Australian UFO : The Valentich Disappearance on Unsolved Mysteries

This is another retrospective look at the UFO cases covered by the ‘Unsolved Mysteries’ TV show. All of which are now freely available to watch on YouTube.

Here we have another ‘classic’ UFO case from 1978. The Fred Valentich UFO encounter. One that appears to have had a tragic ending. Or did it?

Youtube Segment : Starts Here

First Aired : September 29, 1993

Unsolved Mysteries Show Notes

October 21st, 1978, just south of Melbourne, Australia, a single engine Cessna lifted off from Moorabbin airport. The pilot was 20-year-old Fredrick Valentich. Valentich had been flying for two years and had logged over 150 hours of solo time. Headed for King Island, his flight plan called for a 40-minute trip west along the Australian coast. Then, at Cape Otway, he would head south for a half-hour run over Bass Strait. Ken Llewelyn of the Royal Australian Air Force had this to say about Fred’s flight:

“It was a fairly normal exercise. He had an appropriate instrument rating for the trip. It was a very straightforward flight, and I could see no reason why it shouldn’t have concluded successfully. What happened 3/4 of an hour into that flight, I think, will be one of the great mysteries of Australian aviation.”

It started as a routine flight …

Valentich was in contact with a flight service centre on the ground when he reported a large aircraft that passed 1,000 feet above him several times. Steve Robey was the ground controller communicating with Fred:

“He wasn’t to the point where he was panicking, but he was genuinely concerned by what he saw, with what he saw. He was worried. He sounded confused. Then, as he described what the aircraft was doing, I became a little bit concerned, too.”

What Fred reported was that the craft was stationary, hovering in mid-air as he flew around it. The following is a transcript of the radio communication:

Fred: It’s got a green light that’s sort of metallic, like it’s shiny all over. It’s just disappeared. Is this some sort of military aircraft or what?
Tower: Delta, Sierra, Juliet, is the aircraft still with you?
Fred: Delta, Sierra, Juliet. Now approaching from southwest. Delta, Sierra, Juliet, the engine’s gone into half idle. I’ve got it set on 23, 24. This thing’s just coughing. This strange aircraft’s just hovering on top of me again. It’s hovering, and it’s… it’s not an aircraft.

Suddenly, an unidentifiable clicking noise came over the radio. The sound lasted 17 seconds. Then silence.

Search boats found no trace of the plane. For 4 days, search vessels criss-crossed Bass Strait. There was absolutely no sign of Valentich or his aircraft. There was no evidence of a crash. All that remained was the final baffling radio transmission.

People could only speculate as to what really happened, until a witness came forward with a firsthand account. Around the time of Valentich’s disappearance, an eyewitness and his family were returning from an afternoon outing when they noticed unusual activity in the sky.

“I looked up and saw this long green light about 1,000 or 2,000 feet above the aircraft. So we sat there and watched it for a few seconds. And the green light crept closer to the plane. I said, ‘That plane is coming down pretty steep. It’s on a 45 degree angle.’ I said, ‘I think it’s going to crash.”

The eyewitness account suggested that perhaps Valentich had encountered a UFO. He never saw whether the plane crashed. The only certainty was that Valentich had vanished.

Six weeks later, an amateur photographer came forward with even more startling evidence. On the evening of the flight, Roy Manifold had been setting up to photograph a sunset at Cape Otway, which was almost directly under Valentich’s flight path:

“I’d done the normal thing, had the camera on automatic exposure, and I took six photographs of the sun disappearing into the sea.”

When developed, Manifold said one of the photographs displayed a peculiar blemish:

“I observed this mark on the print that looked like a developing error or something. They mussed it up. I said, ‘Just a minute, that night I took that is exactly the night that this guy disappeared.”

A leading Australian photo lab found neither dirt nor damage on the negative, determining that the strange mark was actually in the picture. The negative was later sent to the United States for computer analysis by a team of UFO researchers. They claimed that the blot was actually a solid, metallic object. To them, it appeared to be enveloped in a cloud of exhaust, situated about a mile from the camera. A second, analysis, however, stated that the mark could be a developing error. Either way, Roy Manifold believes the photograph does show something of consequence:

“Unfortunately, I didn’t see it, and I didn’t hear anything that night, either. First time I’ve had something on my printings, and I’ve done thousands of photographs, and without any incidence of anything like that on them.”

