Villa Santina Little Green Men
By Cole Herrold
The history of UFOs and extraterrestrial
encounters is a bizarre one that diverges at the point of interpretation. There
are certainly those of the Ancient Aliens persuasion who will state that UFOs
and extraterrestrials have been amongst us from the beginning, but the
"official" acknowledgment of the existence of extraterrestrials or
UFOs can be pointed to the original report by Kenneth Arnold on June 24, 1947.
After Arnold's sighting, Brazilian Jose Higgins would have the second official
UFO sighting on July 23rd, 1947, a mere 29 days after Arnold's, yet
the third official UFO sighting, which happened some 50 days after Arnold's,
was perhaps the most interesting and profound for unlike the previous cases
which simply involved craft this sighting can possibly be marked as the first
official case of a Close Encounter of the Third Kind and its occupants
were anything far from the traditional extraterrestrial even though they
clearly was the original Little Green Men.
At 9:00 am on August 14, 1947, Professor Rapuzzi
Johannis, both an avid artist, writer, and geologist, was out near Villa
Santina in Italy. While out searching and studying strange and unusual rock
formations and searching for fossils in the Friuli region of Villa Santina in
the North of Italy. He was ascending the short valley of the mountain stream known
as the chiarso and traversing on a path along the left bank of the stream. When
traversing this hill, he was surrounded by various fir trees and large deposits
of alluvial rubble and detritus. As he emerged into a clearing from one of
these clumps of fir, he noticed a large red lens-shaped object with a low
central cupola and a telescoping antenna that was similar to those found on motor
cars. The object was about approximately 30 ft wide and about 18ft high near a
rocky riverbank that was some 50 yards away. The professor, short-sighted,
proceeded to take out his glasses and stare at the object and felt that the
craft was made seemingly of some sort of varnished metal, not unlike a child’s
toy. The object was not exactly hovering but seemed to be embedded about a
quarter of its length in a great transverse cleft in the mountainside and was
anchored about 6 meters above the bed of the stream. The professor, completely
amazed at what he was seeing and totally unaware of the phenomenon of UFOs,
decided to head up and investigate the object but had decided to try and see
before the trek towards the mysterious object if there was anyone around that
could come help him investigate the strange object.
The
professor began to approach the object reaching about 25 meters, and as he came
closer, he noticed two figures which at first he thought were "two
boys," near the grove of trees that he had just recently entered from. As
he stared at the boys, he began to yell and point toward the object as they
seemed completely oblivious to the bizarre object nearby and realized as he
looked and approached them that these were certainly not earthbound boys. The
beings began to approach him in a slow robotic fashion and kept their hands
down at their sides. The beings were about 3ft tall and wore dark blue
translucent coveralls with strange red-colored collars and cuffs. They also had
a wide red belt. The clothing, however, was not the only strange thing about
these beings as they had large heads noticeably larger than a human's, and that
a top, these colossal craniums that seemed reminiscent of a cartoon caricature
with a brown tight-fitting cap similar to an alpinist’s bonnet a topped them.
