Elle Host

Jul 19, 202315 min read

Episode 8 - The Not-Aircraft

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Script:

A young, aspiring pilot wants to bring his flight hours up, so he hires a plane, and goes on a flight over the Bass Strait planning to visit a small island. Suddenly, he radios that he’s encountering another unknown craft, and then never lands at his destination, nor is he ever seen again.

This yarn is about the mid-flight disappearance of Frederick Valentich.

(Cue intro)

Many other TV shows, podcasts, blogs, and YouTube channels have already covered this incident, as it’s a pretty well known case around the world. But since it’s a strange mystery that happened in Australia, and someone on instagram did ask me to cover it, you know I had to have a yarn about it. So here we go.

This took place over the Bass Strait, the body of water between mainland Australia and Tasmania. It’s roughly 500 kilometres long and 250 kilometres wide, and the waters are rather shallow with an average depth of 60 metres. The waters are rather tempestuous, and there have been numerous accidents and wrecks in the strait. Some people believe that something like the Bass Strait Triangle exists, since some incidents are similar to the ones that happen in the more famous Bermudan version. Ships and planes have met unknown fates in this vicinity. But I’ll be zeroing in on one such case.

Moving on, we’ll meet the central individual of this yarn. His name was Frederick Valentich, and from here on out, I’ll refer to him by his surname. Valentich was twenty years old at the time, and he was aspiring to be a pilot. However, he had a very long road ahead of him if he wanted to make his dreams come true. For starters, he was rejected by the Air Force twice for not meeting their educational requirements.

But Valentich refused to give up on his aspirations. In 1977, he got a private licence, and he was also studying to become a commercial pilot. Though, he already failed his course twice, and at the time of his disappearance, he was on his third attempt at the course, but had again failed three subjects. Also, Valentich had done a few concerning things while he was on his flights. Twice, he intentionally flew into clouds, and on a separate occasion he also flew into restricted air space over Sydney. He was very close to being prosecuted over these irresponsible acts. Valentich wasn’t exactly a born natural at aviation, and from an outsider’s perspective, some might conclude that he wasn’t really cut out to be a pilot. But that didn’t stop him. His heart and mind were set on the skies.

Come Saturday, October 21st, 1978. On that evening, Valentich scheduled a flight to King Island, a small isle situated in the strait. He hired a Cessna 182L and would take off from Moorabbin Airport in Melbourne. At the time, he had 150 hours of flight time under his belt, so not too experienced. He obtained a class 4 rating on the 11th of May of that year, and that meant that he was able to fly in the evening but only in “visual meteorological conditions”. The young pilot had flown this route numerous times already, but this would be the first time that he’d be making this trip in the evening. The Bass Strait is known to be difficult to fly over because it can get foggy and windy at times, but the conditions on this evening were clear and calm; perfect for a beginner pilot to navigate.

The aircraft had a full tank of fuel, and the call sign was Delta Sierra Juliet. Valentich planned it so that the flight from Moorabbin to King Island would be approximately an hour and nine minutes; so, short but sweet. During this flight, he would pass over Cape Otway.

He took off at 6:19pm and once in the air, he kept in contact with the Melbourne Airport in Tullamarine. All was going well until a bit after 7.

The following is a re-enactment of the communication between Valentich and Steve Robey, the duty officer covering the flight sector Valentich was in. This is also based on the official transcript that was on the accident report for the disappearance. From what we know, the official recording had never been revealed to the public, and likely it’s been lost to time. Valentich initially radios in at 7:06pm.

V: Melbourne, this is Delta Sierra Juliet is there any known traffic below five thousand?

M: Delta Sierra Juliet no known traffic.

V: Delta Sierra Juliet I am… seems (to) be a large aircraft below 5000.

M: D Delta Sierra Juliet what type of aircraft is it?

V: Delta Sierra Juliet I cannot affirm it is four bright it seems to me like landing lights.