Forty-five years have passed since Fredrick Valentich flew off to his uncertain fate. However, the questions raised by his mysterious disappearance are just as disturbing today. What exactly did Valentich see in the minutes before radio contact was lost?

Perhaps the secret of Fredrick Valentich lies many fathoms beneath Bass Strait, or perhaps it lies far from our planet, light-years beyond our understanding.

Beyond Unsolved Mysteries

In November of 1978 another light aircraft pilot spotted what he believed were the remains of a submerged aircraft in the Bass Straits. Just a month after the disappearance, the pilot of another Cessna sighted the outline of what he believed was a submerged aircraft. However a repeated pass over the area failed to confirm anything. Then five years after the incident “parts of aircraft wreckage with partial matching serial numbers were found in Bass Strait five years after the disappearance.”



Strange Rumour

In 2005 a bizarre rumour surfaced about a suspicious man arrested by soldiers from his unit near the Soviet-Chinese border. He had a capsule with him that allegedly contained text confirming that Valentich had been captured by a UFO. Almost certainly a very bad hoax!!

Valentich Accident Report Released

Thanks to the work of Keith Basterfield the full report, originally thought lost, was released in 2012. This is now available as a searchable pdf (66MB): click here to download

After recording the sequence of events, the analysis section of the report immediately dissects the character of the pilot after interviewing those closest to him.

The available evidence indicates that the pilot, Frederick Valentich was rapidly running out of time. He had told his family, girlfriend and that he only had one subject left to pass to gain his Commercial Pilot licence and he was currently going to instructional classes twice a week to study that subject. His father was assisting him financially to obtain his commercial licence.”

It also details how he had failed all five Commercial Pilot Licence subjects on two occasions, and sat for three subjects in July 1978. He had failed those too.

His family and girlfriend were led to believe his flight to King Island was a trip to bring back some crayfish. However, he had told the Operator and Moorabbin Briefing Officer that the purpose of his flight was to collect a group of friends from King Island. Valentich had placed no orders for crayfish from King Island. Nor had he requested aerodrome lighting at King Island, despite knowing the Flight Service Unit there had closed, and he would not be landing until after dusk.

The analysis also notes Valentich’s calm and ‘matter of fact’ voice transmission as he describes the other aircraft in his vicinity. It even hints that he may have planned to disappear. Commenting that had he maintained his flight path, then wreckage of his aircraft would have been spotted between Cape Otway and King Island. When search and rescue operations had failed to turn up any evidence that his plane had crashed.

The investigator’s notes say that Valentich had no financial or family problems. He rarely touched alcohol and had a keen interest in the UFO topic. His girlfriend had observed the night before the flight that he seemed to have forgotten he had arranged to take her out after he returned from King Island. However, he had assured her he would be back for 7:30pm. This would have been impossible based on his submitted flight plan.

She had flown a number of times with Fred Valentich and commented that he had a habit of placing the microphone in his lap whilst flying. Valentich had long legs and that after a period of time it was his habit to release the seat and to push it rearward. She was of the opinion that the ‘metallic noise’ mentioned in the newspaper could have been the seat sliding rearward, with the microphone transmitting.

He had also told her the week before his disappearance

“If a UFO landed in front of me now, I would go in it, but never without you”

Theories

Some three years later, a number of theories were proffered by the investigation team.



# UFO intervention – with a disclaimer that there were no sighting reports of a brightly illuminated craft large enough to take on board a Cessna 182.

# Disorientation – a distinct possibility, but no wreckage to confirm this.

# Controlled Landing on the Sea – but again no wreckage or a body.

# Successful Landing Elsewhere – Surmises that Valentich may have fabricated his whereabouts.

# Crash Elsewhere - Valentich trying to land in a remote location. Wreckage not found.

Then in 2014 a story surfaced about a farmer near Adelaide who reportedly witnessed a large craft hovering over his property the morning after Mr Valentich went missing. See : Herald Sun

But the trail appears to go nowhere, and the story of what happened to Fred Valentich remains a mystery nearly half a century after he disappeared.

originally posted by: mirageman
# Disorientation – a distinct possibility, but no wreckage to confirm this.