They appeared to be hairless not only on their heads but also on the rest of
their bodies, and that they had green skin similar to the plasticine used by
sculptors or a clay dipped in water with long straight noses with fish like
mouths that much like a fish was opening and clothing as if this is how it
breathed. Their eyes were yellow-green in color and were large hemispherical,
and seemed to protrude from the face much like once again a fish. Yet the fish
adulation ended there as the pupils of the entities were more akin to a
reptile's as they appeared as a kind of slit. These beings also had no eyebrows
or eyelashes but strange ring-like lids around the lids of the eyes. Johannis
was seemingly paralyzed by the fright of these creatures as they slowly
approached him with steady strides, and Johannis watched the beings in horror
for some 2-3 minutes. Realizing these were not humans, Johannis eventually was
able to overcome the fear of seeing the unknown and began to yell at the
creatures to get their attention and to ask them who they were and where they
came from. As he did this, he raised his pick that he used for his geological
excursions (other sources say his paintbrush/easel, but Johannis would fix this
with his follow up in the Humanoids edited by Charles Bowen). As
Johannis did this, he raised his hand holding the pickaxe, which he felt, later
on, was probably interpreted as a threatening gesture. Upon doing this, the
beings wheeled around very quickly. As he watched, one of the two entities
proceeded to put their right hand onto their belt, which emitted a thin puff of
smoke which he later felt was some sort of ray. During this, Johannis felt that
the pickaxe in his hand suddenly was being pulled away and as he watched, the
ax flew away; and as this happened, he suddenly found himself crumpled on the
ground and that he was paralyzed and felt an electric shock throughout his body,
but he could still watch the beings approach the ax. They reached within 6ft of
Johannis, and as they got to that point, he was able to roll over on his side
and watch as one of the creatures lifted up the pickaxe, examining it; as
Johannis stared at the beings, he noted that their hands while having
human-like digits had hands that appeared to be clamped almost like claws. In
other words, these entities had some 8 digits that were hinged at a certain
point; in other words, 4 digits on one side and 4 digits on the other side. These
8 digits seemed jointless but were still noticeable as fingers. The beings
observing the pickaxe breathed heavily, and Johannis compared this breathing to
a dog's after a long run. Johannis struggled to sit up but was able to
eventually do so but needed to firmly plant his arms to the ground to avoid
falling over again. As he watched the creatures return to their craft and as he
watched he climbed into the object, which rose vertically 15ft above the ground
much like the appearance of a gong, and watched as the object attempted to fly
away. As the object dislodged from the cliff, several stones fell down to the riverbed.
Johannis noted that the object seemed to have problems flying as the object
hovered a bit. Johannis, during this time, tried to get up but could not and
fell back again, and he watched as the disc-shaped object tipped and unleashed
a gust of wind. Johannis was still immobile and was moved when the blast of
wind from the craft moved him into a stony riverbed. Then the craft began to do
something altogether curious the object began to shrink in size and continued
to do this until it eventually and finally disappeared.
Johannis would wait some 2hrs before he
finally was able to get ahold of his faculties, and even then, he was exhausted
as he during that time slept and upon moving his limbs felt extreme pain as if
every bone was broken. Upon being able to move, he noted that all the aluminum
objects in his objects were missing; he found that his flask of coffee was
shattered but that the metal casing that surrounded it was gone as well as his
fork and canister that held his lunch. He found that all of his sketches were
stained with coffee and that his lunch was left scattered in the bag as well,
which left him having only coffee-infused bread as a meal as he had to throw
away the salami and the rest of his intended lunch. Johannis then began, after
eating and being able to move to search for his pickaxe but was not able to
find it; he was certain that the beings had taken it with them then and later,
after learning more about the UFO phenomenon, felt that it was in some
extraterrestrial museum being carefully analyzed as the aliens attempted to
decipher his name, his mountaineering motto, a pair of alpine flowers and an
eagle which were cut into the handle of the ax and he hoped that the beings
"rack their brains to a standstill trying to make it out ."This
irritated him even further on the return trip as he had used the pickaxe as a
kind of walking stick to help traverse the terrain. It was about 2pm by the
time he had made it to his room at the inn in Raveo; upon entering the door,
the proprietress of the inn, who he had known since he was a boy, saw the
banged-up visage of the professor and instantly asked what happened. He
responded by saying he fell from a rock, and upon hearing this, the woman said
in a rather condescending tone that it served him right and that it was about
time that he stopped going around collecting stones. He shrugged her off, went
up to his room, and then proceeded in sheer exhaustion to crawl into bed and
fall into a deep sleep.
