To begin with, I will state that this post was months in the making (mostly waiting and chasing false leads) and carries with it perhaps some answers, plenty of questions, and perhaps for some, a similarity to their own experiences. Special thanks to u/Neo-Rex as well as u/ebycon for their assistance in helping me find and rule out some areas of research.
Disclaimer: The following images and text are provided without photo manipulation on my end (besides simple cropping and scanning). There are going to be many references in this post to Italian media, magazines, as well as individual writers. This is by no means an endorsement, advertisement, or other form of ARG intended to sell, market, or persuade anyone to buy, rent, or procure any of the described materials. Because I know this is a new area of topic, and because the images provided are of an unusual nature, I will provide various sources to prove that these images are not enhanced, manipulated by hand or by a contemporary photo manipulation program or AI generation.
Before we get into the nitty gritty of the images I will provide background as to how I came upon these images, and the flow of information.
I was first made aware of these images after researching separate alien encounters for a post of mine (see that post here for further details regarding that) one of the sources used was "alieni in italia 1945-1995 50 anni di incontri ravvicinati". On page VIII towards the back of the book these images (or rather image as three were compressed into one section) as well as the following text appears
https://preview.redd.it/zz1ti49qm60d1.jpg?width=806&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e53f7b8ec62fb68abc04a29caa117d2f21c13325
"Vero alieno o scoop giornalistico? Ho evitato di inserire nel presente catalogo questo caso avvero singolare. Si tratte infatti di alcune foto )5_ scattate da un non meglio indentificato "professore universitario di pavia" nell'estate del 1986 e pubblicate da sette. il settimanale del Corriere della Sera. Si referiscono ad una presunta entita aliena che si sarebbe manifestata al professore in una situazione del tutto casuale. Non sono mancati pareri sfavorevoli expressi da parecchi ufologi. ( Foto tratte da: Sette n. 9/10 sette giorni illustrati dal Corriere della Sera, 5 marzo, 1988.
Translated: "Real alien or journalistic scoop? I have avoided including in the present catalog this singular case. These are in fact some photos(5) taken by an unidentified "university professor from Pavia" in the summer of 1986 and published by seven. The weekly newspaper Corriere della Sera. They refer to an alleged alien entity that allegedly manifested itself to the professor in a completely random situation. There was no shortage of unfavorable opinions expressed by several ufologists. ( Photo taken from: Seven No. 9/10 seven days illustrated by Corriere della Sera, March 5, 1988.
That was all the information provided within. (it should be noted that although this description mentions 5 photos, there are only these 3 provided within Moreno Tambellinis book.) These images captured my attention fairly quickly as I am fairly familiar with purported alien/supernatural photographs, so to find one I have never seen, and in such a quality which is general not present within other such photos as these, was more than enough to tip my curiosity in the direction of delving deeper.
First attempt at finding further information regarding these photos, and this particular magazine issue ended in little success, though I was able to find what I, at the time, believed to be a correctly colorized image of this entity. See below.
https://preview.redd.it/xpyz6eeum60d1.png?width=341&format=png&auto=webp&s=292a9a3afe55c7e83d0f6d5ccce43aa5f35d9fec
Unassuming on some random blog that attributed a name to this entity while providing no further information regarding the image itself (as certain ufological circles are want to do). Not finding further information I attempted to find further information based off of this colorized image, but to no avail. Save for one source that used this image ( in a different colorized manner, slightly less yellow and oozing with potential, that being this image by Argentinian Ufologist Dante Franch. See below.
https://preview.redd.it/tl0dx4lym60d1.png?width=280&format=png&auto=webp&s=ca523a7f18df130f09c9174e925d044a89852690
Finally, someone who might have a lead on this information! But no, once again this image is deceptively alluring as the contents of this book have absolutely nothing to do with the Sette report, but simply use its image to describe unsourced and unverified tales of the City of Erks (a wild dive on its own and may be deserving of its own post) and other entities that supposedly have a resemblance to this cover image.
Upon further searches I came across this archived link with additional images some with closer to truth color, including the aforementioned first colorized image here https://web.archive.org/web/20080312200229/https://www.anomalia.org/perspectivas/fotosets/campo_cielo.htm as well as the additional references. The author of this blog post is Mexican Ufologist Luis Ruiz Noguez, notable for his skepticism and thorough investigation relating to this material, so it was a no-brainier to look into his research regarding this seeing as he had previously mentioned it here on his blogpost. So where better to look than his book "Extraterrestres ante las camaras" Volume X dealing specifically with italian encounters and purported alien photographs. But again, despite his previous notation in this blog, the contents of these images specifically are nowhere to be seen or mentioned within this book.
Research stagnated for some time during the search process for the original source cited in Moreno Tambellinis book. I was able after five months (you have no idea how hard it was to find a copy) able to acquire a copy of this magazine and finally was able to determine that the previously assumed white coverall of this entities outfit has been a false notion.
The following text is a translation of the pages within this issue of march 7th 1988 Sette: Corriere della Cera . 9/10, the original scans, as well as a translated text document of these pages can be found in the sources listed below. Important note: although these images are primary focus of this article, it does meander into thoughts on Whitley Striebers book "Communion" (which will be a source of contention that will be covered later in this post). But the translated post here is the relevant text to these images.
"Just as we were editing a report on the UFO phenomenon that was supposed to appear on 7 at the same time as the television passage of Spielberg's film Close Encounters of the third kind, we came across a resounding surprise: the images published in these pages and on the cover of this issue. They were taken completely by chance, one summer evening in 1986, by a professor at the University of Pavia, above all suspicion and known for his balance, his intelligence and rationality, completely alien to the somewhat emphatic and vaguely bizarre world of the so-called "contactees": those people who say they have entered into a relationship with unknown entities from the cosmos."
"He is a completely normal person who has always been skeptical of the reports of unidentified flying objects and is now also a testimony, erroneous to the idea that his name is related to the disturbing figure captured by his camera. The university lecturer has agreed to give us what he considers to be evidence of his shocking experience in exchange for absolute confidentiality"
"What to make of these images? We can make a few assumptions.
A) The author of the photos is a mystrifier. It is unlikely: too much resistance has opposed the publication of his document (which he has yielded for free to 7). In addition, he wishes to remain anonymous. A behavior that is certainly not that of those who want to speculate on a scooop, true or presumed.
B) The author is the victim of a game. Someone made him take "fireflies for lanterns". A well-thought-out game, by true professionals. It is not unlikely, even if the professor is not a "contactee", one obsessed with extraterrestrials, that is, a man who could arouse "temptations" among those who know him.
C) The photos really document something alien. A mysterious otherness has been captured by the professor's camera, who was the first to be surprised by this tangible presence, imprinted on the film that is absolutely different from a hallucination. What to say? What are we to think of images that forcefully re-propose the problem (or the dream, or the myth, or the nightmare) of the existence of other beings, of other civilizations that populate galaxies or dimensions unknown to us? Science continues to question these facts, but an answer is still a long way off. All experiences at the "edge of reality" are embarrassing. The line that divides science and mystery is still vague. Prudence, in these cases, is a must. And the desire not to appear is widespread among the witnesses. The professor from Pavia, who chose restriction, has an illustrious precedent."
"These images, taken on a summer evening in 1986 by a professor at the University of Pavia, who asked to remain anonymous, are the subject of various hypotheses of interpretation in the text of the article. The reader is free to draw his own conclusions."
Here are the direct scans of this entity as they appear in the magazine, scanned directly out of a physical copy of this magazine. (do note although these images are uploaded in different order I believe they may be sorted as such, I make no claim to the accuracy of this in terms of chronological order, but which is most aesthetically appeasing.)
https://preview.redd.it/mk91ugp3n60d1.png?width=520&format=png&auto=webp&s=8218b2c6c3b0a508ef086c37c2d0e07552f73910
https://preview.redd.it/7cehtg65n60d1.png?width=385&format=png&auto=webp&s=805fe3d0c8be92d888412d1eeccef6bc88a4708a
https://preview.redd.it/izuhsjl6n60d1.png?width=388&format=png&auto=webp&s=215f53fa963abdeecb06ad8074583f7260b2df69
https://preview.redd.it/no9xn3f7n60d1.png?width=380&format=png&auto=webp&s=4ed13e6bf07df8a251f6368aab92383ad1bb26ca
https://preview.redd.it/hnf9x148n60d1.png?width=379&format=png&auto=webp&s=80de62f126a5f7770a12790d167e0aebea8ef378
Now, while the article was very keen to post certain aspects of this, it was rather lacking, and it must be stated although the title of this issue, as well as the description in the article infer this is related to UFO's. There is no mention of an actual UFO or craft present within this encounter, or at the very least, this information was omitted from the article, and was potentially removed at the request of the professor in question, though that is speculation on my part.
The following sections will deal with the author of this previous issue, as well as the two follow-up articles and their individual authors.
There is more information present as the above text states, not from the previous issue, but from two separate follow-up articles that were saved and printed in the Italian Ufo magazine "UFO express no. 043." Link to the full untranslated issue here/UFO%20Express%20-%20No%20043.pdf). These separate addendums fully cover the images in question and are critical but not overly-so. The most important aspect to this is that the professor provided further information to Sette, primarily about what they were doing prior to this entities appearance, but also their means of photographic capture.
{Page 1}
UFO: Is this being from another world? read the scroll on the cover of 7 (No. 9/10) that we republish on this page. Hundreds of phone calls and letters arrived at the editorial office, and they continue to arrive after Mino Damato in his TV program Alla ricerca dell'arca (Sunday, March 27, Rai 3 8:30 p.m.) dealt with the same images, depicting a hypothetical alien photographed by a professor at the University of Pavia one summer evening in 1986.
There are those who believe in this hypothetical alien and those who do not, but all of the readers who have phoned or written are bound to each other by the rejection of that question mark printed on the cover: each of them is persuaded to erase the hypothesis, to tear away the veil of the enigma. And they split into two equally intolerant parties, leaving no room for doubt. We have chosen two exemplary letters. The first letter comes from Brixen and is signed by Mr. Nicola De Paola (2 Clesia Street). He says “the alien is a tobogganist: typical are the tight suit the aerodynamic helmet, the face crushed by the transparent visor, the blurred colors and contours of the photos are due to the fact that they were taken from television, with the obj vo blurred or too close up and strange an alien with limbs, head, face and body identical to those of man; I too will be able to take photographs quite similar to those published; as a reader I feel mocked.”
Others have certainly seen in the hypothetical alien: a surgeon, a nurse, an ice skater, an Icelandic firefighter, a Norwegian cryologist (sic), a KGB spy, a hockey player with his head bandaged; in short, some man in overalls or uniforms. No one has identified in the figures, despite the width of the pelvis, a woman or an androgynous. The second letter comes from Ferrara and is signed by Mr. Giovanni Mantovani (via Luigi Borsari 51). Says; When I saw the photographs I immediately thought: but look, it looks like the E.T. seen by R.M on September 2, 1987 while he was fishing on the bank of the Canal Bianco (RO). He felt an intense tingling, turned around and saw a strange individual: dark complexion, 2 meters tall, hair that looked like plastic, wearing a luminescent blue jumpsuit. The apparition lasted a few seconds.R.M. felt a chill, a feeling that was renewed at the sight of your photos... Only one remark can be made to the professor of Pavia: that of not having given the readers further clarifications about the close approach of the third type...
Here are the further clarifications that the professor from Pavia has allowed us to give, although he is consumed by the fear of being uncovered and covered with ridicule. The photos were taken by a Nikon camera, with motor-drive, 55 mm lens. Micro, 3.5 aperture, shutter speed: 1/4 second Polachrome film, 40 Asa sensitivity. Shortly after the sun went down, the professor was completing some experiments on the optical perception of dogs (how does a dog see things in the world? Black and white? With what depth, in what perspective?). That alone is almost ridiculous. We were missing the hypothetical alien. A dog joke? Maybe. But the professor never solved the riddle. And dogs don't talk. ~ Paolo Pietroni
{page caption}
The hypothetical alien out of 7 has caused conflicting reactions. The photo was taken from a Nikon by a university lecturer while carrying out experiments on the visual perception of dogs
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paolo_Pietroni (information about this addendums author)
{Page 2}
Your E.T. seems to me to be a feminine being...
Dear editor, I am writing to you in relation to the series of 5 photographs taken by a better identified professor of Pavia one summer evening in 1986 and which appeared in the supplement of the Corriere della Sera n. 9/10 Since I am not familiar with photographic technique, I have written down the shooting parameters communicated by you personally during Mino D'Amato's television program In Search of the Ark on March 27.
