The Italian Guard Who Said 10-Foot Beings Took Him

Near midnight on December 6, 1978, a young security guard was checking an isolated villa in the hills above Genoa, Italy, when he noticed strange lights around the building.

Pier Fortunato Zanfretta was 26 years old and working alone. He suspected burglars might have entered the property, so he contacted his control room and went to investigate. But as he approached the villa, his voice suddenly changed.

His coworkers heard him speaking in terror over the radio, struggling to describe what was in front of him. Whatever he was seeing, he insisted, wasn’t human. Moments later, radio contact was lost.

His Coworkers Went Looking for Him

Zanfretta worked for the Val Bisagno private security cooperative, patrolling properties around Torriglia in northern Italy. That night, he had stopped at a villa known as Casa Nostra near Marzano di Torriglia. When he stopped responding to radio calls, two other guards, Walter Lauria and Raimondo Mascia, drove toward the property to find him.

They eventually located Zanfretta in a confused and badly frightened condition. His flashlight was nearby, and accounts of the search described his body as unusually hot despite the cold December weather. Once he recovered enough to speak, he described an encounter unlike anything his coworkers had heard before.

Creatures Almost Ten Feet Tall

Zanfretta said several enormous humanoid beings had appeared near the villa. They stood close to three metres tall, with powerful bodies, greenish skin, and unusually large yellow eyes.

Their heads looked unlike anything human. He also described a brilliant object near the property, which he believed was connected to the creatures.

But there was a problem. Zanfretta couldn’t clearly account for everything that had happened between his encounter and the moment his coworkers discovered him. That unexplained gap would eventually lead him into an even stranger investigation.

The Carabinieri Examined the Villa

The incident soon reached Italy’s Carabinieri, the national law-enforcement force. Brigadier Antonio Nucchi investigated the site and prepared an official report concerning the unusual encounter. According to accounts of the inspection, officers discovered strange impressions in the frozen ground near the property.

Some were described as large, horseshoe-shaped marks pressed deeply into the turf. Together, they reportedly covered an area approximately three metres across.

Other unusually large footprints were also found nearby. The marks gave investigators something to examine beyond Zanfretta’s description of the creatures.

And the inquiry soon expanded beyond the villa.

Fifty-Two People Reported Strange Lights

Nucchi collected statements from 52 people in Torriglia, Propata, and nearby communities who had reported unusual lights or luminous objects in the sky. Some witnesses described brilliant glows over the countryside. Others reported large illuminated shapes moving overhead.

The reports placed strange aerial activity in the surrounding region during the period of Zanfretta’s experiences. These people weren’t describing the enormous beings he had encountered, but their accounts added another layer to the investigation.

The case eventually reached judicial authorities in Genoa, where it was closed without criminal charges. Meanwhile, Zanfretta was searching for answers of his own.

Hypnosis Opened Another Chapter

Later in December 1978, Zanfretta underwent hypnosis in an attempt to recover the missing portion of his experience. During those sessions, he began describing events far beyond the encounter outside the villa.

He said the beings had taken him aboard a spacecraft and subjected him to examinations. He also described the interior of the craft and claimed that his captors had told him something about their origins.

Eventually, he began calling the creatures the Dargos and described a world named Titania. The account had grown into an elaborate story of alien abduction. And according to Zanfretta, his experiences were far from over.

The Encounters Continued for Years

Between 1978 and 1981, Zanfretta reported several additional encounters with the same mysterious beings. Some occurred while he was working, while others involved strange lights and periods when his whereabouts couldn’t immediately be established.

In December 1979, another disappearance during a security patrol prompted coworkers and authorities to search for him. He was eventually found near his vehicle.

These incidents attracted attention from journalists, television programs, and researchers interested in unexplained encounters. Zanfretta became one of Italy’s best-known UFO witnesses, and his story continued developing as he described further experiences.

The Story Changed His Life

The attention surrounding Zanfretta’s encounters followed him long after his work as a security guard. He appeared in interviews and television programs, describing experiences that had begun during a routine patrol in the Italian countryside.

His descriptions of the Dargos, their spacecraft, and their supposed world fascinated audiences. But there was one particularly unsettling aspect of his later accounts.

The encounters hadn’t ended when he left the isolated villa. He believed the same beings continued seeking him out. For most people, leaving a frightening place means leaving the experience behind.

Zanfretta said he could never get away from his visitors.

And they always seemed to know where to find him.