When Frederick Valentich Disappeared Did He See a UFO?

Article by Bee Heim                                August 19, 2020                              (filmdaily.co)

• In 1978, Frederick Valentich was a 20-year old Australian who was training to become a commercial airplane pilot. He had 150 hours of flight time and was allowed to fly at night. But it was not an easy road for Valentich. He consistently failed his commercial license examinations. He also had been involved in a couple of air incidents – straying into controlled airspace above Sydney, and twice deliberately flying into a cloud, which was illegal in his aircraft.

• On the evening of October 21, 1978, Valentich was attempting a training flight over the Bass Strait, between the Australian mainland of Victoria and Tasmania, piloting a Cessna 182L light aircraft. The exact path of the flight was approximately 125 miles from Moorabbin, Victoria to King Island, Tasmania. At 7:06pm Valentich radioed Melbourne Flight Service to let them know that an unidentified aircraft was following him. The Service informed him that radar was showing no traffic near him at the time.

• Valentich insisted that a craft with four bright landing lights was flying 1,000 feet above him. He described the craft as shiny, metallic, and with a green light on it. He kept reporting the craft’s movements for five minutes, saying that he believed that the pilot of the craft was “toying” with him. He described the craft as “orbiting” around his plane. Then Valentich reported engine trouble. Officials asked him to identify the other aircraft. The only thing Valentich could say, and these were his final words before he was cut off by a metallic, scraping sound, was, “It isn’t an aircraft.”

• The authorities assumed that Valentich’s Cessna crashed. An air and sea search was conducted in the area where Valentich last reported his coordinates, but nothing turned up. The matter was turned over to the Australian Department of Transportation, but its investigation came up empty as well. Witnesses reported seeing planes landing or flying overhead, but no one saw a crash. Eventually, Valentich was presumed dead and the case was closed. Five years later, in 1983, an engine cowl flap from the same kind of plane Valentich was flying washed ashore on Flinders Island. Serial numbers on the parts were in the ‘same range’ as Valentich’s Cessna as well.

• Valentich was actually a believer in UFOs and worried about running into one while out flying, according to his father. A Victorian farmer would later claim that he saw a UFO on his property the next day, with Valentich’s plane sticking out of the side of it “leaking” oil. A Victorian UFO group, following up on the lead in 2013, could not identity the farmer,

• Forty years since the incident, the case has never been solved, although it continues to fascinate and haunt people. Was it a real UFO encounter? Or did Valentich make a mistake before crashing? It looks like we may never know.

Is there such a thing as a real UFO? Well, that’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? There have been plenty of stories of UFO sightings and claims of alien abductions over the years. Very few of those, however, are as spine-chilling as the case of Frederick Valentich, who claims to have seen a UFO before disappearing off the face of the Earth. Y-I-K-E-S, am I right?

Did Frederick Valentich truly see a real UFO before mysteriously disappearing? What happened the night that young pilot disappeared? Will the mystery always remain unsolved? Or is there a chance to know once and for all if aliens truly took Valentich back in the 70s?

Who was Frederick Valentich?

Born in 1958, Valentich was training to become a commercial pilot at the time of his disappearance. He had 150 hours of flight time and was allowed to fly at night. Despite working to become a commercial pilot, Valentich failed all five commercial licence examination subjects. Before he went missing, Valentich failed three more commercial licence subjects.

The 20-year-old Valentich had also been involved in a couple of air incidents. He strayed into controlled airspace above Sydney, which he was let off with a warning. Twice, Valentich flew into a cloud deliberately, which prosecutors were considering pressing charges against Valentich for.

The final flight of Frederick Valentich

On the evening of Oct. 21, 1978, Valentich was attempting a training flight over the Bass Strait, which is between the Australian mainland and Tasmania. To make this flight, Valentich was piloting a Cessna 182L, which is a light aircraft. The exact path of the flight was approx. 125 miles from Moorabbin to King Island.

Any hope of this being a routine training flight, however, went out the window at 7:06pm when Valentich radioed in. He contacted the Melbourne Flight Service and let them know that an unidentified aircraft was following him. The Service, however, said that there was no traffic near him at the time.

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