The Earth has been visited by ancient astronauts and the proof is contained in one of the oldest documents in the world, the Tulli Papyrus, which testifies one of the first mass observation of UFOs.

In 1934 Alberto Tulli, Director of the Egyptian section of the Vatican Museums, thought he had discovered an exceptional papyrus at an antiquarian in Cairo.

UFOs sighting at the time of Thutmosis III

Unfortunately, it was too expensive, even for the Vatican Museum, so Tulli asked and was granted permission to copy its text, written in hieratic, for further studies. Once translated the text together with Catholic canon Etienne Drioton, probably the greatest archeology of ever and at time Director General of Antiquities of Egypt in the Egyptian Museum at Cairo and later Curator at Louvre, Tulli discovered that the papyrus describes the sighting of mysterious UFOs of which the same pharaoh Thutmose III (1481 B.C. - 1425 B.C.) was a witness.

Many parts of the text, in conjunction with the crucial points of the narrative, were nevertheless damaged or completely missing, as if it had been a deliberate censorship. Intrigued, Tulli returned at the antique shop, to try to buy the papyrus, but the papyrus was gone. The mystery seemed destined to remain unsolved, but the story was not over yet.

A copy of the Tulli Papyrus

The de Rachewiltz translation

Two decades later in an article published on the Doubt magazine, Italian-Russian egyptologist prince Boris de Rachewiltz announced that he had located the papyrus, originally from New Kingdom, “untranslated and unpublished” in poor condition, among the documents of the late Professor Tulli. This is the translation by de Rachenwiltz :

In the year 22 third month of winter, sixth hour of the day 1 the scribas, archivists and chroniclers of the House of Life found it was a circle of fire in the sky... it had no head, the breadth of its mouth had a foul odour...

Its body 1 rod long and 1 rod large, it had no voice... They hearts become confused through it, then they laid themselves on the bellies...

They went to the King to report it. His Majesty ordered... has been esamine... as to all which is written in the papyrus-rolls of the House of Life His Majesty was meditating upon what happened. Now, after some days had passed over these things, they were more numerous than anything. They were shining in the sky more than the Sun to the limits of the four supports of heaven.

Powerful was the position of the fire circles. The army of the King looked on and His Majesty was in the midst of it. It was after supper. Thereupon, they went up higher directed to South. Fishes and volatiles fell down from the sky. A marvel never occurred since the foundation of this Land...

His Majesty to be brought incense to pacify the hearth... to what happened in the book of the House of Life, to be remembered for the Eternity.

What were really the circles of fire?

Considered by many ufologists the most sensational evidence of an UFO sighting in ancient times, the papyrus describes some “circles of fire” that flew through the sky on two separate occasions, a few days away. Other scholars argued that it could be not the witness of a UFO sighting but of the explosion of Santorini volcanic island (however, occurred in 1627 B.C.) or a metaphor for a period of social turbulence.

The discussion became very heated when Gianfranco Noll, who became director of the Egyptology section of the Vatican Museum, claimed the document a fake and questioned the preparation of his predecessor. More recently a comparative study of the Tulli Papyrus and the Egyptian Grammar of Sir Alan H. Gardner (edited in 1927) noticed a striking resemblance between different sentences of the two texts.

For its part, the Vatican has always denied to be in possession of the original translation of Tulli, so the question remains: was it an scam of which the unaware Tulli would have been victim, or maybe a hoax arranged by the de Rachewiltz, or the truth has been carefully hidden? As long as the original papyrus will not jump off it will be impossible to know for sure.