October 17, 2025 • 54 mins
Join Ben as he examines Australia’s greatest aviation mystery, the strange disappearance of Fred Valentich. This mystery has fascinated the world for decades. Join us as Ben , examines what happened.
These are the Podcasts tracks you will hear 24/7, on The Un~X Network! www.unxnetwork.com
These are the Podcasts tracks you will hear 24/7, on The Un~X Network! www.unxnetwork.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Australia, the sixth largest country on Earth. An ancient, rugged
and unforgiving land with abundant animal life, both beautiful and
deadly found within its awe inspiring landscapes and natural beauty.
(00:29):
Exists a deep history of unexplained mysteries for anyone with
the courage to investigate them. Tonight we join Ben on
a journey across this vast island continent in search of
(00:50):
answers to events that have reshaped the lives of so
many that have been exposed to Unexplained phenomena. As with
your host, Ben.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Hi, and welcome to episode nine of Unexplained Phenomena Australia.
Whether it's your first or the ninth episode, we've already
taken a good look at a lot of truly incredible
and interesting UFO events that have occurred here in Australia,
and there is none more well known than tonight's episode.
The disappearance of Fred Valentich, which occurred on the twenty
(01:36):
first of October nineteen seventy eight. Now, this event made
international headlines in the days and the weeks after Fred's
disappearance in truly mysterious circumstances, there was worldwide interest as
for the first time a plane and its pilot had
(01:56):
completely disappeared. It was an absolutely astonishing event. And what
makes it even more interesting was all the while Fred
was talking live to air Services at Melbourne's Tullamarine Airport
in Melbourne, he managed to disappear totally and completely and
(02:16):
was never to be seen again. And on this episode
we're going to have a really really good in depth
look as much as we can in the next hour
about Fred's about Fred's encounters, and we're going to have
a look at who was Fred, the events, what actually happened,
and that'll be a fairly big focus of this week's episode.
(02:41):
We'll have a look at a photograph that was taken
on the same day as he disappeared at the same time,
and we'll have a little bit of a look at
the search and the theories about what happened to him
and generally the aftermath of Australia's greatest civil aviation mystery. Now,
this event was unlike a lot of other UFO encounters
(03:03):
that resulted in outright disappearance. Fred never came back to
tell us what happened, what led to him not returning
to Melbourne. His disappearance was absolutely devastating to his family
and his girlfriend Ronda. The final moments of his conversation
showed that he was being buzzed by something unknown. We
(03:24):
were left with him stating his plane was coughing and
he could not identify what was up there with him.
There was a sense of helplessness and nothing could be
done to assist Fred. There was no known aircraft in
the area at the time. An air air controller, Steve Roby,
was perplexed and trying very very hard to support and
(03:47):
assist Fred. Everyone in that controlled tower building was listening
and searching for answers in the lifetime that Fred was
talking about what was going on, and the incident played
out very quickly, but not instantly either. There was time
for troubleshooting conversation between Fred and Steve, and it was
(04:09):
plainly obvious that the Civil Aviation Authority had no protocol
for this type of event. The encounter occurred at a
time of high UFO reports and it was just they
were everywhere in that month particularly and also in that
year nineteen to seventy eight, and a plumber on a
(04:32):
nearby beach took a very unusual photo at the precisely
the time Fred had started to report his situation. The
reports flooded into the media and the Victorian UFO Research Society.
It all became very big, very very quickly, so it
was an absolute sensation at the time. It made headlines
(04:53):
absolutely everywhere. Incredible, a pilot disappears and a UFO is
reported in close proximity to him while he's having that,
while he's flying in the air, So it was really
unbelievable and there was great interest. So who was Fred.
He was a twenty one year old young man basically
(05:15):
of Italian heritage. His family consisted of his father Guido,
his mother alberta younger brother, Richard, who was about twelve
at the time, and two younger twin sisters who were
Olivia and Lara, and they were both four years old
at the time. So as you can appreciate, it was
a really difficult and tragic for his family to lose
(05:37):
him and his girlfriend Ronda as well, so his disappearance.
