A bus of 34 tourists, of whom were mainly from both Austria and Italy report witnessing a metal disk land and take off nearby a ruin 15 km south of Schweinfurt.

An Austrian tourist said, 'It faintly rocked as it came down and made a short but powerful rumbling sound as it touched down.  It landed on five thin metal columns which came out of small holes in the base of the disk.  It was as large, if not larger than the coach.  
After being on the ground for a minute of less, it casually took off vertically and retracted its gears before shooting into the sky.
The coach driver, ((name deleted)), 42, said 'I was  shocked by what I saw. It came down, parked on the ground and then went up again'.
No unusual materials were found at the reported location, however German police stated that although they believed what the tourists saw was likely to be a scientific balloon of some kind, there were five shallow penetration marks in the field which could have been caused by a helicopter and there were signs of dust on the ground being unsettled.
Source: I found a newspaper in my attic from 1974.
Witness elects to remain totally anonymous; provides no contact information.  PD