M: Delta Sierra Juliet

V: Melbourne, this (is) Delta Sierra Juliet the aircraft has just passed over me at least a thousand feet above.

M: Delta Sierra Juliet roger and it… it is a large aircraft confirm?

V: Er, unknown due to the speed it’s travelling, is there any airforce aircraft in the vicinity?

M: Delta Sierra Juliet no known aircraft in the vicinity.

V: Melbourne it’s approaching me now from due east towards me.

M: Delta Sierra Juliet

(Open microphone for two seconds)

V: Delta Sierra Juliet it seems to me that he’s playing some sort of game, he’s flying over me two three times at a time at speeds I could not identify.

M: Delta Sierra Juliet roger, what is your actual level?

V: my level is four and a half thousand, 4-5-0-0.

M: Delta Sierra Juliet and confirm you cannot identify the aircraft?

V: affirmative.

M: Delta Sierra Juliet roger standby.

V: Melbourne Delta Sierra Juliet it is not an aircraft, it is… (open microphone for 2 seconds)

M: Delta Sierra Juliet Melbourne can you describe the, er, aircraft?

V: Delta Sierra Juliet as its flying past it’s a long shape (open mic 3 seconds), (cannot) identify more than (that it has such speed), (open mic 3 seconds), before me right now Melbourne.

M: Delta Sierra Juliet roger, and how large would the, er, object be?

V: Delta Sierra Juliet Melbourne it seems like it's stationary… what I'm doing right now is orbiting, and the thing is just orbiting on top of me, also it's got a green light and sort of metallic (like) it's all shiny (on) the outside.

M: Delta Sierra Juliet?

V: (open mic for 5 secs) it’s just vanished.

M: Delta Sierra Juliet

V: Melbourne would you know what kind of aircraft I’ve got, is it (a type) military craft?

M: Delta Sierra Juliet confirm the, er, aircraft just vanished.

V: Say again?

M: Delta Sierra Juliet Is the aircraft still with you?

V: Delta Sierra JULIET (it's ah nor) (open microphone 2 seconds) (now) approaching from the southwest

M: Delta Sierra Juliet

V: Delta Sierra Juliet the engine is rough idling, I’ve got it set at twenty-three twenty-four and the thing is (coughing)

M: Delta Sierra Juliet roger what are your intentions?

V: my intentions are ah to go to King Island ah Melbourne that strange aircraft is hovering on top of me again (two seconds open microphone) it is hovering and it's not an aircraft

M: Delta Sierra Juliet?

V: Delta Sierra Juliet Melbourne (17 seconds open mic with weird metallic scraping sounds heard)

M: Delta Sierra Juliet Melbourne

And that was that it. Communication with Valentich ceased, and he was now unaccounted for. A

sea air and land search for him began almost immediately after. However, the search was called off on the 25th of October. There was no sign of him whatsoever. No debris or oil slick, or sign that the craft was at the bottom of the ocean. No pilot either, dead or alive.

Valentich’s father, Guido, had told The Age that he believe that his son was taken by UFOs because there was a lack of wreckage. Since there was no trace of Frederick anywhere, he just came to that conclusion. It is sad though… maybe the grief was so strong that he would rather believe that his Frederick was abducted by UFOs than to bury his remains if they were ever found.

Moreover, the reasons Valentich wanted to fly to King Island weren’t exactly clear either. He told flight officials that he was going there to pick up some friends, but then said that he was going there to pick up some crayfish. Allegedly, neither of those reasons were true.

Okay, now this is the part where I argue with myself regarding what could’ve happened. I like to think that Bizarre Yarns is a podcast for both skeptics and believers alike. So I try to see things from both perspectives.

I wanna first tackle this disappearance from a skeptic’s point of view, and then I’ll talk about UFOs later.

First off, the skepticism. I’ll say the obvious in that it’s likely Valentich got disoriented and was actually flying at an angle, which led to his demise. When he said that he saw a green light, it was probably his own landing light that he saw reflected in the water, and mistook it for another craft.