The following day Johannis armed himself
with another pick as well as a revolver and went back to the spot. He searched
the area and the cleft from where the craft was moored but found nothing, but
he was more focused on some hope that the beings did not take his pick and that
they left it near where the object was, but of course, he found nothing. Johannis
asked later on if others in the area had seen some strange airplane and found
that two people, an old man and a little boy from a nearby village had, had
told him separately that they had seen a red object that flew up into the sky
both at 8:30 and 10 during the day of his sighting. The old man was sitting
down in the village square enjoying the day when he noticed a large red globe
being 'carried aloft on the wind' behind the mountain on the slope of which the
village lies. The boy was with his mother and other people working in a field
on the edge of the village when he noticed a red ball “like the ones they have
at fairs," which was rising at great speed and proceeded to disappear into
the sky.
Attempting to rationalize what he had seen
had changed several times since, in the beginning, he nor anyone else in Italy
was aware or had any context of UFOs. At first, he thought the craft was some
experimental machine of the allied forces, which were during that time
occupying the Campoformido aerodrome in the Friuli area. His next thought was
that perhaps this was some Russian device. He then wondered about whether this
device and the beings were some unknown civilization that remained hidden away
in the unexplored regions of our world, such as he felt the Matto Grosso of
Brazil. Yet he was not happy with any of these possibilities as the men he
encountered were so unusual that they could not have been human. Two months
later, he sailed to New York, and during the crossing, he heard about Kenneth
Arnold's sighting, and only then did he make the connection to flying saucers
and Ufonauts. During the five years while in the USA, he followed the ongoing
wave of flying saucer sightings, and in 1950, he decided to come forward with
his account, which led to it being initially published in the journal of the
Centro Studi Clipeologici, Via San Secondo 15 Torino, May 1964th
edition of the Clypeus issue No. 2-5. As time progressed, Johannis would
have some doubts about the beings he encountered; he became unsure as to the
position of the vertical pupils or even as to whether they had pupils at all
and even then started to question whether the beings were flesh and blood at
all and even began to think that chances are that they were more likely to be
robots. All of this and a final follow-up would be chronicled for Gordon
Creighton for the mandatory Fortean book The Humanoids, edited by
Charles Bowen.
Now, this case is extremely fascinating. I
have been fascinated with this encounter since I first read about it; for me,
the most important thing about this is this is the first official Close
Encounter of the Third Kind during a time when not only were extraterrestrials
not even thought of but that the UFO phenomenon in general from how we perceive
it today was literally just gaining traction. While some out there will point
to the ancient aliens' aspect of beings like Quetzalcoatl or other gods being
alien races, I must stress that this is an interpretation of data and not the
data straight-faced. When looking at the history of UFOs, this is one of the
earliest and, therefore, one of the most important. One could argue that this
case is revolutionary as it puts the term little green men, not into a context
of sarcasm or discredit but as possibly the original origin of the phrase (the
same can be said about the Hopkinsville Goblins). So, a quick refresh of the
importance of the case, 3rd documented case of a UFO, 1st
case of a Close Encounter of the Third Kind, 1st case of a Little
Green Men type extraterrestrial which just having those merits surprises me
that this case is not more famous than what it is.
Now, of course, breaking down this case, there
are actually a few ways to look at this case, yet the element that determines
the interpretation is the Green Men themselves. Obviously, there's the
extraterrestrial angle; this is perhaps the most popular identity of these
beings as they had many features we would associate with a living creature,
such as pupils, skin, the use of clothing and tools, as well as a fish-like
opening and closing of the mouth. Much of this would indicate a biological
creature, and the same would also involve the creature's curiosity and even
interpretation of Johannis's waving arm and ax and shouting as a kind of
threat. If these creatures were mechanical or something along those lines,
unless they were being piloted or controlled, one would not think that they
would behave in such a way that seems to be more defensive.