Your image says "a distinct possibility and even probability". While that was written 3 years after the incident, a couple of other skeptics also think this is the most probable explanation, and claim that some possibly matching wreckage was found 5 years after the incident (also mentioned in your post):

The Valentich Disappearance: Another UFO Cold Case Solved

Now thanks to yeoman’s work by Australian researcher Keith Basterfield, who rediscovered the “lost” official case file, we have new information. As he explains, “parts of aircraft wreckage with partial matching serial numbers were found in Bass Strait five years after the disappearance.” (Qtd. in Sheaffer 2013, 27.)

In addition to the 5 hypotheses mentioned such as disorientation, all his failures on his attempts to obtain a commercial pilots license might have been possible motiviation for suicide, which I'm not saying is likely, just one more hypothesis to add to the list of possibilities:

The Valentich Disappearance

The Australian government came up with several potential explanations. Firstly, as he had enough fuel to fly 800km, they have suggested he may have staged his own disappearance. However there were no reports of matching aircrafts plotted on any radar at this time. Secondly, they claimed that he may have been disoriented and was flying upside down – meaning that the lights he saw were actually a reflection of his own in the water. Finally, they have suggested that he may have committed suicide.

originally posted by: Arbitrageur

originally posted by: mirageman
# Disorientation – a distinct possibility, but no wreckage to confirm this.

Your image says "a distinct possibility and even probability". While that was written 3 years after the incident, a couple of other skeptics also think this is the most probable explanation, and claim that some possibly matching wreckage was found 5 years after the incident (also mentioned in your post):

The Valentich Disappearance: Another UFO Cold Case Solved

Now thanks to yeoman’s work by Australian researcher Keith Basterfield, who rediscovered the “lost” official case file, we have new information. As he explains, “parts of aircraft wreckage with partial matching serial numbers were found in Bass Strait five years after the disappearance.” (Qtd. in Sheaffer 2013, 27.)

In addition to the 5 hypotheses mentioned such as disorientation, all his failures on his attempts to obtain a commercial pilots license might have been possible motiviation for suicide, which I'm not saying is likely, just one more hypothesis to add to the list of possibilities:

The Valentich Disappearance

The Australian government came up with several potential explanations. Firstly, as he had enough fuel to fly 800km, they have suggested he may have staged his own disappearance. However there were no reports of matching aircrafts plotted on any radar at this time. Secondly, they claimed that he may have been disoriented and was flying upside down – meaning that the lights he saw were actually a reflection of his own in the water. Finally, they have suggested that he may have committed suicide.

If they found wreckage with partially matching serial numbers, that seems to strongly suggest that the plane did go down. From what exactly, though, is the question. But the suicide prospect is pretty interesting, judging by the circumstances before his disappearance.

originally posted by: Skadi_the_Evil_Elf


If they found wreckage with partially matching serial numbers, that seems to strongly suggest that the plane did go down. From what exactly, though, is the question. But the suicide prospect is pretty interesting, judging by the circumstances before his disappearance.

Some notes about Valentich's character, which is a crucial factor in this case:

His overall demeanour is perhaps best ascertained by his close personal friend Gregory Reaburn who had known him for 7-8 years since his early teens, regularly meeting each other twice a week. According to the downloadable report:

Mr Reaburn thought it would be quite out of the question that Valentich would commit suicide or purposely fly the aircraft to a remote location to get away from society. Valentich was far too close to his family, girlfriend and friends to contemplate such actions.

On the subject of UFOs, Valentich was not considered to be 'fanatical' about the subject - ie at least not to the same degree as bozos like us on ATS - confirmed by his girlfriend. Admittedly, Fred once promised he would take with her in a UFO if the opportunity arose, but that conversation was atypical, light-hearted and not representative of a foaming-at-the-mouth 'obsession' during the five months they'd known each other.

Reaburn also said Fred's UFO interest was nothing out of the ordinary, although it seems Fred's father became a 'believer' - perhaps because his son's belief in UFOs was strengthened when Fred had access to confidential RAAF UFO reports, although, tellingly, Fred refused to divulge the information to anyone else due to their confidentiality. So he arguably did possess a strong degree of maturity and integrity at that level.