Additionally, we got to remember that Valentich was only a beginner pilot. He may have experienced a visual and or sensory illusion while he was flying and he probably didn’t realise it because he was in a panic.

A man called Peter Artis contacted the Air Force and stated that he was passenger on the exact same Cessna 182 a couple of months prior to the disappearance. He claimed that that the aircraft was rough, and that there was an oil leakage coming from the propeller governor, quote, “which resulted a light film of oil on the windscreen. The sun shining on this film produced some very strange visual effects.” Unquote. There’s a possibility that this leakage from the propeller governor happened again when Valentich flew the plane, and that the oil may have caused some trippy, rainbow-y effects, which may have caused him to see supposed weird green lights zooming around, which might have actually been bright stars or planets.

It was also the first time he flew in low light, so it was probably harder for him to see the horizon, and was maybe too busy looking out for this apparent UFO rather than concentrating on his flight instruments. He told flight control that he was orbiting the supposed UFO, which tells us that he was circling in the aircraft. By being disoriented and flying in an orbiting pattern, Valentich may have entered what is called a graveyard spiral.

The graveyard spiral is a sensory illusion which is caused by being disoriented and fluids in the vestibular system—so your inner ear—move slowly to the point that the pilot may feel as though he’s flying straight, when he’s actually on a tilt. Then the pilot may feel as though he’s in a wings-level descent (despite being at an angle), so he pulls the yoke to stop himself from descending and to steady the craft. But doing this only makes him spiral down even faster; and if he keeps pulling the yoke, he’ll descend with increasing speed until he crashes. Also, graveyard spirals more than often happen during night flights, when the horizon is a little harder to see, and pilots rely on feel via the inner ear.

Anyway, I left out a key point about Valentich’s character, and only now I’m going to tell you. The young fella was obsessed with UFOs. He believed they were very much real and he worried about the day that they would invade and attack, War of the Worlds-style. According to an interview with his girlfriend at the time, Rhonda Rushton, he had said to her that if a UFO were to land take him away, he wouldn’t go alone but he’d take her along with him. He also kept clippings of articles regarding aliens and UFOs, but Rhonda didn’t think too much of it at the time. In the same interview, she described him to be out of character; he was somewhat low spirited on the evening before his disappearance, when he usually had a cheerful disposition. He also completely forgot that they made plans to go out on the Saturday night, which suggests to me that this plane trip may have been spontaneous.

Because he was such a fanatic of UFOs and the possibility of extraterrestrial life existing, this might have actually clouded Valentich’s judgement. He immediately concluded that he was being chased by an unusual craft rather than calm down and assess what could be happening.

Another theory could be that this was all a ruse so that Valentich could make himself quote unquote “disappear”. Okay listen. We don’t know the mental state of Valentich around the time of his disappearance. I can imagine that being knocked back twice by the Air Force and failing your piloting course multiple times would wreak a fair bit on your self worth. Or maybe, just maybe, because of this fixation on UFOs and aliens, the young pilot might’ve staged a stunt so that skeptics would change their tune if a supposed UFO interaction was recorded. But…at the cost of his life though? Would anyone really do that just to prove a point? Anyway, I’m not here to diagnose, only to speculate.

In 1983, a cowl flap was discovered washed up on Flinders Island. Upon inspecting it, they saw that the part belonged to a Cessna 182. A list of possible planes it belonged to was looked at and they saw hired plane’s serial number on the list; indicating that Valentich may have in fact crashed into the ocean and this cowl flap may belong to this plane. But I’ll get back to this certain tidbit later.

So from a skeptical standpoint, Valentich likely crashed into the sea either accidentally or deliberately. Maybe one day, someone might actually find remains of the plane somewhere in the Bass Strait by sheer accident.

Now, we get to the not so skeptical part.