Correct me if I'm wrong: Nikon camera body with motor, 5.5 mm focal length lens, aperture dia 3.5, exposure time 1/15 of a second. Certainly, with this adjustment, every little movement of the camera or of the photographed subject causes a blurred or rather blurred photograph. Probably, this whole story of the photos arose from the need of the Rizzoli Group to launch on the market the Italian version of the best American seller Communion by Ted Jacob, which deals, coincidentally, with the subject of extraterrestrials. This colossal business is also sponsored by the production of the film, which has been "posted" while waiting for the possible buyers of such a profitable product to be sufficiently sensitized...
Having said this, I wish, through his kindness, to convey to the professor of Pavia my modest comments on his photos. Feminism aside, I confess that the first spontaneous observation I made on these photographs was to recognize without a shadow of a doubt a woman, or rather a female being; The conformation of the hips, the breasts, combined with the grace of the bowed pose with folded arms, unequivocally belonged to a woman. But let's get to the details.
The suit - It appears so tight that it shows every little part of the body so as to give the impression of a "second skin"; It has light blue-green bands (as shown in the photo on the right on page 74) that are more evident around the neck, on the shoulders and on the arms.
The hands - They appear covered by the sleeves and more elongated than ours (cover figure), dare I say w(bed.
The head - Although it is more mobile, it clearly shows these elements: oval face with a slightly flattened nose, microphone with a light-colored support arm placed at the height of the left ear (photo on the right, page 74)
The headset - It is completely different from any type currently built because it contains a transceiver module at the top for contact with some support organ (e.g. an operations center, or a cosmoplane, or another operator), similar to what happens in Italy when astronauts go out of their vehicle and maintain constant radio contact with the control center.
The transceiver part can be seen both in the cover photo and on page 74, left and right, and is indicated by the protuberance on the top of the skull.
This study was born well out of any venal or other interest, in fact I am not a ufologist, but a pilot in full flight activity and with command responsibilities; I have been a first-hand witness to the phenomenon commonly associated with the improper name of UFO
Sure of the need to deal with the subject with more compatible methodologies than those promulgated by scientists and ufologists, I dedicate myself to the enhancement of aeronautical contactism, intending with this new term to redefine the sightings of military and civil pilots, aeronautical technicians, engineers, etc. who through direct experience with the phenomenon have acquired the conviction that we are not alone Only those who have had a direct impact with the phenomenon (the contactee) can provide a plausible image of themselves... everything else... They are only lucubrations born from mindsets that are not up-to-date with the present sotric moment on the one hand, and with the characteristics of the phenomenon on the other.
{end of article caption}
I forwarded his observations to the professor in Pavia, author of the photos depicting the hypothetical alien. Thank you for your interesting analysis. You are free to believe it or not, but the Rizzoli Communion book had an absolutely random presence in our service: we liked the design of the cover; the portrait of that E.T. and we thought of enriching the illustrations of the service.
Roberto Doz (a fairly interesting individual on his own, air force colonel with his own UFO sighting) read more on that here
As for the author of the original article. Their name is Nullo Cantaroni, and may be more well known by his wife Bice Cairati( Sveva Casati Modigiani), Nullo Cantaroni had a fairly successful journalistic career, dealing primarily in medicine as co-authorized by fellow science journalist Severina Cantaroni. He eventually succumbed to Parkinson's disease. I make mention of these authors, Roberto Doz (who has a very good reason to be interested in the topic as he had his own experience). As well as the other two as these are not the ramblings of some crazy pumping out their own versions of weekly world news, but were and still are highly credible and respected peoples, whom by their own association are taking the flak for posting this material to begin with.
From here on out, this is going to be a further dive into the already presented material, some comparisons with other cases which have direct correlation with these images, as well as other information during my research that has not been touched on up until this point.
In the first follow-up article there is mention of a show "Alla Ricera dell'arca (In search of the ARK)". With he show discussing the images posted here. I was able to confirm that this episode does exist, with the covered material, and is within the RAI archives (Italian TV network/station). However, they would not lend the episode out to a non-Italian citizen, or someone associated with a University, or media conglomeration. I mention this as there may be more material covered in this episode that was not provided in the main article and its follow-ups. If there are any Italian citizens, or peoples reading this who have the appropriate accreditation to acquire a copy of this episode I would ask for your cooperation in attempting to do so. If someone has a copy of this simply recorded off of an old VHS I implore you to make that available to all.
Going back to the main article, the meandering to Communion is certainly off-putting, though I disagree with the previous mention that this was a hoax on the part of the publication to push Communion. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence after all (even though Carl Sagan never bothered with the evidence, side tangent: listen to J Allen Hynek talk about that here) But I believe these images were published in good faith on part of Nullo Cantaroni, his background and thorough career would make this unlikely.
So as it figures there are three scenarios here that describe this scenario (in no particular order of likelihood)
1) these images are hoaxed by the publication to push communion
2) these images are hoaxed by the supposed professor
3) these images are legitimate and provide evidence of a non-earth based entity.
Before I move on I'd like to mention that I did attempt to reach out to Corriere della Sera multiple times regarding this material but was never given a response.
To round this off the images themselves. Humanoid obviously, female-appearing, now I say appearing because assuming this really is some unexpected entity, there is no guarantee that the physiology of this figure accurately represents its determination, and although this entity appears to have what we'd consider to be skin, that may only be a covering to another form or may be some type of robotic synthetic life-form designed specifically to mimic human appearances. What may be most interesting or most alarming depending on your perspective is this entities face appears to change between shots, and yet seemingly keeps the same body proportions. If you are of the opinion this is some type of hoax you could state this is an obvious inconsistency between shots. On the other hand, that is an obvious conclusion to make and showing differentiating faces would be a rather odd choice on the part of a hoaxer. This again could be part of the photographing process, as there is motion blur between some of these photos and it simply gives an appearance that things are changing.
There are other features which must be touched upon, namely the clothing, but in one such photo, what appears to be some type of headgear wrapped around this entities face. To anyone with a passing knowledge of ufology and its associated lore would know, the favorite of any interstellar interloper is the tight formfitting bodysuit. Primarily described as blue, although other colors are often reported. But unlike most humanoid encounters described in the west, this entity seems to have a darker complexion about them. Now does that mean this does not fit in with established prior encounters? Not at all, for whatever reason the blonde-hair nordic is the most popular discussion topic when it comes to human-adjacent lifeforms, but in other places, and Italy especially, some of their most well know or most covered, feature entities with darker complexions. Case in point
https://preview.redd.it/o7w5pu2in60d1.jpg?width=884&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d203853c4be4a37108aeea4a7122826bd21525bb
This encounter in 1978 Italy with a dark-skinned entity in a shimmering scaled suit. Or this description of a dark skinned entity with a similar described blue suit reported in 1987
Location. Villamarzana, Rome, Italy Date: September 2 1987 Time: 1700
Renzo Munari was fishing on the Bianco Canal when he noticed a strange object flying at a moderated speed over the river, as the object disappeared from sight he felt a strange prickling sensation in his body, resembling electrical static. Turning around he saw a very tall human-like figure staring intently at him. The figure was at least 2 meters in height, with orange hair and dark skin. He wore a luminous blue colored tight fitting coverall. On the left side of his chest there was a square orange colored “tag.” During the encounter the witness felt a cool wave of air and light headed. The figure apparently disappeared into the brush.
Source: Archivio SUF, USOCAT by The Italian Center forUFO Studies (CISU)
There is also this report from 1989 Russia
Location. Salsk, Rostov region, Russia Date: August 13 1989 Time: 2300
Working at a cotton irrigation plant Vasiliy Ivanovich suddenly experienced total equipment failure without any apparent cause. While searching for the cause of the breakdown, the witness heard a loud voice, “He is searching for the cause”. Looking around he saw four humanoids standing close to him. One stood in the front, while the other three stood in the back. He described the humanoids as tall, with long dangling arms, with a large head, flattened on the top and wide at the temples. The humanoids are dark red or brown in color with large egg-shaped eyes and two holes instead of a nose. They have no lips, and thin strip instead of a mouth. They were wearing truncated shiny blue coveralls and footwear. The humanoid standing at the front of the others held a box in his hand and a soft pleasant voice seemed to emanate from the box. He held the box at stomach level. Ivanovich approached the humanoids and asked who they were; the reply was a question asking him if he wanted to go with them. At this point the witness saw a light at the edge of the nearby woods and a hovering object. The humanoids then floated slowly towards the craft and disappeared. Terrified the witness ran to the village to notify other witnesses but upon returning to the site the humanoids had already left.
Source:UFOZONE Russia
As for the headgear, there is a report from 1995 Italy of an entity not resembling this one in this post, but wearing a similarly described headpiece.
Location: Ancona, Italy Date: February 3 1994, Time: 9:00am
Six witnesses, including a Mr. Giulo observed a strange humanoid wandering around some nearby rocks. The humanoid was described as about 1 meter and a half in height, wearing a tight fitting black coverall that covered his whole body including a pair of very long feet. The face was elongated with two huge round eyes, with round black pupils. It appeared to be wearing earphones with a small thin protruding antenna. It seemed to stagger slowly and after about 10 minutes it rose up slowly and vertically into the air, quickly disappearing from sight
Source: CISU Italy.
There is also this case from Barisciano Italy 1978 in which an entity bearing a striking similar blue color to the outfit was seen, with an adorning white "cap" or hairpiece that resembled that of a cap. read the untranslated version of that encounter here/Notiziario%20UFO%20-%201984%2001-02%20-%20Vol%2018%20No%20102.pdf)
https://preview.redd.it/3ei6o741q60d1.png?width=310&format=png&auto=webp&s=2de94be231313b38b979bbd4b46b3800466e8f26
Finally, lets get back to the person allegedly behind this whole spiel, the Professor. A claim such as this, where an entity appears in ones presence without any known means is a stark claim all on its own, to provide photos of such an encounter is another thing all together, but being as its an anonymous person, how can we gleam any credibility out of this? To put it in other words, is there enough information provided within the original article as well as the follow-up articles to speculate on a potential identity to who this man could have been?
Emphatically yes, infact there is only one such individual who fits the criteria with the information provided, granted this information was given after the fact of the original articles publication. In the first article within UFO express that discusses this, we are told this person is running experiments relating to dogs (canine) eyesight, but the author was unsure whether or not this is a jest of some sort. I do not believe it is, in the secondary article it is again mentioned that this professor is working with canine eyesight, but in a caption on the second page it is emphasized this was "non-academic research". Now does that mean it was unrelated to their professional focus? No, it simply means this research was carried outside of official means. This leads me to who I believe the primary suspect is in terms of a potential identity, could there be other more accurate people? Perhaps. But this persons tenure and level of research within this subject and the timeframe of when they were working at the University of Pavia lines up perfectly with who this person could be. However, because of doxxing concerns, and that they initially requested complete anonymity from the publication I will not be directly naming their identity here. But I will heavily state that this person worked in the university of Pavia from 1985 in the zoology department and specifically with foxes and wolves. With this person having worked and published (into the present) works related to both of these fields. I have attempted to personally reach out to this professor both via email & telephone (their academic numbers, not personal) but have received no response. I would ask that if you do look into who this person is that you do not attempt to directly contact them as their lack of a response is response enough.
What was the encounter like? How long did it go on for? Was there a conversation or was this a quick in and out? These questions and more are not answered here, and perhaps never will be unless someone; the professor, an associate, or anyone else, comes forward with more details we are left wondering and wanting more. There is of course much to be said about these images and the potential for further investigations, including the peculiar hands this entity seems to posses that does have a passing resemblance to other cases, but lest this drag on to long I will leave it here and attempt to answer any questions that I may be capable of giving insight on.
Sources and resources used Archive link for translations and scans of original Corriere della Sera article https://archive.org/details/Paviaentity
Magazine and other ufological material sources: https://files.afu.se/Downloads/?dir=./
Document scanner for afu and other documents/sites https://updb.app/
alieni in italia by Moreno Tambelini
ImgOps for reverse image searching
https://ufologie.patrickgross.org/sys/text.htm & Albert Rosales for their compilations of humanoid encounters.
If you have had an encounter or know someone who has had an encounter similar to this or identical to this, do not hesitate to DM or message me with the details.