Aside from keeping occasional clippings of UFOs (no doubt inspired by viewing the RAAF documents), Fred also owned a copy of 'Chariots Of The Gods' - but then what self-respecting young dude in the 1970's didn't? His father also said Fred 'went to see' UFO movies, and being 1978 we can safely assume he meant a certain Spielberg blockbuster doing the rounds globally since its 1977 US release. Overall, I think we need to be cautious if anyone attempts to portray him as a UFO anorak whose beliefs may have inspired him to cook-up a fake UFO report.

Despite anxiety over failed exams, I certainly do not get the impression that Valentich was suicidal or desperate to physically escape from such a close-knit community of family and friends.

I could be 100% wrong, but it's worth pondering.

a reply to: mirageman

Here’s an article that speculates, that the area of Valentich disappearance may have (Bermuda) triangle similarities….since the area has been known to have strangeness of other incidents….

The Long UFO History Of The Bass Strait Triangle

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a reply to: ConfusedBrit

....Despite anxiety over failed exams, I certainly do not get the impression that Valentich was suicidal or desperate to physically escape from such a close-knit community of family and friends. ...

I don't think suicide likely, either. But the fact that he lied about why he was going to King Island and didn't arrange for the airfield to be illuminated after dusk does suggest that maybe he was planning to "vanish".

How he was going to land a plane and then disappear is a whole other question. Maybe Fred never made it. Got into trouble and a tragedy occurred.

But probably only Fred knows what happened.

I wonder if that part of his testing was what caused him to fail his attempts at a commercial pilots licence....

:/
a reply to: mirageman

Haven't watched yet but just wanted to say I'm really enjoying these UM threads you are doing a great job on them and its cool watching these episodes again, 9ne of my favorite shows as a kid

a reply to: ConfusedBrit

Suicide often catches family and friends off guard. One can be close to friends and family and still want to end it. Especially if one feels like a failure or embarrassment to ones loved ones, it can lead a person to decide family would be better off without them. So it's not out of the realm of possibility. In my experience, I've seen suicides that completely blew away family and friends who were shocked that the deceased had even entertained such thoughts. it can happen to anyone.

It does appear that Fred didn't have any intention of making his stated journey, and possibly had other plans that night, given that he didn't alert the airfield at King Island of his planned arrival, and no orders of crayfish were made. Whatever Fred was planning to do that night, it didn't involve landing in King Island.

Which of course, leads to the other possibility he was hoping to disappear, fake his death, and just vanish. Something I don't think happened, for a number of reasons. One of which, Valentich being a well known face around Australia and beyond, would have been discovered by now. From what I've read about the guy, he wasn't particularly clever, and certainly not bright enough to carry on such a deception successfully for decades. At best, this might have been his original intent, but was unable to carry it out due to an unknown disaster that brought his plane down.

Still, though, suicide or mental breakdown seem to be more likely when I look deeper into this case. So much before the ill-fated flight raises red flags, especially Valentich's different reasons for making the flight, none of which panned out.

a reply to: Skadi_the_Evil_Elf

Good points there.

Some people are incapable of thinking more than a few steps ahead. Especially if they are in a troubled mental state. So it's difficult to say exactly what was going on in Fred's mind running up to his disappearance. He'd also been censured a couple of times for flying into a cloud and a restricted military zone. Which indicates that he could act recklessly at times.

So maybe he faked the whole UFO story with the idea he'd land somewhere and walk away from it all. Never getting beyond what he'd do in the days following. But his plan failed, and he perished in a tragic accident.

I also add that I suspect the Manifold photograph shows a bug. It looks like a fly or bee flew past (out of focus).

originally posted by: MisguidedAngel
Haven't watched yet but just wanted to say I'm really enjoying these UM threads you are doing a great job on them and its cool watching these episodes again, 9ne of my favorite shows as a kid

Yes, there are still a few to go and they are a good excuse to go over some old classic cases again.

From memory I believe there was corroboration on date / times and location of the eyewitness who saw the plane and the green light in which case that is strong supporting evidence for the flight call transcript description.

a reply to: chunder

According to Richard Haines' Valentich Disappearance New Evidence Report

The Air Traffic Controller reported that Fred saw “a large aircraft below 5,000” (feet altitude). The time was exactly 9:06:14.

...In the years following this event, one of the authors succeeded in locating and interviewing a number of people travelling or living in the region along Great Ocean Road, which runs north and south through Apollo Bay. Reports were obtained from 20 eyewitnesses in this region, describing an erratically moving green light in the sky at that same time of evening as Valentich’s flight.