His disappearance had a huge effect on all their lives.
So Fred was hard working, family focused and determined to
become a commercial pilot and he was well on his
(05:58):
way to achieving this goal when fate really had other
plans for him. His disappearance took away all his hopes
and dreams, devastated everybody around him, and they basically have
all recovered and struggled struggled to recover from the events
of the twenty first of October nineteen seventy eight. So
(06:19):
just before we start, I'll give you a bit of
an idea on where it all happened. So this is
This is Australia and on the left hand side it's
vectoring down to where King Island was and that's where
Fred was flying to on that day when he left
Tullamarine Airport. He was heading down to a small island
that's between Victoria and Tasmania, which is further down and
(06:42):
the picture on the right basically shows you the shape
of King Island, so it's just a fairly small area
and this map gives you a bit of a better idea.
So he's taken off from Moraban Airport in Melbourne and
his head out over Port Phillip Bay and come all
the way down to Cape Otway where a lighthouse and
he's turned into oblivion and completely disappeared somewhere en route
(07:06):
between Cape Otway and King Island. So it's a very
strange stretch of water Bass Straight, It's it's shallow, it
can be very very violent in storms. Many ships and
planes have been lost there over the years. And there's
probably another episode on Bass Straight alone, which I think
(07:28):
I might do down the track as well. And this
is Fred, so as you can see, he was very
clean cut and straightforward, sort of a young man who
was focused on his career. And I'll show a few
more photos of him as we as we go through
as well. So I sort of really wanted to focus on,
(07:49):
you know, what happened on that day, you know, what happened,
how did his day begin, what led up to him
actually disappearing, So we get a full understanding of what
of what happened with Fred. And this is such a
well known case that some of you may know a
lot about it, and other people listening may know nothing
about it. So I'm going to try and hit it
(08:11):
with a reasonable amount of detail as much as I can,
and I'm probably not going to have enough time in
an hour to do it justice. So on the twenty
first of October, Fred awoke at about seven to fifteen
am in the morning. He got up showered, shaved, dressed
into a pair of jeans and an open neck blue
shirt and he came into the kitchen in good humor
(08:32):
his father, Guido had recalled on the day. He sat
down at the kitchen table and about eight am, and
he had two pieces of toast with cheese and a
chocolate drink and he did not have to he did
not have to beat his work, which was about five
miles away until about nine o'clock in the morning. And
after eating, he went back into his room and picked
up two hundred dollars that he had received from the
(08:54):
Royal Australian Air Force offices at Victoria Barracks in Melbourne,
and the officer that had asked him to buy crayfish
because he was flying down to King Island for his
first night flight, his first flight over water, open water.
He'd never done it before, so this was his first
time to actually leave during daylight, fly down to King
(09:16):
Island land, collect crayfish and possibly passengers if anyone was
wanting to go back. And he was doing this and
his return was definitely going to be at night, and
it was going to get pretty dark even by the
time he was reaching reaching King Island, so it was
his first nighttime flight over water, so that has to
(09:37):
be kept in mind as well, that he is a
trainee pilot, a good pilot by all accounts from everybody
that I've spoken to, but this was still his first
flight out over open water. And so his friends at
the barracks had asked him to buy as many crayfish
as he could from the fisherman on King Island, and
(10:01):
he was pocketing that money, so he had it on
him to do that when he got down there, and
according to his father Guido, Fred also bought He had
an interest in UFOs and he had a scrap book
with him and he bought it out as he came
out of his room, and it was basically just an
old school exercise book in which he had pasted and
taped clippings from newspapers and magazines. And his father couldn't
(10:26):
remember if if Fred had read many books on the subject,
but he knew that he had read some Von Daniken
and Emmanuel Vilosky, and that he'd also recently had seen
the Close Encounters of the Third Kind movie. This is
nineteen seventy eight, so it would have been fairly fairly
new at that time so it was obviously it was
a hit around the world and it was here too,
(10:48):
so quite clearly Fred was interested in the subject of
UFOs and the family would have discussions about it from
time to time. And he'd gone and spent some time