To begin with, I will state that this post was months in the making (mostly waiting and chasing false leads) and carries with it perhaps some answers, plenty of questions, and perhaps for some, a similarity to their own experiences. Special thanks to u/Neo-Rex as well as u/ebycon for their assistance in helping me find and rule out some areas of research.
Disclaimer: The following images and text are provided without photo manipulation on my end (besides simple cropping and scanning). There are going to be many references in this post to Italian media, magazines, as well as individual writers. This is by no means an endorsement, advertisement, or other form of ARG intended to sell, market, or persuade anyone to buy, rent, or procure any of the described materials. Because I know this is a new area of topic, and because the images provided are of an unusual nature, I will provide various sources to prove that these images are not enhanced, manipulated by hand or by a contemporary photo manipulation program or AI generation.
Before we get into the nitty gritty of the images I will provide background as to how I came upon these images, and the flow of information.
I was first made aware of these images after researching separate alien encounters for a post of mine (see that post here for further details regarding that) one of the sources used was "alieni in italia 1945-1995 50 anni di incontri ravvicinati". On page VIII towards the back of the book these images (or rather image as three were compressed into one section) as well as the following text appears
https://preview.redd.it/le5wrt3rm60d1.jpg?width=806&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=39919dfcd089925de049eb66794003a5dab20573
"Vero alieno o scoop giornalistico? Ho evitato di inserire nel presente catalogo questo caso avvero singolare. Si tratte infatti di alcune foto )5_ scattate da un non meglio indentificato "professore universitario di pavia" nell'estate del 1986 e pubblicate da sette. il settimanale del Corriere della Sera. Si referiscono ad una presunta entita aliena che si sarebbe manifestata al professore in una situazione del tutto casuale. Non sono mancati pareri sfavorevoli expressi da parecchi ufologi. ( Foto tratte da: Sette n. 9/10 sette giorni illustrati dal Corriere della Sera, 5 marzo, 1988.
Translated: "Real alien or journalistic scoop? I have avoided including in the present catalog this singular case. These are in fact some photos(5) taken by an unidentified "university professor from Pavia" in the summer of 1986 and published by seven. The weekly newspaper Corriere della Sera. They refer to an alleged alien entity that allegedly manifested itself to the professor in a completely random situation. There was no shortage of unfavorable opinions expressed by several ufologists. ( Photo taken from: Seven No. 9/10 seven days illustrated by Corriere della Sera, March 5, 1988.
That was all the information provided within. (it should be noted that although this description mentions 5 photos, there are only these 3 provided within Moreno Tambellinis book.) These images captured my attention fairly quickly as I am fairly familiar with purported alien/supernatural photographs, so to find one I have never seen, and in such a quality which is general not present within other such photos as these, was more than enough to tip my curiosity in the direction of delving deeper.
First attempt at finding further information regarding these photos, and this particular magazine issue ended in little success, though I was able to find what I, at the time, believed to be a correctly colorized image of this entity. See below.
https://preview.redd.it/tc06rvxum60d1.png?width=341&format=png&auto=webp&s=141ee2128cdcd0894f57f999876ff380a4def235
Unassuming on some random blog that attributed a name to this entity while providing no further information regarding the image itself (as certain ufological circles are want to do). Not finding further information I attempted to find further information based off of this colorized image, but to no avail. Save for one source that used this image ( in a different colorized manner, slightly less yellow and oozing with potential, that being this image by Argentinian Ufologist Dante Franch. See below.
https://preview.redd.it/39i2rdvxm60d1.png?width=280&format=png&auto=webp&s=14bf476ca33164db334bc4b835a52b349d66990d
Finally, someone who might have a lead on this information! But no, once again this image is deceptively alluring as the contents of this book have absolutely nothing to do with the Sette report, but simply use its image to describe unsourced and unverified tales of the City of Erks (a wild dive on its own and may be deserving of its own post) and other entities that supposedly have a resemblance to this cover image.
Upon further searches I came across this archived link with additional images some with closer to truth color, including the aforementioned first colorized image here https://web.archive.org/web/20080312200229/https://www.anomalia.org/perspectivas/fotosets/campo_cielo.htm as well as the additional references. The author of this blog post is Mexican Ufologist Luis Ruiz Noguez, notable for his skepticism and thorough investigation relating to this material, so it was a no-brainier to look into his research regarding this seeing as he had previously mentioned it here on his blogpost. So where better to look than his book "Extraterrestres ante las camaras" Volume X dealing specifically with italian encounters and purported alien photographs. But again, despite his previous notation in this blog, the contents of these images specifically are nowhere to be seen or mentioned within this book.
Research stagnated for some time during the search process for the original source cited in Moreno Tambellinis book. I was able after five months (you have no idea how hard it was to find a copy) able to acquire a copy of this magazine and finally was able to determine that the previously assumed white coverall of this entities outfit has been a false notion.
The following text is a translation of the pages within this issue of march 7th 1988 Sette: Corriere della Cera . 9/10, the original scans, as well as a translated text document of these pages can be found in the sources listed below. Important note: although these images are primary focus of this article, it does meander into thoughts on Whitley Striebers book "Communion" (which will be a source of contention that will be covered later in this post). But the translated post here is the relevant text to these images.
"Just as we were editing a report on the UFO phenomenon that was supposed to appear on 7 at the same time as the television passage of Spielberg's film Close Encounters of the third kind, we came across a resounding surprise: the images published in these pages and on the cover of this issue. They were taken completely by chance, one summer evening in 1986, by a professor at the University of Pavia, above all suspicion and known for his balance, his intelligence and rationality, completely alien to the somewhat emphatic and vaguely bizarre world of the so-called "contactees": those people who say they have entered into a relationship with unknown entities from the cosmos."
"He is a completely normal person who has always been skeptical of the reports of unidentified flying objects and is now also a testimony, erroneous to the idea that his name is related to the disturbing figure captured by his camera. The university lecturer has agreed to give us what he considers to be evidence of his shocking experience in exchange for absolute confidentiality"
"What to make of these images? We can make a few assumptions.
A) The author of the photos is a mystrifier. It is unlikely: too much resistance has opposed the publication of his document (which he has yielded for free to 7). In addition, he wishes to remain anonymous. A behavior that is certainly not that of those who want to speculate on a scooop, true or presumed.
B) The author is the victim of a game. Someone made him take "fireflies for lanterns". A well-thought-out game, by true professionals. It is not unlikely, even if the professor is not a "contactee", one obsessed with extraterrestrials, that is, a man who could arouse "temptations" among those who know him.
C) The photos really document something alien. A mysterious otherness has been captured by the professor's camera, who was the first to be surprised by this tangible presence, imprinted on the film that is absolutely different from a hallucination. What to say? What are we to think of images that forcefully re-propose the problem (or the dream, or the myth, or the nightmare) of the existence of other beings, of other civilizations that populate galaxies or dimensions unknown to us? Science continues to question these facts, but an answer is still a long way off. All experiences at the "edge of reality" are embarrassing. The line that divides science and mystery is still vague. Prudence, in these cases, is a must. And the desire not to appear is widespread among the witnesses. The professor from Pavia, who chose restriction, has an illustrious precedent."
"These images, taken on a summer evening in 1986 by a professor at the University of Pavia, who asked to remain anonymous, are the subject of various hypotheses of interpretation in the text of the article. The reader is free to draw his own conclusions."
Here are the direct scans of this entity as they appear in the magazine, scanned directly out of a physical copy of this magazine. (do note although these images are uploaded in different order I believe they may be sorted as such, I make no claim to the accuracy of this in terms of chronological order, but which is most aesthetically appeasing.)
https://preview.redd.it/tp2rqzw9n60d1.png?width=520&format=png&auto=webp&s=5bef77464608273cc1e6cc1f5b30665c5040a5c2
https://preview.redd.it/vekj9dman60d1.png?width=385&format=png&auto=webp&s=ba133aa62862f89a1e361e21a93de19e9d549496
https://preview.redd.it/sve90i9bn60d1.png?width=388&format=png&auto=webp&s=36e737a33624530c85e48f99d9ffd2d7db04d9f5
https://preview.redd.it/03pcokzbn60d1.png?width=380&format=png&auto=webp&s=b8503bec04896be177ce5420daf0ee71482318a6
https://preview.redd.it/yeehoehcn60d1.png?width=379&format=png&auto=webp&s=d33d814521c2581d2cb3b5c830fa62c5bae5782e
Now, while the article was very keen to post certain aspects of this, it was rather lacking, and it must be stated although the title of this issue, as well as the description in the article infer this is related to UFO's. There is no mention of an actual UFO or craft present within this encounter, or at the very least, this information was omitted from the article, and was potentially removed at the request of the professor in question, though that is speculation on my part.
The following sections will deal with the author of this previous issue, as well as the two follow-up articles and their individual authors.
There is more information present as the above text states, not from the previous issue, but from two separate follow-up articles that were saved and printed in the Italian Ufo magazine "UFO express no. 043." Link to the full untranslated issue here/UFO%20Express%20-%20No%20043.pdf). These separate addendums fully cover the images in question and are critical but not overly-so. The most important aspect to this is that the professor provided further information to Sette, primarily about what they were doing prior to this entities appearance, but also their means of photographic capture.
{Page 1}
UFO: Is this being from another world? read the scroll on the cover of 7 (No. 9/10) that we republish on this page. Hundreds of phone calls and letters arrived at the editorial office, and they continue to arrive after Mino Damato in his TV program Alla ricerca dell'arca (Sunday, March 27, Rai 3 8:30 p.m.) dealt with the same images, depicting a hypothetical alien photographed by a professor at the University of Pavia one summer evening in 1986.
There are those who believe in this hypothetical alien and those who do not, but all of the readers who have phoned or written are bound to each other by the rejection of that question mark printed on the cover: each of them is persuaded to erase the hypothesis, to tear away the veil of the enigma. And they split into two equally intolerant parties, leaving no room for doubt. We have chosen two exemplary letters. The first letter comes from Brixen and is signed by Mr. Nicola De Paola (2 Clesia Street). He says “the alien is a tobogganist: typical are the tight suit the aerodynamic helmet, the face crushed by the transparent visor, the blurred colors and contours of the photos are due to the fact that they were taken from television, with the obj vo blurred or too close up and strange an alien with limbs, head, face and body identical to those of man; I too will be able to take photographs quite similar to those published; as a reader I feel mocked.”
Others have certainly seen in the hypothetical alien: a surgeon, a nurse, an ice skater, an Icelandic firefighter, a Norwegian cryologist (sic), a KGB spy, a hockey player with his head bandaged; in short, some man in overalls or uniforms. No one has identified in the figures, despite the width of the pelvis, a woman or an androgynous. The second letter comes from Ferrara and is signed by Mr. Giovanni Mantovani (via Luigi Borsari 51). Says; When I saw the photographs I immediately thought: but look, it looks like the E.T. seen by R.M on September 2, 1987 while he was fishing on the bank of the Canal Bianco (RO). He felt an intense tingling, turned around and saw a strange individual: dark complexion, 2 meters tall, hair that looked like plastic, wearing a luminescent blue jumpsuit. The apparition lasted a few seconds.R.M. felt a chill, a feeling that was renewed at the sight of your photos... Only one remark can be made to the professor of Pavia: that of not having given the readers further clarifications about the close approach of the third type...
Here are the further clarifications that the professor from Pavia has allowed us to give, although he is consumed by the fear of being uncovered and covered with ridicule. The photos were taken by a Nikon camera, with motor-drive, 55 mm lens. Micro, 3.5 aperture, shutter speed: 1/4 second Polachrome film, 40 Asa sensitivity. Shortly after the sun went down, the professor was completing some experiments on the optical perception of dogs (how does a dog see things in the world? Black and white? With what depth, in what perspective?). That alone is almost ridiculous. We were missing the hypothetical alien. A dog joke? Maybe. But the professor never solved the riddle. And dogs don't talk. ~ Paolo Pietroni
{page caption}
The hypothetical alien out of 7 has caused conflicting reactions. The photo was taken from a Nikon by a university lecturer while carrying out experiments on the visual perception of dogs
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paolo_Pietroni (information about this addendums author)
{Page 2}
Your E.T. seems to me to be a feminine being...
Dear editor, I am writing to you in relation to the series of 5 photographs taken by a better identified professor of Pavia one summer evening in 1986 and which appeared in the supplement of the Corriere della Sera n. 9/10 Since I am not familiar with photographic technique, I have written down the shooting parameters communicated by you personally during Mino D'Amato's television program In Search of the Ark on March 27.
