THE ITALIAN
EXAMPLE
Unfortunately, UFO research and study activity carried out in Italy is very
badly known abroad, mainly due to the language barrier preventing
a quick diffusion of the documents. The same problem produced a
very imprecise knowledge of the national sightings, where international
researchers could actually find a lot of very interesting cases. The
very few "classic" events often published in books and
magazines are usually full of mistakes if not completely wrong.
This is another typical problem of the transmission of
information, a problem very common in the past activity of
ufologists which now can be solved for its most part, thanks to
new computer-based technologies.
It is likely a surprise for many UFO researchers to get
acquainted with the quantity and quality of finished and
in-progress Italian projects. It is even a bigger surprise to
know most projects are currently carried out by computers and
Italian ufologists have been pioneers, together with their American colleagues,
in the massive use of the personal computer to run their
activities. Between 1984 and
1985 the very first database programs have been developed on the
small Commodore 64 home computer to store and manage generic
Italian sightings and special collections of cases. Thanks to the
popularity of such a machine, several UFO buffs contributed locally
to the collection of all known Italian UFO sightings, soon making
available a sample in excess of 9,000 events ranging between 1900
and 1990. Still around the mid '80s there have been the early experiments
with software devoted to the automatic presentation of text and graphics
about UFOs, ufology, classic sightings and results of UFO research, successfully
presented in conjunction with several conferences and shows. In 1986
the very first European BBS completely devoted to UFOs was established
and run by myself for more than two years and then disbanded due
to personal issues. A new BBS, named "U-Link", was
established in 1989 in Rome and it is still active. Between 1988
and 1992 about eight issues of a bulletin completely devoted to
the computer applications to UFO research, "The Computer UFO
Newsletter", have been published as an early experiment to
spread and promote the subject, completely unknown to most UFO
buffs. Circulation was quite limited and the reaction from the
UFO movement was quite cool, likely beacuse ahead of the times.
The use of computers is now normal in the activity of most Italian ufologists, so much that three quarters of the material currently produced by the Italian Center for UFO Studies is available as files for MS-DOS personal computers or Macs. A large percentage of exchanges of material (articles, papers, images, letters, etc ....) takes place by floppy disks, saving money, time and adding a higher flexibility in the management of such information.
Among the works and research projects based on computer facilities, some of them are worth to be introduced as meaningful examples of Italian ufologists activities. Most of these projects have been carried out on behalf of the Italian Center for UFO Studies, the leader organization as regards quantity and quality of produced information and services. Besides promoting the scientific study of the UFO phenomenon, CISU aims at the spreading of information and development/support of research activities, fields where computer facilities may deliver an oustanding help.