as a cadet at the raft base in East Sale,
which is up near where I am, about an hour
from where I live. And he'd spent two weeks in
training at the air base in August of nineteen seventy eight,
(11:09):
so just a few months prior to his prior to
his disappearance, and he came back and he said to
the family that he was convinced that UFOs existed. So
but nobody knows what he was exposed to at the
Sale raft base at that time, being a trainee, probably
not a lot, but the discussion was probably came up
in conversation, if not in instruction down there. And at
(11:33):
eight thirty that morning he left his family's yellow brick
home at Avn Avenue in Avondale Heights. This is roughly
northwest of the center of Melbourne for anyone who knows
Melbourne who might be listening in Victoria. And he got
into his little fee at fifteen hundred mark three nineteen
sixty six car and he drove it. He was basically
(11:56):
heading off to work, and so he worked in huckle
Street Mooney Pond's, and he worked at the Aussie Disposals
and which is army supply store, so you know they
have a lot of ex army army things and camping
supplies that that type of thing. So you know, the
stores will still exist today in Australia, so they're very
(12:17):
they're still very popular. And his boss, Dick Williams, greeted
Fred on that morning and he liked Fred because he
was so reliable and because if he had a pleasant personality,
it was a little quiet, a little bit shy sometimes.
And a friend of Fred's called Gary Gracie was quoted
as saying that he had a very stable personality, happy
(12:39):
family life, nice girlfriend, and was doing what he loved
to do, which was flying, and he enjoyed life so
much that there would be no reason for him to
willingly want to kill himself. And we'll discuss that later
when we look at the theories as to what happened
and motivations and all that sort of thing. So Fred
and his boss talked about sports that morning, and from
time to time as Fred checked the stock on the
(13:00):
shelves so customers and swept up. So it was just
a regular day at work. But his boss said that
at the same time, Fred had been also had little periods,
have been a little bit quiet that morning as well,
and he mentioned something about flying over to King Island,
and he seemed he seemed pretty excited to his boss,
Dick Williams, and he said that he'll never forget his
(13:23):
last words. As he walked outside, Fred looked up at
the clear blue sky and said, it's going to be
a nice day to go flying. Well, that's a great statement,
and I'm sure at the time that he and no
one else had any any idea that that's got the
ramifications of what that statement really is. So he basically
(13:45):
finished his shift with see you, lader, Dick, and he basically,
you know, he hopped in his car. So he would
have been consumed all day about the thoughts of his
first night flight over water, and he would have been
thinking through each step of the flight to come that evening.
(14:05):
So even though he was working that day, he probably
still had that flight information going around his head, and
he'd flown the same route before during daylight hours and
as far as katee Otway on several other occasions, so
he'd sort of done that route in the past during
the day, so for more than half to three quarters
(14:29):
of the trip, he was already familiar with the airspace
and the procedure that he would have to that he
would have to go through, so and had he possibly
could have been thinking about the other night flight, which
he'd done one previous previous night flight, and this was
his first one over open water. He'd flown between Melbourne
(14:51):
and Banilla, which is in the northeast of Victoria, and
there's quite a little arrow club up that part of
the world, and he didn't have any difficulties on that,
so he had done he had done one night flight
over land, totally different to overwater, as anyone who's a
pilot or understands aviation would completely understand. And flying over land,
(15:14):
you've got you can see towns and highways and lights
and things like that. You've got a lot more to
guide you. When you're over land, you're over open water
at night, you just got to rely on the instruments.
Possibly the moon might help you if you're lucky. And
Fred spent three years as a cadet in the Royal
Australian Air Training Call in West Melbourne, and he was
(15:36):
just really obsessed with wanting to become a pilot and
he was really there was nothing that was going to
stop him from doing that, and he was really only
a couple of modules away from achieving that goal. So
the whole, the whole disappearance was really really something that
was very very tragic for him. So the store of
(16:00):
mini ponds and he was driving to a meteorology class
at the Meraban Airfield, which is from where he left.