When they searched for Valentich after he went silent, they searched everywhere. They couldn’t find a body, and couldn’t find any parts of the plane at that point in time. The Bass Strait is rather shallow compared to other parts of the ocean, and the area covering the strait is also rather small, so it couldn’t be too difficult to locate a downed aircraft, right? Unless that is, the impact was enough to blast the plane into smithereens; but even then, bits and pieces of the plane, as well as an oil slick, weren’t found for a while. If indeed Valentich crashed, there were very little evidence as to where he and the plane ended up.

Allegedly, there were a flood of reports of UFO sightings on the day Valentich disappeared. Around 15 people saw UFOs between midday and 9pm, and according to UFO researchers, these sightings were unexplainable; so… the flying thingamajig they saw couldn’t be explained away as a weather balloon. Six of these occurred in Victoria, one on King Island, and the others were in New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania.

In addition to that, a man named Roy Manifold was holidaying in Cape Otway, specifically in Crayfish Bay. On that day, he was taking pictures of the sunset. He heard a plane flying overhead, but he didn’t see it. Later when he got the photos developed, him and his wife saw that in some of the photos, there was a strange blob-looking thing in the sky that wasn’t there when Roy initially took the photos. His wife made a joke that the thing might be a UFO, but Roy was skeptic. He sent the negatives back to Kodak, but analysis of the film showed no anomalies. The particular photos in which the strange sky object was present were pictures 4 and 6. The fifth picture was normal, which was weird. Looking at the photo, the object didn’t seem to have any lights nor did it look like it was a sort plane or typical flying saucer. The film was then taken to a laboratory and went under intense examination.

Their results concluded that the thing in the photos was a solid object that was clouded in exhaust. However, another test showed that it could actually be a developing mistake. So I guess that this picture debacle in inconclusive, a bit like the whole case itself. But I just thought it was an interesting thing to point out, and it was just eerily coincidental.

Now remember the cowl flap that was found years after the disappearance? Let me reiterate that there was a list of Cessna 182 planes that it could’ve belonged to. Sure, the missing plane was on that list, but apparently, sometimes, if the plane isn’t maintained properly, the cowl flap can fall off, and it’d have to be replaced. So, it’s possible that the cowl flap may not also belong to the Cessna.

In a an episode of the show Unsolved Mysteries, an a anonymous eyewitness claimed to have seen a plane and a long, strange green light flying in conjunction to one another, being roughly a thousand to 2 thousand feet above the plane. He noted that the plane was going down at a pretty fast speed and was at a 45 degree angle, but when the plane was out of sight, him and his family went home. He didn’t hear a sound of any craft crashing.

Apparently, there’s a farmer who had a rather close encounter with a strange craft on the day the pilot vanished. UFO researcher Bill Chalker and his friend, Robert Tilley, heard of an extraordinary claim from a hardware store owner named Laurie. Allegedly, this farmer had seen something absolutely bizarre and may be very well connected to Valentich’s disappearance.

Quote:

“The farmer said he was harvesting lucerne when he heard a loud screeching coming from the harvester. He thought it might have been a bearing, so he uncoupled the harvester from the tractor’s power drive, and jumped off and went back to have a look. The farmer was trying to work out the source of the continuing noise, when he became aware that he was in shadow.

He looked up and saw he was directly underneath a large, saucer-shaped object, and going by the size of his harvester, he estimated it to be about 30 metres across, approximately 100 feet. The loud screeching sound continued… the farmer began to think there was something horribly wrong with this huge object. So he ran to get out from under it. He got the impression that one of the object’s engines had stopped working.

He then told Laurie the most unusual thing was that he saw the massive engine had a Cessna stuck to the outside of it—’the whole aircraft’. It was flat up against the the side of the object with its tail hanging down… According to Laurie, the farmer said the object—’the saucer’—still accompanied by the screeching sound the flew away over a ridge in the direction of a nearby Army range.”

Unquote.

