The Aviano Air Base "spinning top" UFO and power cut

Aviano Air Base lies in Pordenone province, in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, where the Pre-Alps rise to the north. In 1977 it was a USAF-operated NATO base. Its most guarded corner was Victor Alert, the quick-reaction area where armed aircraft waited on standby in their hangars.

The night of 30 June to 1 July 1977. It was about 03:00. An American soldier named James Blake was on duty near the base. He noticed lights suspended at approximately 100 metres from the ground, over the hangars of Victor Alert.

He described "a large spinning top, 45m in diameter and hovering very low above the hanger." It had a disc shape and was topped by a dome. Its colourful lights changed from white to red and then green. There was a buzzing sound. It hovered for about an hour. Blake raised the alarm. Guards surrounded the area. Radar personnel were asked to pick the object up. Then, as they tried to reach the consoles, the power failed.

In February 1996, retired USAF Lt. Col. Jerry Rolwes retold the story in the MUFON UFO Journal. His main witness, a sergeant he called "Robert Frank", sat in the Security Police Control Center, a few metres from Victor Alert. Frank saw a circular object, 75 to 100 feet across, hanging about 30 feet above a soybean field. Its lights ran from yellow, orange to red. It sounded like a swarm of bees. Victor Alert lost power. Backup generators took over at once. After about five minutes the object gradually inclined toward a mountain pass and climbed away. A patrol of USAF Security Police and Italian Carabinieri arrived too late. Rolwes counted 18 or more witnesses.

In 2005 an anonymous former Base Alert Photographer wrote to Patrick Gross. Called out at about 23:00, he found security personnel in visible distress. They had been within 15 feet of the object. "The UFO made no sound at all," he wrote. "It was a very clear night. No clouds in the sky at all." It had hovered a few feet off the ground near the fence of the WASA area "for what must have been as much as 90 minutes." Before he could shoot any film, the UFO took off.

By the photographer's account, the Group Commander, the Base Commander and most of the security police were there. Staff were ordered "not to say anything to anyone about what had taken place." Nothing went into the police blotter. Everyone at the scene was transferred to the US within weeks. Rolwes later found no mention in the squadron's historical records.

The report reportedly went up to NATO HQ in Brussels. Ufologists who asked were told it was "a misperception of the moon shining off some low clouds." The Italian group CISU disagreed. It judged the soldier's report reliable. Local records showed few clouds and a moderate westerly wind, so CISU argued low cloud could not have formed. It added that the Moon was already too low on the horizon at the time of the sighting.

The accounts clash on size, height, duration, sound, colour and even the hour. Photographs by aviation enthusiast Claudio Gallet, said to show a UFO over the base, were taken at a daytime open day in July 1977, not that night.

Timothy Good and Jenny Randles both wrote about Aviano. CISU's Matteo Leone translated Rolwes' article into Italian. The case invites comparison with the 1975 overflights of US Strategic Air Command bases. It should not be confused with the separate 2003 Aviano video.