Some did not speak at first of what they saw, for fear of being ridiculed, but after reading other reports they came forward with their tales too. One couple gave this description of what they witnessed Friday afternoon from their apartment on the fourth floor of a building in Verbania:

"We haven't told anyone of our sighting for fear of being taken in jest ... Around 9:00 pm, Friday evening, I was in the living room and all of a sudden the room was illuminated from a light, strong and bright blue. I was scared, and instinctively I looked out the window and I saw a globe of blue light suspended in the air and after a few seconds it quickly disappeared."

Another description from another witness:

My boy and I stood with our mouths open at the view of a strange object in the skies of Verbania, where we live. The object was a glowing red sphere, larger than the planet Venus and brighter, and it was moving from one side to the other, like an airplane, but then changing direction and moving to the left. Slowly, slowly, the red light started to fade until it disappeared completely. Very soon after this another object appeared, much larger and closer, maybe 50 meters above the houses, white (or transparent, but with the lights of the city this looks the same), it had an oval shape, and it was spinning and moving in the direction of the lake. We didn't think then of UFOs, but after some searching we discovered that in the summer there were many similar reports of sightings in Italy.