On October 27, 1954, Fiorentina's reserves were playing local rivals Pistoiese at the Stadio Artemio Franchi in Florence when the crowd suddenly went quiet. Fast-moving objects had stopped over the stadium. Witnesses described them as cigar-shaped, or like an egg moving very slowly.
The sighting lasted a couple of minutes. Then a silvery, glittering substance began falling and covered parts of the stadium. Similar falls and "shiny balls" were reported elsewhere in Tuscany over the next few days.
The usual explanation for such falls is silk from mass-migrating spiders. But a sample analysed at the University of Florence was found to contain boron, silicon, calcium and magnesium, which did not seem to fit. The match remains Italy's most famous UFO sighting.