Pellegrino Ernetti

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Father Marcello Pellegrino Ernetti (1925, Rocca Santo Stefano (near Rome) - 1994, Island of Saint George (Venice)) was an Italian Roman Catholic Benedictine priest and is the most famous exorcist who worked in the Venice area. He was also famous as a biblical and musical scholar (a renowned specialist in "archaic", i.e. pre-Christian or pre-polyphonic music) as well as a scientist. Father Gabriele Amorth makes mention of him in his non-fiction book An Exorcist Tells his Story.

In the 1950s he is said to have claimed he invented a time viewer of sorts as part of a group that supposedly included Nobel Laureate Enrico Fermi and Wernher von Braun. The machine was called the Chronovisor, and could allegedly see and hear events of the past. Father Ernetti claimed to have witnessed a performance in Rome in 169 BC of the now-lost tragedy, Thyestes, by the father of Latin poetry, Quintus Ennius. He also claimed to have witnessed Christ dying on the cross.

A book entitled Father Ernetti's Chronovisor: The Creation and Disappearance of the World's First Time Machine, written by Peter Krassa, explores these claims and the truth of the matter. The American edition of the book includes an appendix with an alleged "confession" by a relative of Ernetti's (who supposedly chose to remain anonymous); according to this purported document, on his deathbed Ernetti revealed the real "truth" about the Thyestes and the "portrait" of Christ. The document is purported to be a fraud by Father Francois Brune of France.

Father Ernetti wrote the book The Likes and Dislikes of the Devil.