Five Martians

Five Martians is a pinball machine from CEFF, a mechanical-engineering firm in Piacenza. As its name announces, the game took a science-fiction subject of invading Martians — the Aliens motif that ran through pinball’s electromechanical years. The Italian pinball archive records the machine in more than one form: at least two versions are known from an old dealer leaflet, one built with conventional mechanical score reels, the other reworked to score into the millions.^[1] A second name, “Joker Ball”, appears beside it in the same record, unresolved even there — whether a separate CEFF machine or merely a feature within Five Martians itself.^[2]