Correct me if I'm wrong: Nikon camera body with motor, 5.5 mm focal length lens, aperture dia 3.5, exposure time 1/15 of a second. Certainly, with this adjustment, every little movement of the camera or of the photographed subject causes a blurred or rather blurred photograph. Probably, this whole story of the photos arose from the need of the Rizzoli Group to launch on the market the Italian version of the best American seller Communion by Ted Jacob, which deals, coincidentally, with the subject of extraterrestrials. This colossal business is also sponsored by the production of the film, which has been "posted" while waiting for the possible buyers of such a profitable product to be sufficiently sensitized...
Having said this, I wish, through his kindness, to convey to the professor of Pavia my modest comments on his photos. Feminism aside, I confess that the first spontaneous observation I made on these photographs was to recognize without a shadow of a doubt a woman, or rather a female being; The conformation of the hips, the breasts, combined with the grace of the bowed pose with folded arms, unequivocally belonged to a woman. But let's get to the details.
The suit - It appears so tight that it shows every little part of the body so as to give the impression of a "second skin"; It has light blue-green bands (as shown in the photo on the right on page 74) that are more evident around the neck, on the shoulders and on the arms.
The hands - They appear covered by the sleeves and more elongated than ours (cover figure), dare I say w(bed.
The head - Although it is more mobile, it clearly shows these elements: oval face with a slightly flattened nose, microphone with a light-colored support arm placed at the height of the left ear (photo on the right, page 74)
The headset - It is completely different from any type currently built because it contains a transceiver module at the top for contact with some support organ (e.g. an operations center, or a cosmoplane, or another operator), similar to what happens in Italy when astronauts go out of their vehicle and maintain constant radio contact with the control center.
The transceiver part can be seen both in the cover photo and on page 74, left and right, and is indicated by the protuberance on the top of the skull.
This study was born well out of any venal or other interest, in fact I am not a ufologist, but a pilot in full flight activity and with command responsibilities; I have been a first-hand witness to the phenomenon commonly associated with the improper name of UFO
Sure of the need to deal with the subject with more compatible methodologies than those promulgated by scientists and ufologists, I dedicate myself to the enhancement of aeronautical contactism, intending with this new term to redefine the sightings of military and civil pilots, aeronautical technicians, engineers, etc. who through direct experience with the phenomenon have acquired the conviction that we are not alone Only those who have had a direct impact with the phenomenon (the contactee) can provide a plausible image of themselves... everything else... They are only lucubrations born from mindsets that are not up-to-date with the present sotric moment on the one hand, and with the characteristics of the phenomenon on the other.
{end of article caption}
I forwarded his observations to the professor in Pavia, author of the photos depicting the hypothetical alien. Thank you for your interesting analysis. You are free to believe it or not, but the Rizzoli Communion book had an absolutely random presence in our service: we liked the design of the cover; the portrait of that E.T. and we thought of enriching the illustrations of the service.
Roberto Doz (a fairly interesting individual on his own, air force colonel with his own UFO sighting) read more on that here
As for the author of the original article. Their name is Nullo Cantaroni, and may be more well known by his wife Bice Cairati( Sveva Casati Modigiani), Nullo Cantaroni had a fairly successful journalistic career, dealing primarily in medicine as co-authorized by fellow science journalist Severina Cantaroni. He eventually succumbed to Parkinson's disease. I make mention of these authors, Roberto Doz (who has a very good reason to be interested in the topic as he had his own experience). As well as the other two as these are not the ramblings of some crazy pumping out their own versions of weekly world news, but were and still are highly credible and respected peoples, whom by their own association are taking the flak for posting this material to begin with.
From here on out, this is going to be a further dive into the already presented material, some comparisons with other cases which have direct correlation with these images, as well as other information during my research that has not been touched on up until this point.
In the first follow-up article there is mention of a show "Alla Ricera dell'arca (In search of the ARK)". With he show discussing the images posted here. I was able to confirm that this episode does exist, with the covered material, and is within the RAI archives (Italian TV network/station). However, they would not lend the episode out to a non-Italian citizen, or someone associated with a University, or media conglomeration. I mention this as there may be more material covered in this episode that was not provided in the main article and its follow-ups. If there are any Italian citizens, or peoples reading this who have the appropriate accreditation to acquire a copy of this episode I would ask for your cooperation in attempting to do so. If someone has a copy of this simply recorded off of an old VHS I implore you to make that available to all.
Going back to the main article, the meandering to Communion is certainly off-putting, though I disagree with the previous mention that this was a hoax on the part of the publication to push Communion. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence after all (even though Carl Sagan never bothered with the evidence, side tangent: listen to J Allen Hynek talk about that here) But I believe these images were published in good faith on part of Nullo Cantaroni, his background and thorough career would make this unlikely.
So as it figures there are three scenarios here that describe this scenario (in no particular order of likelihood)
1) these images are hoaxed by the publication to push communion
2) these images are hoaxed by the supposed professor
3) these images are legitimate and provide evidence of a non-earth based entity.
Before I move on I'd like to mention that I did attempt to reach out to Corriere della Sera multiple times regarding this material but was never given a response.
To round this off the images themselves. Humanoid obviously, female-appearing, now I say appearing because assuming this really is some unexpected entity, there is no guarantee that the physiology of this figure accurately represents its determination, and although this entity appears to have what we'd consider to be skin, that may only be a covering to another form or may be some type of robotic synthetic life-form designed specifically to mimic human appearances. What may be most interesting or most alarming depending on your perspective is this entities face appears to change between shots, and yet seemingly keeps the same body proportions. If you are of the opinion this is some type of hoax you could state this is an obvious inconsistency between shots. On the other hand, that is an obvious conclusion to make and showing differentiating faces would be a rather odd choice on the part of a hoaxer. This again could be part of the photographing process, as there is motion blur between some of these photos and it simply gives an appearance that things are changing.
There are other features which must be touched upon, namely the clothing, but in one such photo, what appears to be some type of headgear wrapped around this entities face. To anyone with a passing knowledge of ufology and its associated lore would know, the favorite of any interstellar interloper is the tight formfitting bodysuit. Primarily described as blue, although other colors are often reported. But unlike most humanoid encounters described in the west, this entity seems to have a darker complexion about them. Now does that mean this does not fit in with established prior encounters? Not at all, for whatever reason the blonde-hair nordic is the most popular discussion topic when it comes to human-adjacent lifeforms, but in other places, and Italy especially, some of their most well know or most covered, feature entities with darker complexions. Case in point
https://preview.redd.it/0s611i7hn60d1.jpg?width=884&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cbc1472a0e49504d71a975ebaccb91639e592ed1
This encounter in 1978 Italy with a dark-skinned entity in a shimmering scaled suit. Or this description of a dark skinned entity with a similar described blue suit reported in 1987
Location. Villamarzana, Rome, Italy Date: September 2 1987 Time: 1700
Renzo Munari was fishing on the Bianco Canal when he noticed a strange object flying at a moderated speed over the river, as the object disappeared from sight he felt a strange prickling sensation in his body, resembling electrical static. Turning around he saw a very tall human-like figure staring intently at him. The figure was at least 2 meters in height, with orange hair and dark skin. He wore a luminous blue colored tight fitting coverall. On the left side of his chest there was a square orange colored “tag.” During the encounter the witness felt a cool wave of air and light headed. The figure apparently disappeared into the brush.
Source: Archivio SUF, USOCAT by The Italian Center forUFO Studies (CISU)
There is also this report from 1989 Russia
Location. Salsk, Rostov region, Russia Date: August 13 1989 Time: 2300
Working at a cotton irrigation plant Vasiliy Ivanovich suddenly experienced total equipment failure without any apparent cause. While searching for the cause of the breakdown, the witness heard a loud voice, “He is searching for the cause”. Looking around he saw four humanoids standing close to him. One stood in the front, while the other three stood in the back. He described the humanoids as tall, with long dangling arms, with a large head, flattened on the top and wide at the temples. The humanoids are dark red or brown in color with large egg-shaped eyes and two holes instead of a nose. They have no lips, and thin strip instead of a mouth. They were wearing truncated shiny blue coveralls and footwear. The humanoid standing at the front of the others held a box in his hand and a soft pleasant voice seemed to emanate from the box. He held the box at stomach level. Ivanovich approached the humanoids and asked who they were; the reply was a question asking him if he wanted to go with them. At this point the witness saw a light at the edge of the nearby woods and a hovering object. The humanoids then floated slowly towards the craft and disappeared. Terrified the witness ran to the village to notify other witnesses but upon returning to the site the humanoids had already left.
Source:UFOZONE Russia
As for the headgear, there is a report from 1995 Italy of an entity not resembling this one in this post, but wearing a similarly described headpiece.
Location: Ancona, Italy Date: February 3 1994, Time: 9:00am
Six witnesses, including a Mr. Giulo observed a strange humanoid wandering around some nearby rocks. The humanoid was described as about 1 meter and a half in height, wearing a tight fitting black coverall that covered his whole body including a pair of very long feet. The face was elongated with two huge round eyes, with round black pupils. It appeared to be wearing earphones with a small thin protruding antenna. It seemed to stagger slowly and after about 10 minutes it rose up slowly and vertically into the air, quickly disappearing from sight
Source: CISU Italy.
There is also this case from Barisciano Italy 1978 in which an entity bearing a striking similar blue color to the outfit was seen, with an adorning white "cap" or hairpiece that resembled that of a cap. read the untranslated version of that encounter here/Notiziario%20UFO%20-%201984%2001-02%20-%20Vol%2018%20No%20102.pdf)
https://preview.redd.it/gkgzwmvyp60d1.png?width=310&format=png&auto=webp&s=65238cf5324c0acfcc076966d141d0114eb89be5
Finally, lets get back to the person allegedly behind this whole spiel, the Professor. A claim such as this, where an entity appears in ones presence without any known means is a stark claim all on its own, to provide photos of such an encounter is another thing all together, but being as its an anonymous person, how can we gleam any credibility out of this? To put it in other words, is there enough information provided within the original article as well as the follow-up articles to speculate on a potential identity to who this man could have been?
Emphatically yes, infact there is only one such individual who fits the criteria with the information provided, granted this information was given after the fact of the original articles publication. In the first article within UFO express that discusses this, we are told this person is running experiments relating to dogs (canine) eyesight, but the author was unsure whether or not this is a jest of some sort. I do not believe it is, in the secondary article it is again mentioned that this professor is working with canine eyesight, but in a caption on the second page it is emphasized this was "non-academic research". Now does that mean it was unrelated to their professional focus? No, it simply means this research was carried outside of official means. This leads me to who I believe the primary suspect is in terms of a potential identity, could there be other more accurate people? Perhaps. But this persons tenure and level of research within this subject and the timeframe of when they were working at the University of Pavia lines up perfectly with who this person could be. However, because of doxxing concerns, and that they initially requested complete anonymity from the publication I will not be directly naming their identity here. But I will heavily state that this person worked in the university of Pavia from 1985 in the zoology department and specifically with foxes and wolves. With this person having worked and published (into the present) works related to both of these fields. I have attempted to personally reach out to this professor both via email & telephone (their academic numbers, not personal) but have
received no response. I would ask that if you do look into who this person is that you do not attempt to directly contact them as their lack of a response is response enough.
What was the encounter like? How long did it go on for? Was there a conversation or was this a quick in and out? These questions and more are not answered here, and perhaps never will be unless someone; the professor, an associate, or anyone else, comes forward with more details we are left wondering and wanting more. There is of course much to be said about these images and the potential for further investigations, including the peculiar hands this entity seems to posses that does have a passing resemblance to other cases, but lest this drag on to long I will leave it here and attempt to answer any questions that I may be capable of giving insight on.
Sources and resources used Archive link for translations and scans of original Corriere della Sera article https://archive.org/details/Paviaentity
Magazine and other ufological material sources: https://files.afu.se/Downloads/?dir=./
Document scanner for afu and other documents/sites https://updb.app/
alieni in italia by Moreno Tambelini
ImgOps for reverse image searching
https://ufologie.patrickgross.org/sys/text.htm & Albert Rosales for their compilations of humanoid encounters.
If you have had an encounter or know someone who has had an encounter similar to this or identical to this, do not hesitate to DM or message me with the details.

