The article below was published in the daily newspaper Le Bien Public, Dijon, France, page 1, on January 12, 1954.
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Genoa, January 11. -- After eight months of work, Mr. Sciotone Mattolini, a marine technician in Genoa, has just obtained a patent for the construction of a "flying saucer." Mr. Mattolini stated that he had made contact with American authorities regarding practical applications of his invention.
The craft includes a disc-shaped wing, a central aluminum sphere, and a command cabin. The circular wing is made of plastic material. The craft, which is expected to weigh five tons and cost 500 million lira to build, takes off from an 18-meter-tall tower. Two jet engines give it a speed capability of up to 3,000 kilometers per hour. According to tests conducted by its inventor, the craft so far is only able to land on water.
The Italian government, according to Mr. Mattolini, has not considered the project.
Note: I can find absolutely no trace of "M. Sciotone Mattolini", and even less of any flying saucer he may have built.
It should be understood that at the time, a good number of more or less competent tinkerers, inspired by the news about "flying saucer" sightings, would draw up simple blueprints for terrestrial jet-powered "flying saucers" of varying complexity and file a patent, or build a scaled-down, non-motorized model. But not a single one of these projects ever led to an actual flying craft - not the project of the Frenchman René Couzinet, nor even the Canadian-American project Avrocar, aka Silverbug, the most serious among them.
