Incident: Sassari, Sardinia, Italy, August 1952. Sias’s account gives 27 August at approximately 21:45; the covering summary gives 28 August. His later submission is dated 19 November 1953, and the U.S. Air Attaché report 15 December 1953. Released 23 October 2026; UKPX reference added 6 November 2026.
Professor Giovanni Battista Sias described a brilliant green-blue sphere crossing the Sassari sky in a few seconds, alternately appearing as a round light and a narrow luminous ribbon. His account combined a short observation with a much longer attempt to explain its distance, size and meaning. The surviving American report preserves those layers—and a date discrepancy—rather than a measured flight path.
The report and the newspaper account within it
DOW-UAP-D157 contains five pages of Air Intelligence Information Report IR-700-53. Lieutenant Colonel Joseph A. Woida, acting U.S. Air Attaché in Rome, forwards a translation of Sias’s account and says he interviewed him. The translated submission is signed in November 1953; Woida’s cover is dated 15 December.
Within that submission, Sias reproduces what he says was an article published in Sassari’s Corriere dell’Isola on 28 August 1952. Its opening places the event on the previous evening, 27 August. The cover’s brief summary instead calls it a sighting on 28 August. The current release catalogue follows 27 August. UKPX retains the distinction; the original newspaper issue has not been independently checked for this article.
Three to five seconds over Sassari
Sias places himself in a courtyard associated with the Sassari Brigade, below a war-orphans’ dormitory, saying the rosary as a barracks trumpet sounded lights out. He remembers a hot, clear, moonless evening and a small isolated cloud attracting his attention. A luminous sphere then seemed to emerge near the Milky Way and travel east to west.
He compares its apparent diameter with the full moon and describes a green-blue colour, silvery brightness and streak-like features on one side. During the brief passage, the round appearance disappeared, leaving a narrow line; the sphere then appeared again. He estimated a total duration of three to five seconds before it vanished towards the horizon.
The account describes the line as around one-seventh the apparent thickness of the sphere. That is a visual comparison, not a measured physical width. Likewise, his initial impression that the object was close to the ground is an impression of distance, not an established range.
Other people mentioned in the account
Sias says a boy in the dormitory saw the light through a window and that a guardian at a concern several kilometres away also reported seeing it. Those references matter, but the released file does not provide separate signed statements or interview records from the two people. They are supporting accounts as reported by Sias, not two independently documented investigations.
Woida’s cover describes Sias as intelligent, pleasant and eager to explain his experience, while also expressing reservations about his intensity and convictions. This is the interviewing officer’s assessment of the source. It neither independently verifies the sky observation nor supplies a physical explanation for it.
Why the account produced enormous dimensions
The most striking numbers come after the observation. Sias says he consulted the astronomer Father Junkes and recounts calculations involving the Sun’s position, the Earth’s shadow, an assumed viewing angle and the apparent diameter. His submission gives possible distances of about 1,681 kilometres southward or 1,091 kilometres southwestward. At those distances, a Moon-sized apparent diameter would imply dimensions of roughly 14.67 or 9.25 kilometres.
These are conditional geometric deductions. They depend on treating the light as a body illuminated by sunlight as it emerged from the Earth’s shadow. The account does not supply independent range measurements establishing that premise. The large calculated diameter therefore cannot be presented as the measured size of an object over Sassari.
The released pages contain Sias’s presentation of the astronomer’s reasoning, not a separately reproduced original letter from Junkes. Sias also reports a suggestion connecting the colours with iron and nickel in astronomical bodies. Neither a recorded spectrum nor recovered material is supplied.
Observation, interpretation and the missing drawing
Sias initially considered a meteor, then developed explanations involving a sunlit body, alternating views of a disc-like surface and possible apparent motion. His later remarks attach a strong spiritual and political significance to the experience, including his work with war orphans. Those passages show how he understood the sighting; they are not additional observations of the sphere.
The cover lists a drawing as an enclosure and describes it as Sias’s sketch. No separate drawing is visible among the five pages in this released PDF. The missing illustration should not be recreated and presented as if it were the original.
The document’s value lies in its detailed witness narrative, its preserved source chronology and the way it exposes the assumptions behind the later claims. It records an unusual light described by Sias and his attempts to explain it. It does not establish the immense dimensions, a manufactured craft or a supernatural cause.
Source and map note
PURSUE original: DOW-UAP-D157, Air Intelligence Information Report, Italy, 1952 — all five pages and the official release notes checked 6 November 2026. The file is linked at its official source. Public release of a translated personal submission has not been treated as blanket permission to mirror every part of it.
The map uses the broad Sassari coordinate published in the Comune di Sassari’s 2026–2028 planning document, PDF page 35. It identifies the city, not Sias’s private address, an exact courtyard viewpoint or the sphere’s position.