To begin with, I will state that this post was months in the making (mostly waiting and chasing false leads) and carries with it perhaps some answers, plenty of questions, and perhaps for some, a similarity to their own experiences. Special thanks to u/Neo-Rex as well as u/ebycon for their assistance in helping me find and rule out some areas of research.
Disclaimer: The following images and text are provided without photo manipulation on my end (besides simple cropping and scanning). There are going to be many references in this post to Italian media, magazines, as well as individual writers. This is by no means an endorsement, advertisement, or other form of ARG intended to sell, market, or persuade anyone to buy, rent, or procure any of the described materials. Because I know this is a new area of topic, and because the images provided are of an unusual nature, I will provide various sources to prove that these images are not enhanced, manipulated by hand or by a contemporary photo manipulation program or AI generation.
Before we get into the nitty gritty of the images I will provide background as to how I came upon these images, and the flow of information.
I was first made aware of these images after researching separate alien encounters for a post of mine (see that post here for further details regarding that) one of the sources used was "alieni in italia 1945-1995 50 anni di incontri ravvicinati". On page VIII towards the back of the book these images (or rather image as three were compressed into one section) as well as the following text appears
https://preview.redd.it/1hnyv22bo60d1.jpg?width=806&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=09e5d51a28114e50ae3b1334c4aeda7109558444
"Vero alieno o scoop giornalistico? Ho evitato di inserire nel presente catalogo questo caso avvero singolare. Si tratte infatti di alcune foto )5_ scattate da un non meglio indentificato "professore universitario di pavia" nell'estate del 1986 e pubblicate da sette. il settimanale del Corriere della Sera. Si referiscono ad una presunta entita aliena che si sarebbe manifestata al professore in una situazione del tutto casuale. Non sono mancati pareri sfavorevoli expressi da parecchi ufologi. ( Foto tratte da: Sette n. 9/10 sette giorni illustrati dal Corriere della Sera, 5 marzo, 1988.
Translated: "Real alien or journalistic scoop? I have avoided including in the present catalog this singular case. These are in fact some photos(5) taken by an unidentified "university professor from Pavia" in the summer of 1986 and published by seven. The weekly newspaper Corriere della Sera. They refer to an alleged alien entity that allegedly manifested itself to the professor in a completely random situation. There was no shortage of unfavorable opinions expressed by several ufologists. ( Photo taken from: Seven No. 9/10 seven days illustrated by Corriere della Sera, March 5, 1988.
That was all the information provided within. (it should be noted that although this description mentions 5 photos, there are only these 3 provided within Moreno Tambellinis book.) These images captured my attention fairly quickly as I am fairly familiar with purported alien/supernatural photographs, so to find one I have never seen, and in such a quality which is general not present within other such photos as these, was more than enough to tip my curiosity in the direction of delving deeper.
First attempt at finding further information regarding these photos, and this particular magazine issue ended in little success, though I was able to find what I, at the time, believed to be a correctly colorized image of this entity. See below.
https://preview.redd.it/ntnngh1fo60d1.png?width=341&format=png&auto=webp&s=7685ab304637834f06c14c93b6158e23f8ed66a6
Unassuming on some random blog that attributed a name to this entity while providing no further information regarding the image itself (as certain ufological circles are want to do). Not finding further information I attempted to find further information based off of this colorized image, but to no avail. Save for one source that used this image ( in a different colorized manner, slightly less yellow and oozing with potential, that being this image by Argentinian Ufologist Dante Franch. See below.
https://preview.redd.it/y99g6yhho60d1.png?width=280&format=png&auto=webp&s=a784d5d82998aab7784b0e0ff8507bf999b7e320
Finally, someone who might have a lead on this information! But no, once again this image is deceptively alluring as the contents of this book have absolutely nothing to do with the Sette report, but simply use its image to describe unsourced and unverified tales of the City of Erks (a wild dive on its own and may be deserving of its own post) and other entities that supposedly have a resemblance to this cover image.
Upon further searches I came across this archived link with additional images some with closer to truth color, including the aforementioned first colorized image here https://web.archive.org/web/20080312200229/https://www.anomalia.org/perspectivas/fotosets/campo_cielo.htm as well as the additional references. The author of this blog post is Mexican Ufologist Luis Ruiz Noguez, notable for his skepticism and thorough investigation relating to this material, so it was a no-brainier to look into his research regarding this seeing as he had previously mentioned it here on his blogpost. So where better to look than his book "Extraterrestres ante las camaras" Volume X dealing specifically with italian encounters and purported alien photographs. But again, despite his previous notation in this blog, the contents of these images specifically are nowhere to be seen or mentioned within this book.
Research stagnated for some time during the search process for the original source cited in Moreno Tambellinis book. I was able after five months (you have no idea how hard it was to find a copy) able to acquire a copy of this magazine and finally was able to determine that the previously assumed white coverall of this entities outfit has been a false notion.
The following text is a translation of the pages within this issue of march 7th 1988 Sette: Corriere della Cera . 9/10, the original scans, as well as a translated text document of these pages can be found in the sources listed below. Important note: although these images are primary focus of this article, it does meander into thoughts on Whitley Striebers book "Communion" (which will be a source of contention that will be covered later in this post). But the translated post here is the relevant text to these images.
"Just as we were editing a report on the UFO phenomenon that was supposed to appear on 7 at the same time as the television passage of Spielberg's film Close Encounters of the third kind, we came across a resounding surprise: the images published in these pages and on the cover of this issue. They were taken completely by chance, one summer evening in 1986, by a professor at the University of Pavia, above all suspicion and known for his balance, his intelligence and rationality, completely alien to the somewhat emphatic and vaguely bizarre world of the so-called "contactees": those people who say they have entered into a relationship with unknown entities from the cosmos."
"He is a completely normal person who has always been skeptical of the reports of unidentified flying objects and is now also a testimony, erroneous to the idea that his name is related to the disturbing figure captured by his camera. The university lecturer has agreed to give us what he considers to be evidence of his shocking experience in exchange for absolute confidentiality"
"What to make of these images? We can make a few assumptions.
A) The author of the photos is a mystrifier. It is unlikely: too much resistance has opposed the publication of his document (which he has yielded for free to 7). In addition, he wishes to remain anonymous. A behavior that is certainly not that of those who want to speculate on a scooop, true or presumed.
B) The author is the victim of a game. Someone made him take "fireflies for lanterns". A well-thought-out game, by true professionals. It is not unlikely, even if the professor is not a "contactee", one obsessed with extraterrestrials, that is, a man who could arouse "temptations" among those who know him.
C) The photos really document something alien. A mysterious otherness has been captured by the professor's camera, who was the first to be surprised by this tangible presence, imprinted on the film that is absolutely different from a hallucination. What to say? What are we to think of images that forcefully re-propose the problem (or the dream, or the myth, or the nightmare) of the existence of other beings, of other civilizations that populate galaxies or dimensions unknown to us? Science continues to question these facts, but an answer is still a long way off. All experiences at the "edge of reality" are embarrassing. The line that divides science and mystery is still vague. Prudence, in these cases, is a must. And the desire not to appear is widespread among the witnesses. The professor from Pavia, who chose restriction, has an illustrious precedent."
"These images, taken on a summer evening in 1986 by a professor at the University of Pavia, who asked to remain anonymous, are the subject of various hypotheses of interpretation in the text of the article. The reader is free to draw his own conclusions."
Here are the direct scans of this entity as they appear in the magazine, scanned directly out of a physical copy of this magazine. (do note although these images are uploaded in different order I believe they may be sorted as such, I make no claim to the accuracy of this in terms of chronological order, but which is most aesthetically appeasing.)
https://preview.redd.it/gkd3fj3oo60d1.png?width=520&format=png&auto=webp&s=4f338883f62abde93e6b1218b3191b13658dc32b
https://preview.redd.it/7gc9l0uoo60d1.png?width=385&format=png&auto=webp&s=cc71696af8105b30f865affcb325b31655c17532
https://preview.redd.it/t0opnydpo60d1.png?width=388&format=png&auto=webp&s=da17154ba1e5f4943f0e38094d87819b63229d41
https://preview.redd.it/1bmptx1qo60d1.png?width=380&format=png&auto=webp&s=d25f5df93e493b58ed46d19b61119b539338972b
https://preview.redd.it/qoaheyjqo60d1.png?width=379&format=png&auto=webp&s=6fd19b6d756df32c032ce84b2289437081695893
Now, while the article was very keen to post certain aspects of this, it was rather lacking, and it must be stated although the title of this issue, as well as the description in the article infer this is related to UFO's. There is no mention of an actual UFO or craft present within this encounter, or at the very least, this information was omitted from the article, and was potentially removed at the request of the professor in question, though that is speculation on my part.
The following sections will deal with the author of this previous issue, as well as the two follow-up articles and their individual authors.
There is more information present as the above text states, not from the previous issue, but from two separate follow-up articles that were saved and printed in the Italian Ufo magazine "UFO express no. 043." Link to the full untranslated issue here/UFO%20Express%20-%20No%20043.pdf). These separate addendums fully cover the images in question and are critical but not overly-so. The most important aspect to this is that the professor provided further information to Sette, primarily about what they were doing prior to this entities appearance, but also their means of photographic capture.
{Page 1}
UFO: Is this being from another world? read the scroll on the cover of 7 (No. 9/10) that we republish on this page. Hundreds of phone calls and letters arrived at the editorial office, and they continue to arrive after Mino Damato in his TV program Alla ricerca dell'arca (Sunday, March 27, Rai 3 8:30 p.m.) dealt with the same images, depicting a hypothetical alien photographed by a professor at the University of Pavia one summer evening in 1986.
There are those who believe in this hypothetical alien and those who do not, but all of the readers who have phoned or written are bound to each other by the rejection of that question mark printed on the cover: each of them is persuaded to erase the hypothesis, to tear away the veil of the enigma. And they split into two equally intolerant parties, leaving no room for doubt. We have chosen two exemplary letters. The first letter comes from Brixen and is signed by Mr. Nicola De Paola (2 Clesia Street). He says “the alien is a tobogganist: typical are the tight suit the aerodynamic helmet, the face crushed by the transparent visor, the blurred colors and contours of the photos are due to the fact that they were taken from television, with the obj vo blurred or too close up and strange an alien with limbs, head, face and body identical to those of man; I too will be able to take photographs quite similar to those published; as a reader I feel mocked.”
Others have certainly seen in the hypothetical alien: a surgeon, a nurse, an ice skater, an Icelandic firefighter, a Norwegian cryologist (sic), a KGB spy, a hockey player with his head bandaged; in short, some man in overalls or uniforms. No one has identified in the figures, despite the width of the pelvis, a woman or an androgynous. The second letter comes from Ferrara and is signed by Mr. Giovanni Mantovani (via Luigi Borsari 51). Says; When I saw the photographs I immediately thought: but look, it looks like the E.T. seen by R.M on September 2, 1987 while he was fishing on the bank of the Canal Bianco (RO). He felt an intense tingling, turned around and saw a strange individual: dark complexion, 2 meters tall, hair that looked like plastic, wearing a luminescent blue jumpsuit. The apparition lasted a few seconds.R.M. felt a chill, a feeling that was renewed at the sight of your photos... Only one remark can be made to the professor of Pavia: that of not having given the readers further clarifications about the close approach of the third type...
Here are the further clarifications that the professor from Pavia has allowed us to give, although he is consumed by the fear of being uncovered and covered with ridicule. The photos were taken by a Nikon camera, with motor-drive, 55 mm lens. Micro, 3.5 aperture, shutter speed: 1/4 second Polachrome film, 40 Asa sensitivity. Shortly after the sun went down, the professor was completing some experiments on the optical perception of dogs (how does a dog see things in the world? Black and white? With what depth, in what perspective?). That alone is almost ridiculous. We were missing the hypothetical alien. A dog joke? Maybe. But the professor never solved the riddle. And dogs don't talk. ~ Paolo Pietroni
{page caption}
The hypothetical alien out of 7 has caused conflicting reactions. The photo was taken from a Nikon by a university lecturer while carrying out experiments on the visual perception of dogs
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paolo_Pietroni (information about this addendums author)
{Page 2}
Your E.T. seems to me to be a feminine being...
Dear editor, I am writing to you in relation to the series of 5 photographs taken by a better identified professor of Pavia one summer evening in 1986 and which appeared in the supplement of the Corriere della Sera n. 9/10 Since I am not familiar with photographic technique, I have written down the shooting parameters communicated by you personally during Mino D'Amato's television program In Search of the Ark on March 27.
