Italy is the only NATO country with a formal state process that routes UAP reports through its national military police. If you observe a UAP in Italian airspace, the official channel is: obtain the form from aeronautica.difesa.it/ovni/, complete it, and submit it to the nearest Carabinieri station. The Carabinieri are Italy’s national military police — not a local authority, not a civilian agency. They forward the report to the Aeronautica Militare’s General Security Department, which conducts the investigation.
The Investigation Standard
The Air Force conducts a technical investigation seeking to identify a correlation with known human activity or natural phenomena. This investigation may involve other competent agencies within Italy as needed. The stated purpose is to guarantee flight safety and national security. Only when the investigation concludes without a technical or natural explanation does the Air Force classify the episode as an OVNI sighting.
Cases that reach the OVNI classification are then published on the Air Force website’s Avvistamenti (Sightings) section as part of the annual report. The classification standard is comparable to GEIPAN’s Category D — a positive finding of unexplained status after official investigation, not a default “no data” category.
Why the Carabinieri
The Carabinieri are a military corps with a nationwide presence and law enforcement authority. Using them as the intake channel creates several properties that a civilian reporting hotline would not have: geographic coverage across the entire country, trained personnel, a formal chain of custody for submitted documents, and a record-keeping infrastructure integrated with national law enforcement. A UAP report submitted through the Carabinieri is, from the moment of submission, a formal document in an official system.
Access the Annual Reports
All annual OVNI sighting reports from 2009 through 2025 are available as free PDF downloads at aeronautica.difesa.it/ovni/. The reporting form (ModuloUFO.pdf) is also available at the same address. The English version of the page is at aeronautica.difesa.it/en/ovni/.
Source: aeronautica.difesa.it/ovni/. Italian Air Force OVNI Programme. Annual reports 2009–2025.