretta disappeared during his shift at work and his car was found abandoned in the same area of Torriglia. Witnesses, including Carabinieri lieutenant Cassiba, reported seeing a strange “cloud” in the sky, with unusual lights pulsating inside it. When the officer fired several shots in the direction of the phenomenon, it suddenly vanished, and shortly afterwards Zanfretta reappeared near the car, disoriented and with his uniform torn.
The subsequent encounters were even more bizarre. During the fourth episode, which took place in Corso Europa in Genoa, local residents reported an unexplained blackout at the very moment when Zanfretta claimed to have been abducted again. On another occasion, the night watchman said he had been taken to a sort of “underground base” where he saw dozens of beings similar to the Dargos engaged in mysterious activities.
The eleventh and final encounter, in 1981, was particularly significant: according to Zanfretta, the Dargos officially handed him the sphere containing the golden tetrahedron, explaining (again telepathically) that it was a “gift for humanity”, but also an extremely dangerous object in the wrong hands. From that moment on, the physical encounters ceased, but Zanfretta claimed to continue receiving “mental messages” at regular intervals and to feel compelled to visit the sphere’s hiding place twice a month, as if under remote control.
The two faces of celebrity
The notoriety brought by his encounters with the Dargos proved to be a double-edged sword for Zanfretta. While ufologists and paranormal researchers considered him a key witness, the general public and the media often ridiculed him. His television appearances, rather than clarifying the matter, contributed to burying it under layers of irony and scepticism.
The first programme he was invited to appear on was Enzo Tortora’s Portobello in 1981. Years later, he claimed that he felt mocked by the presenter. This was followed by the Maurizio Costanzo Show in 2002 and Il bivio in 2007. Journalist Rino Di Stefano published a book in 1984, which was also translated into English in 2014, from which Rai drew a two-part investigative drama: “UFOs in Genoa? The close encounters of Piero Zanfretta”. In 2004, the film “InvaXön – Alieni in Liguria” by Massimo Morini brought the story to the big screen in a science fiction setting, with Zanfretta himself playing himself.
But the personal price was very high. Zanfretta said he received night-time phone calls from strangers mocking him for years, while at work he suffered constant humiliation. In 1993, he lost his job over an unsolved theft charge, an episode he attributed to the persistent stigma attached to his story. But he says he only told the truth.
Today, while working as a night guard at Don Orione in Genoa, Zanfretta is a unique figure. He is both a victim of a system that did not know how to handle his story and the unwitting protagonist of a contemporary myth.