Correct me if I'm wrong: Nikon camera body with motor, 5.5 mm focal length lens, aperture dia 3.5, exposure time 1/15 of a second. Certainly, with this adjustment, every little movement of the camera or of the photographed subject causes a blurred or rather blurred photograph. Probably, this whole story of the photos arose from the need of the Rizzoli Group to launch on the market the Italian version of the best American seller Communion by Ted Jacob, which deals, coincidentally, with the subject of extraterrestrials. This colossal business is also sponsored by the production of the film, which has been "posted" while waiting for the possible buyers of such a profitable product to be sufficiently sensitized...
Having said this, I wish, through his kindness, to convey to the professor of Pavia my modest comments on his photos. Feminism aside, I confess that the first spontaneous observation I made on these photographs was to recognize without a shadow of a doubt a woman, or rather a female being; The conformation of the hips, the breasts, combined with the grace of the bowed pose with folded arms, unequivocally belonged to a woman. But let's get to the details.
The suit - It appears so tight that it shows every little part of the body so as to give the impression of a "second skin"; It has light blue-green bands (as shown in the photo on the right on page 74) that are more evident around the neck, on the shoulders and on the arms.
The hands - They appear covered by the sleeves and more elongated than ours (cover figure), dare I say w(bed.
The head - Although it is more mobile, it clearly shows these elements: oval face with a slightly flattened nose, microphone with a light-colored support arm placed at the height of the left ear (photo on the right, page 74)
The headset - It is completely different from any type currently built because it contains a transceiver module at the top for contact with some support organ (e.g. an operations center, or a cosmoplane, or another operator), similar to what happens in Italy when astronauts go out of their vehicle and maintain constant radio contact with the control center.
The transceiver part can be seen both in the cover photo and on page 74, left and right, and is indicated by the protuberance on the top of the skull.
This study was born well out of any venal or other interest, in fact I am not a ufologist, but a pilot in full flight activity and with command responsibilities; I have been a first-hand witness to the phenomenon commonly associated with the improper name of UFO
Sure of the need to deal with the subject with more compatible methodologies than those promulgated by scientists and ufologists, I dedicate myself to the enhancement of aeronautical contactism, intending with this new term to redefine the sightings of military and civil pilots, aeronautical technicians, engineers, etc. who through direct experience with the phenomenon have acquired the conviction that we are not alone Only those who have had a direct impact with the phenomenon (the contactee) can provide a plausible image of themselves... everything else... They are only lucubrations born from mindsets that are not up-to-date with the present sotric moment on the one hand, and with the characteristics of the phenomenon on the other.
{end of article caption}
I forwarded his observations to the professor in Pavia, author of the photos depicting the hypothetical alien. Thank you for your interesting analysis. You are free to believe it or not, but the Rizzoli Communion book had an absolutely random presence in our service: we liked the design of the cover; the portrait of that E.T. and we thought of enriching the illustrations of the service.
Roberto Doz (a fairly interesting individual on his own, air force colonel with his own UFO sighting) read more on that here
As for the author of the original article. Their name is Nullo Cantaroni, and may be more well known by his wife Bice Cairati( Sveva Casati Modigiani), Nullo Cantaroni had a fairly successful journalistic career, dealing primarily in medicine as co-authorized by fellow science journalist Severina Cantaroni. He eventually succumbed to Parkinson's disease. I make mention of these authors, Roberto Doz (who has a very good reason to be interested in the topic as he had his own experience). As well as the other two as these are not the ramblings of some crazy pumping out their own versions of weekly world news, but were and still are highly credible and respected peoples, whom by their own association are taking the flak for posting this material to begin with.
From here on out, this is going to be a further dive into the already presented material, some comparisons with other cases which have direct correlation with these images, as well as other information during my research that has not been touched on up until this point.
In the first follow-up article there is mention of a show "Alla Ricera dell'arca (In search of the ARK)". With he show discussing the images posted here. I was able to confirm that this episode does exist, with the covered material, and is within the RAI archives (Italian TV network/station). However, they would not lend the episode out to a non-Italian citizen, or someone associated with a University, or media conglomeration. I mention this as there may be more material covered in this episode that was not provided in the main article and its follow-ups. If there are any Italian citizens, or peoples reading this who have the appropriate accreditation to acquire a copy of this episode I would ask for your cooperation in attempting to do so. If someone has a copy of this simply recorded off of an old VHS I implore you to make that available to all.
Going back to the main article, the meandering to Communion is certainly off-putting, though I disagree with the previous mention that this was a hoax on the part of the publication to push Communion. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence after all (even though Carl Sagan never bothered with the evidence, side tangent: listen to J Allen Hynek talk about that here) But I believe these images were published in good faith on part of Nullo Cantaroni, his background and thorough career would make this unlikely.
So as it figures there are three scenarios here that describe this scenario (in no particular order of likelihood)
1) these images are hoaxed by the publication to push communion
2) these images are hoaxed by the supposed professor
3) these images are legitimate and provide evidence of a non-earth based entity.
Before I move on I'd like to mention that I did attempt to reach out to Corriere della Sera multiple times regarding this material but was never given a response.
To round this off the images themselves. Humanoid obviously, female-appearing, now I say appearing because assuming this really is some unexpected entity, there is no guarantee that the physiology of this figure accurately represents its determination, and although this entity appears to have what we'd consider to be skin, that may only be a covering to another form or may be some type of robotic synthetic life-form designed specifically to mimic human appearances. What may be most interesting or most alarming depending on your perspective is this entities face appears to change between shots, and yet seemingly keeps the same body proportions. If you are of the opinion this is some type of hoax you could state this is an obvious inconsistency between shots. On the other hand, that is an obvious conclusion to make and showing differentiating faces would be a rather odd choice on the part of a hoaxer. This again could be part of the photographing process, as there is motion blur between some of these photos and it simply gives an appearance that things are changing.
There are other features which must be touched upon, namely the clothing, but in one such photo, what appears to be some type of headgear wrapped around this entities face. To anyone with a passing knowledge of ufology and its associated lore would know, the favorite of any interstellar interloper is the tight formfitting bodysuit. Primarily described as blue, although other colors are often reported. But unlike most humanoid encounters described in the west, this entity seems to have a darker complexion about them. Now does that mean this does not fit in with established prior encounters? Not at all, for whatever reason the blonde-hair nordic is the most popular discussion topic when it comes to human-adjacent lifeforms, but in other places, and Italy especially, some of their most well know or most covered, feature entities with darker complexions. Case in point
https://preview.redd.it/6e3ymfuxo60d1.jpg?width=884&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c77b73123544adddbf17bacb780841cd81a61a6b
This encounter in 1978 Italy with a dark-skinned entity in a shimmering scaled suit. Or this description of a dark skinned entity with a similar described blue suit reported in 1987
Location. Villamarzana, Rome, Italy Date: September 2 1987 Time: 1700
Renzo Munari was fishing on the Bianco Canal when he noticed a strange object flying at a moderated speed over the river, as the object disappeared from sight he felt a strange prickling sensation in his body, resembling electrical static. Turning around he saw a very tall human-like figure staring intently at him. The figure was at least 2 meters in height, with orange hair and dark skin. He wore a luminous blue colored tight fitting coverall. On the left side of his chest there was a square orange colored “tag.” During the encounter the witness felt a cool wave of air and light headed. The figure apparently disappeared into the brush.
Source: Archivio SUF, USOCAT by The Italian Center forUFO Studies (CISU)
There is also this report from 1989 Russia
Location. Salsk, Rostov region, Russia Date: August 13 1989 Time: 2300
Working at a cotton irrigation plant Vasiliy Ivanovich suddenly experienced total equipment failure without any apparent cause. While searching for the cause of the breakdown, the witness heard a loud voice, “He is searching for the cause”. Looking around he saw four humanoids standing close to him. One stood in the front, while the other three stood in the back. He described the humanoids as tall, with long dangling arms, with a large head, flattened on the top and wide at the temples. The humanoids are dark red or brown in color with large egg-shaped eyes and two holes instead of a nose. They have no lips, and thin strip instead of a mouth. They were wearing truncated shiny blue coveralls and footwear. The humanoid standing at the front of the others held a box in his hand and a soft pleasant voice seemed to emanate from the box. He held the box at stomach level. Ivanovich approached the humanoids and asked who they were; the reply was a question asking him if he wanted to go with them. At this point the witness saw a light at the edge of the nearby woods and a hovering object. The humanoids then floated slowly towards the craft and disappeared. Terrified the witness ran to the village to notify other witnesses but upon returning to the site the humanoids had already left.
Source:UFOZONE Russia
As for the headgear, there is a report from 1995 Italy of an entity not resembling this one in this post, but wearing a similarly described headpiece.
Location: Ancona, Italy Date: February 3 1994, Time: 9:00am
Six witnesses, including a Mr. Giulo observed a strange humanoid wandering around some nearby rocks. The humanoid was described as about 1 meter and a half in height, wearing a tight fitting black coverall that covered his whole body including a pair of very long feet. The face was elongated with two huge round eyes, with round black pupils. It appeared to be wearing earphones with a small thin protruding antenna. It seemed to stagger slowly and after about 10 minutes it rose up slowly and vertically into the air, quickly disappearing from sight
Source: CISU Italy.
There is also this case from Barisciano Italy 1978 in which an entity bearing a striking similar blue color to the outfit was seen, with an adorning white "cap" or hairpiece that resembled that of a cap. read the untranslated version of that encounter here/Notiziario%20UFO%20-%201984%2001-02%20-%20Vol%2018%20No%20102.pdf)
https://preview.redd.it/21kjohdup60d1.png?width=310&format=png&auto=webp&s=177c364d88aa666573433fc2510a448ad4847398
Finally, lets get back to the person allegedly behind this whole spiel, the Professor. A claim such as this, where an entity appears in ones presence without any known means is a stark claim all on its own, to provide photos of such an encounter is another thing all together, but being as its an anonymous person, how can we gleam any credibility out of this? To put it in other words, is there enough information provided within the original article as well as the follow-up articles to speculate on a potential identity to who this man could have been?
Emphatically yes, infact there is only one such individual who fits the criteria with the information provided, granted this information was given after the fact of the original articles publication. In the first article within UFO express that discusses this, we are told this person is running experiments relating to dogs (canine) eyesight, but the author was unsure whether or not this is a jest of some sort. I do not believe it is, in the secondary article it is again mentioned that this professor is working with canine eyesight, but in a caption on the second page it is emphasized this was "non-academic research". Now does that mean it was unrelated to their professional focus? No, it simply means this research was carried outside of official means. This leads me to who I believe the primary suspect is in terms of a potential identity, could there be other more accurate people? Perhaps. But this persons tenure and level of research within this subject and the timeframe of when they were working at the University of Pavia lines up perfectly with who this person could be. However, because of doxxing concerns, and that they initially requested complete anonymity from the publication I will not be directly naming their identity here. But I will heavily state that this person worked in the university of Pavia from 1985 in the zoology department and specifically with foxes and wolves. With this person having worked and published (into the present) works related to both of these fields. I have attempted to personally reach out to this professor both via email & telephone (their academic numbers, not personal) but have received no response. I would ask that if you do look into who this person is that you do not attempt to directly contact them as their lack of a response is response enough.
What was the encounter like? How long did it go on for? Was there a conversation or was this a quick in and out? These questions and more are not answered here, and perhaps never will be unless someone; the professor, an associate, or anyone else, comes forward with more details we are left wondering and wanting more.
Sources and resources used Archive link for translations and scans of original Corriere della Sera article https://archive.org/details/Paviaentity
Magazine and other ufological material sources: https://files.afu.se/Downloads/?dir=./
Document scanner for afu and other documents/sites https://updb.app/
alieni in italia by Moreno Tambelini
ImgOps for reverse image searching
https://ufologie.patrickgross.org/sys/text.htm & Albert Rosales for their compilations of humanoid encounters.
If you have had an encounter or know someone who has had an encounter similar to this or identical to this, do not hesitate to DM or message me with the details.