The most significant from a Mr. Hansen (pseudonym)

Mr. Hansen and his two nieces had been shooting rabbits on the late afternoon of October 21, 1978, in the hills about 2 km west of Apollo Bay in the direction of Marriners Falls. He said that it was dusk, but he could not recall the exact time. They were in his four- wheel-drive vehicle driving east on Barham Valley Road toward his home on the southern outskirts of the town. Figure 2 shows an enlarged scale drawing of the road on which they were travelling when they sighted the lights in the sky. Hansen was driving (in the left front seat), and one niece, Tracy, was sitting in the right front seat. His other niece was in the back right seat. Tracy first sighted colored lights in the sky on their right side. The automobile was travelling about 30 miles per hour at the time in the left lane. Suddenly, she said, “What is that light in the sky?”

As the automobile continued, Hansen craned his neck to look out the right side window in the direction that she was pointing. He caught sight of some lights and said to her, “Those are only the lights of an airplane.”

“No,” she replied, “I mean that other large green light above it!” He drove on and then turned to look again some 10 to 15 seconds later. At that point, he also was able to make out two separate sets of lights in the clear but darkening sky.

They continued down the road, although Mr. Hansen was now slowing down because of the left turn ahead and because he wanted to better see the strange set of aerial lights. .... He noted clearly the familiar lights of a small airplane...

The U* UFO Database also lists 3 other UFO sightings in the area on the same day October 21st 1978.

So who knows what really happened?

originally posted by: Skadi_the_Evil_Elf
a reply to: ConfusedBrit

Suicide often catches family and friends off guard. One can be close to friends and family and still want to end it. Especially if one feels like a failure or embarrassment to ones loved ones, it can lead a person to decide family would be better off without them. So it's not out of the realm of possibility. In my experience, I've seen suicides that completely blew away family and friends who were shocked that the deceased had even entertained such thoughts. it can happen to anyone.

Well said. I myself have had a close friend who attempted to hang himself, which I never saw coming, so yes, it's not out of the realm of possibility that Fred went that far. The opinion of his girlfriend of 5 months, and close friend of 8 years who regularly saw him, point to it being out of the question, but I will side with you in holding it out as a possibility, if not quite a probability in this case IMO. Just a feeling I have.

The witness accounts detailing a green light in the vicinity of Fred's plane - especially considering the 'new evidence' - are fascinating and tantalising.

And I wonder if that photograph can be analysed more deeply, although MM may be right that it could be a bug.

a reply to: ConfusedBrit

And I wonder if that photograph can be analysed more deeply, although MM may be right that it could be a bug....

By all accounts Ray Manifold took a series of pictures on automatic timer of the sunset over the Bass Strait. I've never seen any others than this one.

It would be interesting to see if the rest of the photos on the roll showed up anything else. My guess is that they don't.

I’m going to lean on that the wreckage may have been found based on Australian archives…..papers shown below……and at least for now.

However, I will add that the exact reason for Valentich’s demise is still unknown. I’ll chalk up a contributory factor that the area has had weird Bermuda Triangle ish historical incidents….as I linked in a previous post..









In the last paper above speaks to large Unusual ( in other words not a daily typical occurrence) currents in the area. IMO….it smacks of almost the same type of water current weirdness sometimes reported in the Bermuda Triangle.

Imo….the parts found are compelling.

👽

See first sentence of caption….


👽

originally posted by: mirageman
a reply to: Skadi_the_Evil_Elf

Good points there.

Some people are incapable of thinking more than a few steps ahead. Especially if they are in a troubled mental state. So it's difficult to say exactly what was going on in Fred's mind running up to his disappearance. He'd also been censured a couple of times for flying into a cloud and a restricted military zone. Which indicates that he could act recklessly at times.

So maybe he faked the whole UFO story with the idea he'd land somewhere and walk away from it all. Never getting beyond what he'd do in the days following. But his plan failed, and he perished in a tragic accident.

That's also a possibility. Like I said, he didn't seem that bright, and had he been planning a disappearance, it is unlikely he really thought everything through. And might have attempted something foolish which backfired. I don't think whatever happened, he survived, and the more information that surfaces, the less I think ET had anything to do with it.