Now while these entities do appear
biological, there is always the chance that they are androids or robots. The
main indication of this is that the creatures moved in a robot-like fashion and
even Johannis, later on, felt that the creatures were something along those
lines. There are tons of reasons for why this would be a plausible answer for
these entities since if an advanced civilization wanted to learn more about our
culture or planet in general, they would send drones to search and investigate
the planet. They could serve as data collectors collecting pieces of our
culture or tools; the various soil collecting cases could be to see the general
makeup of our world or if the atmosphere would be breathable, or if there were
some hazardous diseases or microbes that could hinder further contact or
conquest.
While there are a lot of indications that
these entities are extraterrestrial in origin, and that has since been where
most researchers firmly plant them. There are other options that could indicate
that what these beings are is something much older and more at home on earth.
These creatures could very much have been members of the Faerie kingdom. Now
many researchers have drawn comparisons to alien encounters and the fae, but
one thing that I've come across in my research is that faerie encounters still
to this day occur and that they come in countless forms. One particular variety
that pops up across cultures is green-skinned beings, whether it be elemental
figures like the Green Man, a figure associated with the changing seasons and
the woods, or beings of a more aggressive nature like Jenny Greenteeth, an aquatic
faerie hag that drowns those that come too close to her watery lair. Now the
Villa Santina Little Green Men behave in many ways like the fae they stole
seemingly mundane and shiny objects, something that has been repeated in faerie
lore for centuries. They had odd brightly colored clothing with cuffs, something
that is also reported in faerie encounters and differs from most
extraterrestrial encounters, who mostly are reported wearing robes or skintight
diving suit style outfits even though other bizarre fashion choices exist.
Another element is that the craft that the beings left in behaved rather
strangely as opposed to flying or taking off in a traditional way or simply
disappearing as in other UFO cases; this craft began to shrink before ultimately
disappearing as though it winked out of existence. This winking out of
existence, as well as the shrinking to nothing, is something that has been
reported with faerie encounters before. Just how or why the fae do this is
clearly anyone’s guess, but I did find it an interesting similarity, to say the
least.
Another possibility, of course, venturing
off this world and once again into another is the possibility that these beings
were interdimensional entities. This is sort of a catch-all possibility, but if
these entities have technology and can travel through dimensions, it could
explain the overall strange behavior of the craft and that the shrinking could
be the manner in which these organisms come in and out of another dimension.
Also, needless to say, in another dimension, there are countless evolutionary
lines or possibilities as to just how a being like this could exist, but again,
there's clearly no definitive answer.
This is perhaps one of the most important
cases out there and also one of the most interesting. It amazes me that this
case has not been focused on or reached mainstream interest in the same way as,
say, the Flatwoods Monster or the Hopkinsville Goblins has. There are so many
interesting elements, and I find that it's also one of the most ambiguous in
regard to the origin of these beings. I would argue that this is just one of
several cases that seem to cross over into faerie encounters, but at the same
time, there is that strong extraterrestrial origin for these beings. It's
interesting too that these beings, while similar in overall shape to Grays, are
clearly not since they have almost reptile-like eyes and a much greener
complexion as well as their bizarre 8 digited claw-like hands, so that in
itself is just refreshing since greys are so overbearing. Just what these
entities are much like in almost any case, we will never come to a conclusion,
but that's one of the appeals as well since this is just one of the countless
one-off cases out there. These entities, be they from space or earth or another
dimension, are fascinating, and who knows what the future might hold perhaps
some other alpinist, while out might have a run-in again with these visitors
and the only thing I can suggest is to hold onto your pick with your life.
Quick Facts:
Species/Potential Species:
Extraterrestrials, Robots, Faeries
Location: Villa Santina, near Raveo,
Carnic Alps, Italy
Sighted: 9:00 am, August 14, 1947
Works Cited:
The Field Guide to Extraterrestrials By
Patrick Huyghe
Humanoid Encounters 1930-1949 By Albert S.
Rosales
The Humanoids By Charles Bowen
The Mammoth Encyclopedia of
Extraterrestrial Encounters: The Definitive Illustrated A - Z Guide To All
Things Alien By Ronald Story
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