First thing's first, here's the weapon wiki, every weapon will have it's default ammo which is vital for long-ranged sniping. Now, onto the actual bulletpoints.

1. Quit using 1-6x reticle, prioritize 3-12s, 4-16s, you're sniping you should NEVER have to use a scope within 100 meters. [every 1x optics is measured in 100 meters, so a 4x optic would have the maximum range of 400 meters]
   
2. Bring a PISTOL, not an smg, smgs silhouette hard on your back even with the stocks removed. Also, familiarize yourself with that pistol just as much as your rifle. It's your lifeline in 100> fights and SHOULD be relied on extensively.
   
3. Level Jaegar to 3 ASAP, I prioritize jaegar every Wipe not just for sniping but for shotguns as well. Get him to 3 so the 34mm scope mounts are FAR cheaper, they vary far too much in price beforehand to be a reliable economic choice.
   
4. Camouflage is FAR more important that armoballistic protection. You're not fighting, most of your loadout budget SHOULD be used on your rifle. Also, USEC has a major advantage over bear players because their default clothing IS Camouflage. Use a chimera, and a facemask/green shemga, and you'll blend in.
   
5. DON'T MOVE, if you're prone in a bush, and you hear a person or two behind you, stay still. People call it ratty, I call it survivalability, I've been seen a handful of times because most [gigachads] play at max FoV and only notice when pixels move. This mean, don't ads, don't switch to your pistol, don't do anything just wait.
   
