Italian Air Force MB-326 Encounter 1978

On October 22, 1978, an Italian Air Force Aermacchi MB-326 trainer aircraft was conducting a routine sortie over central Italy when the crew encountered a metallic disc at 20,000 feet altitude. The disc was estimated at approximately 40 meters in diameter and performed a close pass of the MB-326 before executing a banking turn and accelerating away to the northeast at extreme speed. The crew reported compass failures and communications interference during the close approach. Italian Air Force radar operators at the Rome Air Traffic Control Center confirmed a radar return in the area but were unable to identify the contact. Italian Air Force ITAF intelligence officers classified the incident report. It became one of the key files in Italy's growing military UAP archive, which by the 1990s had accumulated hundreds of classified cases. Italy's CISU (Centro Italiano Studi Ufologici) subsequently obtained partial declassification of military UAP files and documented this case as among the most significant in the Italian record.