To this day, the farmer’s identity is unknown, and Chalker, Tilley, and other UFO researchers really want to know just who he was. Unfortunately, Laurie had passed away, so the answer may have died with him. And understandably, the farmer probably doesn’t want his identity disclosed, because like I said in a previous episode, when you claim to see things like UFOs or whatnot, the public are gonna think you’re bonkers. Going on this testimony, it’s pretty suss that this flying craft was going towards a military base. Much like some other UFO encounters, somehow the military is either directly or indirectly involved. What. A. Coincidence.

The scraping sounds that the farmer described corroborates with the alleged metallic scraping that was heard by Robey when he last had contact with Valentich.

While skeptics believe that Valentich saw stars and planets and mistook them for an unusual craft, remember, the pilot did say that he could see this craft moving, and could make out a shape. I mean, he kept saying that it was a craft and not just a light, like a foo fighter. And he described that he could see this abnormal aircraft was flying around at ridiculous speeds. I doubt the planet Venus could be capable of doing such thing. Unless, of course, he was seeing an optical illusion.

Steve Robey also believes that Valentich wasn’t disoriented at the time of the flight, and that he’d have to be pretty good at acting if it was he was staging a hoax. In an interview on the show Unexplained Mysteries, he said that Valentich sound worried and confused during the time he was describing what the craft was doing.

Robey then said that he too became concerned. At the time, he had to assume there was another aircraft in the vicinity that was circling around the Cessna, but then got worried when the pilot was saying it was doing all sorts of weird manoeuvres. In another interview, when asked what he thought happened to Valentich, he was quoted, “Well, it wasn’t another aeroplane. Another aeroplane wouldn’t have travelled through the air like this thing did… at speed and changing direction so rapidly, disappearing at one point, orbiting on top of him while he was orbiting.” Unquote. He also added that he thinks Valentich encountered a UFO.

A memorial plaque for Frederick Valentich was unveiled in 1998, and it’s situated at Cape Otway. The inscription on it says the following:

“The Unknown

This plaque commemorates the landmark of the mysterious disappearance of Frederick Valentich on 21 October 1978

Frederick was flying a Cessna 182L , and at this point he changed direction to south from the lighthouse towards the sea.

Twelve minutes from flying south from here at precisely 19:12:28 hrs radio transmission was cut off and in his last radio contact he explained “ that strange aircraft is hovering on top of me again and it is not an aircraft .........”

After an extensive land and sea search, no trace was ever found of Cessna VH-DSJ or of Frederick Valentich.

And so to this day, his disappearance remains a mystery.” Unquote.

The cause of disappearance, I guess, would have to be inconclusive. Both arguments have strong points, but neither one can really be proven.

At this point, it’s safe to say that this aviation mystery has been ongoing for almost 45 years as of the recording of this episode. Sadly, I believe that it’ll remain that way for a lot more. Unless, of course, they find the wreckage of the plane somewhere, or Valentich re-appears.

So that’s the end of the yarn. Whether you believe he interacted with unknown forces, or he met his earthly demise, it’s actually a sad story all in all. I mean, Frederick was pretty much a kid when he vanished, and nobody knows where he went, and his dad passed away without any real closure. And wherever Frederick Valentich is, I hope he’s at peace.

Thank you for tuning in to this yarn. I appreciate the listens and the support. As always, feedback is welcome, and I would very much love to improve my podcasting delivery. I’ve got a heap of topics queued up, but if you have a suggestion for an episode, feel free to send an email, or message me on instagram since it’s my main social media outlet.

Also, I have a ko-fi page! You have a choice of supporting me with a one off payment of 3 dollars, but that’s only if you want to, of course. You’ll find more details on my Linktree.

Anyway, I’ve got to go. Recommend this podcast to your friends, family, and the council worker that checks your water meter. As always, stay safe and look after yourselves. Lock your doors and tell those strange men in black suits that you saw nothing. Ciao!

Episode 8 - The Not-Aircraft

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