6. Speaking of FoV, I use 100 FoV across every game which is between 68-69 on Tarkov. THIS IS VITAL for you to be able to reliantly gauge distance for sniping outside of using a rangefinder as a crutch.
   
7. Rangefinder being mention above, there's no shame in using it, it takes 2-3 seconds to gauge distance for stationary targets which is fine for scavs but players won't give you that luxury. Only use them when you have absolutely no idea, learn to gauge distance ASAP and you'll be a better sniper for it.
   
8. Change your keybindings for zeroing, I have a razor Naga x mouse and I have my zeroing on 7 and 8, it makes changing it on a fly FAR more effective and reliable than using page up and down. ALSO, change your focus to SHIFT-CONTINUOUS, this will make it so you don't run out of breath accidentally when change zoom levels.
   
9. Pick 2 calibers, not weapons, calibers. 1 for early wipe [mine being .366] and 1 for late wipe [most choose 7.62x54r, I choose .308]. The MPS of the rounds are what matters, the barrels themselves don't come into play AS MUCH as the ammo which will keep you shooting consistently
   
10. Early wipe, we're rushing for 4x optics or better rather that be the budget friendly vpo utg scope, or a trijicon. If you dont like the .366, its fine to use an adar or something till you have access to either the flea or prapor 2 for the sniper mosin.
    
11. BALANCE means far more than pen, you want to be able to pierce level 4 for helmets, but it's not always required, level 3 is fine if the damage is good enough like .366 EKO. You're not fighting, you're killing, you should never expect to have to shoot multiple times, once should suffice. You're aiming for at LEAST an .80% hit rate with your rifle. Every, bullet, matters.
    
12. Don't spam, we're sniping, our positioning and subtlety is VITAL. If you spam fire shots after whiffing one, you will 100% be found within moments. So ONLY take a shot you'll hit, and if you miss it, either wait patiently, or change positions, it's all varies based on the targets view and your location.
    
13. Early Wipe, if the ammo you're using is absolute garbage for instance like warmage or geksa, shoot a leg out for a free headshot. Early Wipe no one really ever pre-pains, so a high damage Flesh round will guarantee a kill if you knock their leg out and they can't run. Just pace it for when they're out of cover so you can line a headshot up.
    
14. In urban environments, don't stand in windows, stand feet away from the windows which not only silhouettes you less but makes your hit box and angle to be shot far less convenient for both scavs and PMCs.
    
15. Don't always go up high, this WILL get you killed. The best sniping angles are the most unexpected, rather it be from stairs, or sandbag kill holes, or even from a random bush. If you're placed up high, you WILL be spotted, and you'll more than likely be flanked and killed.
    
16. Be PATIENT, don't run around, we ONLY run when crossing open areas or fleeing. We walk, wait, listen, proceed. Running WILL get you killed, especially if you're solo, which i am the majority of the time.
    
17. If you're sniping in a group, don't have 2 people sniping. Be smart about how you go in with friends, 2 snipers = 2 useless guns upclose if neither of you are decent with pistols.
    
18. During co-op, don't move together if you're sniping. Play a supportive over-watch role, let your assault loadout player move forward while you cover their back. This is more a lighthouse/woods/shoreline thing because the open spaces vary much more often.
    
19. Don't expect to become sniper elite over 200 hours, I'm still rough, I'm not perfect by any means and it's a continuous skill you have to grow. We're not gear reliant like normal players, we can't run max-level armor and weapon pen and just hip-fire things to death. Sniping takes SKILL, Map knowledge, positioning, patience, weapon knowledge, distance engagement practices, the works.
    
20. Last but not least, every mil-dot is 100 Meters on most scopes in the game. I personally SWEAR by the Schmidt and bender 3-12, if I zero for 400 with BCP FMJ in an m700, I'll have another 400 worth a mil dots for a total range of 800. That's MORE than enough for any map on this game and some, to me it's THE best scope for sniping in this game. But everyone has their own preference, and this one is mine.
    

This is 20 points, if it's received well ill consider another list. I just got out of surgery so I'm still in and out, thanks for reading! 😊

I was recently going through the top posts in this subreddit and came across this post about starbursts. There's actually a really interesting physical explanation as to where they come from. Please refer to this article for more information: https://doi.org/10.1167/iovs.04-0935 In particular, refer to Figures 2, 3, and 4 (at the bottom of the page). I will also show these figures in this post.
DISCLAIMER: I'm a graduate student in astronomy so I cannot offer medical knowledge or advice. I can only provide a potential explanation of the physics behind this visual effect. The information in this post comes from the paper I linked above.
Essentially, a starburst is a homogeneous "speckle pattern" that is spread out across different colors of light. These "speckles" are likely caused by particulates in your eye. I'll describe why this happens later, but much like astigmatism and myopia, the mechanism described in the paper is related to the physical properties of light (albeit through a different mechanism than what causes astigmatism and myopia). It is not a neurological effect. Also note that these speckles are not related to the bright dots and/or static that you see rapidly changing.
Say that you have a fixed pattern of particulates in your eye, so it doesn't change over time. This means that the speckle pattern that you see also shouldn't change with time. It turns out that the size and spacing of these speckles gets bigger with the wavelength of light (i.e., redder light = bigger and more spread out speckles). If your eyes were only sensitive to one color and you stared at a bright point source (point source = a negligibly small light, one that's far away from you), you would only see these "speckles" and no starburst pattern. This is what the simulations in Fig. 3 of the article are showing below.
Figure 3: Simulations for a 0.2-mm diameter pupil, realistic particle distribution, and monochromatic light. Simulation parameters: coherent combination of light-scattering by 1000 particles uniformly distributed over a 0.2-mm diameter area in the pupillary plane for monochromatic light of 450-nm wavelength (A) and 650 nm wavelength (B). Figure sizes are 4.6° × 4.6° of visual angle. From van den Berg, Hagenouw, & Coppens (2005).
Thus, the combination of different wavelengths (colors) is what gives us the simulated starburst pattern shown in Fig. 4. Because our eyes are sensitive to multiple colors, the different colored speckles smear together and form the stripes in the starburst. [1] Yes, the zig-zag pattern in the stripes is real! This is unrelated to astigmatism, which I think would be caused by defects in the overall shape of your cornea and/or lens.
Figure 4: Simulated ciliary corona for a distant point source emitting equal-energy white light. Simulation parameters: uniform random distribution over a 4-mm diameter pupil of 1000 light-scattering particles of ∼0.724 μm radius. Figure size is 4.6° × 4.6° of visual angle. From van den Berg, Hagenouw, & Coppens (2005).
So what causes the speckle pattern to begin with? It seems to be caused by the combination of scattered light from all of the particulates in your eyes. Because light has wave-like properties, the light scattered off of each individual particulate will interfere with light from other particulates, kind of like how ripples in a pond come together. You can look this up but I find videos of ripple interference to be visually overstimulating so I won't link it here.
To illustrate the interference of light, Fig. 2 (below) shows simulated point-spread functions (PSFs) of eyes that have been affected by different amounts of particulates. The PSF encapsulates how good the image quality of your eye--or any imaging system--is. Basically, the image that you end up seeing with your eyes is the "convolution" between a theoretically perfect image and the PSF, where "convolution" is a fancy math way of saying that the PSF is blurring the image out. [2] The pattern in you see in panel A of Fig. 2 (below) is called an "Airy pattern." It's the theoretical best possible PSF of your eye, which is also referred to as the "diffraction limit". [3] Most people don't have perfect, diffraction-limited eyes due to varying degrees of near-/far-sightedness (also called defocus), astigmatism, and other effects. For reference, here's a link to some simulations showing how astigmatism affects the PSF of your eye, and how you would see the letter "E" in each case. [4]
If you're looking at a point source then the image that you see looks like the PSF because the point source is too small to blur out. Panels B, C, and D show how the PSF is degraded by having increasing numbers of particulates. The authors generated the simulations by evenly distributing particulates of different sizes inside the eye. Each particulate causes a ripple in the light entering the eye. Each ripple degrades the PSF, making the image appear chopped up. Because there are lots of different sizes of particulates, there are many different sized ripples. The more particulates there are, the more of these light ripples occur. The combination of a large number of ripples along with the varying sizes of the ripples is what causes the seemingly random speckle pattern to occur. [5]
Figure 2: Illustration of coherent combination of light-scattering by 1 (A), 2 (B), 3 (C), and 30 (D) particles. For clarity, the illustration shows unrealistically small particle distances compared with particle sizes. True particle distances/particle sizes are larger by a factor of 300, meaning that the fringes and grain in (B), (C), and (D) should be smaller by a factor of 300. From van den Berg, Hagenouw, & Coppens (2005).
The authors of the paper mention that stray/scattered light in the eye is known to degrade night vision. Maybe the effect is worse in some people because they have more particulates and thus more scattered light in their eye? It would be consistent with the fact that those with visual snow often report seeing more floaters than normal.
I have had relatively mild visual snow for my whole life so it doesn't bother me, but I've been learning about different experiences of people as I read this sub... It's very sad to learn about how debilitating it can be :(((. It's interesting to think about the combination of optical, neurological, and other effects that may cause or exacerbate symptoms of visual snow syndrome.
Footnotes
[1] An interesting experiment: if you stared at a very bright monochromatic point source, i.e., a light of only one color from far away, would you see the speckle pattern and not the starburst?
[2] Convolution is how gaussian blur works in photo editing software. The PSF in this case is a gaussian function (another fancy math term that describes a very special curve) that blurs out the image. A wider gaussian means that the image is blurred more.
[3] The Airy function describes the diffraction limit for a circular pupil. If your pupil is bigger, then the Airy pattern (the theoretical perfect PSF of your eye) is smaller so you should have more spatial resolution. But that also means that you notice any aberrations (defects) in your image quality more easily. If your pupil is small, then the Airy function is more spread out it effectively covers up those aberrations, so you notice them less. This is why pinholes seem to improve your vision, with the tradeoff being that less light gets into your eye so everything is darker, plus less resolution. Also note that if the pupil of your imaging system is not a circle then the diffraction-limited PSF is not strictly an Airy function. And the diffraction limit is a result of quantum mechanics, but that's beyond the scope of this post...
[4] Astigmatism elongates the PSF into a line if you have some defocus, or a cross-pattern when in focus. This explains why astigmatism causes you to see lines and crosses coming out of traffic lights at night. If you rotate your head, the lines should rotate with you because the astigmatism is caused by the physical shape of optical components in your eye. In the same manner, you can tell whether the starburst is a physical effect by seeing if the pattern rotates as you tilt your head.
[5] Fun fact: Because the starburst is part of your eye's PSF it is literally always there. It's just hard to notice most of the time.