Renato Vesco (1924-1999) was born in Arona, a small city on Lake Maggiore, in Northern Italy, but lived in Genoa, the town where he died in 1999, completely alone. His education is not clear: he claimed to be graduated as an "aeronautical techician", but he claimed a different title in another occasion. Anyway, it seems he didn't graduate at all.

Between late 1943 and 1945 he volunteered first in M.S.V.N. (a military organization of the fascist government), then in the Air Force of the "Repubblica di Salo'", the northern part of Italy still allied with the Nazis. Though willing to become a pilot, he worked in an office in Milan, before an early training in Asti. After the war he was recalled in the new Italian Air Force and extended his service until July 1947, serving as a private at the airport of Galatina, near Lecce, in South Italy. He later claimed his interest for UFOs was born just in July 1947, in conjunction with the very first news about the "flying saucers" sightings.

Between 1956 and the early '60s he worked as an engine technician onboard some merchant ships travelling around the world, spending some time in the USA, Germany and some other countries. Around mid '60s he returned to Genoa and remained there.

Many silly stories, rumours and wrong information have been associated to Vesco. An "aeronautical engineer", a very high-ranking officer at the Italian Ministery of Defence, the head of the Nazi secret underground facilities at Lake Garda (Northern Italy), and other unlikely positions like them.

For example (source: "Aerospace expert claims Flying Saucers are Canada's Secret Weapon", ARGOSY, August 1969):

Renato Vesco is a fully liscensed aircraft engineer and a specialist in aerospace and ramjet developements. He attended the University of Rome and, before WWII, studied at the German Institute for Aerial Developement. During the war, Vesco worked with the Germans at the Fiat Lake Garda secret installations in Italy. In the 1960's, he worked for the Italian Air Ministry of Defense as an undercover technical agent, investigating the UFO mystery

The back cover of "Intercept byt don't shoot" says:

"Renato Vesco was born in Arona, Italy, in 1924. A licensed pilot, in 1944 he commanded the technical section of the Italian Air Force. In 1946-47 he served in the Reparto Tecnico Caccia. Mr Vesco has been a senior member of the Italian Association of Aerotechnics since 1943, and is a student of aeronautical problems, particularly in the field of jet propulsion. He is a contributor to various aeronautical publications"

Renato Vesco was a "flying saucer" designer himself!

Between 1942 and 1944 Vesco developed a quite primitive project of a stratospheric fast jet fighter: he introduced a 50-page report to a Luftwaffe office in Gallarate, devoted to airplane engines, but he never got feedback. Years later Vesco claimed that Germans could have improved their developments of their round aircrafts thanks to his own ideas and that the British, seizing the German's blueprints, could have taken advantage themselves. He liked the idea to be a contributor of the "flying saucers" somehow! Anyway, it is not clear at all whether that wartime report included also ideas about circular plane technology: as fas as we know it was about a conventional jet fighter, while As a mattera of fact Vesco developed his ideas for some "flying saucer"-like aircrafts later, possibly between 1948 and 1949

Years later (1954) he claimed ... (read more)

The very first book of Renato Vesco was published in 1968, but the original manuscript was ready since 1956. Because of job engagements and the lack of interest from most but all Italian publishers he stopped its publication and went on collecting more material (actually the original book had to be published in 1958 by the same publisher of a popular Italian aviation magazine, but this never happened and produced some legal actions between Vesco and the publisher). So he had enough material to write three large books.

The first one had a Spanish edition and two in US (1971, Grove and 1974, Zebra), soon becoming a reference work for most but all the authors and researchers writing about the highly controversial subject of German "flying saucers". In 1994, the book was nearly fully reprinted within a book edited by D.Childress "Man-Made UFOs 1944-1994".

Vesco planned a fourth book (titled "Luna Britannica", namely "British Moon") and he started to stockpile a very large quantity of reference material, during the '80s. Unfortunately, the manuscript was never finished, also due to the deep disappointment of Vesco for the "outer World".

It is likely Vesco developed his ideas about the "flying saucers" as man made aircrafts built by the British in Canada - after seized German blueprints - around 1953. The background came from many news and rumours coming from the press, as well as aeronautical magazines published between 1945 and 1947 about new fantastic possible achievements and projects in space and aeronautics by the British. The background came also from all the tale about the alleged "German saucers" starting in 1950.

At first he joined the Belluzzo story (and the similar stories provided by Lino Saglioni) about the concept of ramming discs launched against the wings of Allied bombers (something oddly very next to his own claimed project for a "flak mine"), but later he came up with the "Kugelblitz" and "Feuerball" stories. It is not clear how and when Vesco developed his claims about these two revolutionary aircrafts. As far as we know, he never quoted a direct source for his information. Actually he is the only known source around for them. For example, in 1963 he claimed that there were about a dozen of "Feuerball" (an anti-radar round aircraft) deployed on the western front and later destroyed by the SS detachment who was operating them