So he had to go to an afternoon class which
he was going to complete and then go take the flight.
So at about twelve thirty five pm he pulled his
(16:22):
car into the parking lot at the building in which
his class met. And as I said, he only had
two more academic courses to complete for his commercial Pilot's
license meteorology and Airport Legislation. His class did not start
until one thirty and he used the time to read
his assigned texts dealing with the vitally important subject of meteorology,
(16:48):
the study of weather very important for pilots, and he
was about halfway through the twelve session series that he
had to complete, and he was one of fifteen students
who was enrolled at that time, and the class was
organized and presented by personnel of a firm known as
Nimbus Coaching Meteorolitic meteorological educators quite quite a mouthful, and
(17:09):
their offices were located at the main airport, Tallamarine Field,
and this firm provided meteorology classes for prospective commercial and
senior commercial pilots. And Fred's instructor was a man called
mel Glower, an experienced and dedicated teacher. He talked for
many years, and he took the subject seriously and he
(17:33):
did not recall at all having heard Fred speak about
an interesting unidentified flying objects. And a lot of people
have sort of sort of really gone on about Fred's
interest in UFOs. He was a UFO nut blah blah
blah blah blah. But at the end of the day,
to become a pilot, you've got to pass the real
world tests and have the nerve and the personality traits
(17:58):
that are needed to become a sex for pilots, So
you can have an interest in UFOs. But you know,
I think that has perhaps been over emphasized over the years.
You know, he kept a journal on UFOs he'd seen films.
He discussed an interesting topic that to me seems perfectly okay.
So when the class broke up at five pm, so
(18:20):
he was in that class from one thirty to five,
he chatted with some friends for a few minutes before
leaving to file his flight plan, which he submitted at
five point twenty to the briefing officer at the Mehrabian Airfield.
And with his flight plan filed, Tread more than likely
drove off to McDonald's for an evening meal, as was
(18:42):
his usual habit apparently, and then returned to the airfield
to fuel his aircraft and perform all his normal pre
flight checks that he would have done, and he had
studied the aircraft's operating manual so many times and he
did not feel that he needed to get it out
of the aircraft for the exterior spec He would have
unlocked the cabin door, got in, turned on the master
(19:04):
switch on the center instruments panel, noted that the ignition
switch was off, visually checked the two quantity gauges which
showed the wing tanks were not full and would need
to be topped up, and after turning off the master switch.
He removed the locking device from the control wheel shaft,
which prevents the control surfaces from moving in gusty winds
(19:24):
on the ground, and placed it in the gloved compartment.
The next step was to pull out the carburet a
fuel strain at drain knob getting quite technical here, located
at the bottom edge of the instrument panel just to
the left of the microphone, an action that drains water
and sediment that may have collected in the lower sump.
So Frederick knew that he would have to repeat this
after refueling, but he felt a little comfort in carrying
(19:47):
out this action at this time. Since the tanks had
not been topped off by the previous pilot, there could
have been some water lying there inside the tanks, ready
to cause the engine to cough or stop completely in flight.
That's interesting because later on his engine actually does cough
when he encounters the strange objects. One of the problems
(20:09):
that he had when rented because he was renting the aircraft,
he didn't actually own the aircraft. And when a problem
when you're renting an aircraft is not always knowing if
the previous users have conscientiously followed each and every maintenance
item that would be inconvenient, I would imagine, So the
thought must have occurred to Fred how he'd like to
own his own plane, But that would be a long
(20:31):
wait for a young man working in an army supply
store in western suburbs of Melbourne. So the next part
of his normal walk around, or the pre flight check,
was that the tail of the aircraft. He got out
and removed the rudder lock of the tail like the
control lock. This helped keep the rudder from swinging in
(20:53):
the wind. And then he checked the hingebolts. Grasping the
rudder gave it a gentle push back and forth to
see if there were any abnormal play or looseness, And
since he wasn't yet ready to fly, he let the
rear tie down connected and continued on around to the
trailing edge of the right wing, where he checked the
aery long, huge hinge pins and flap hinges for security.
(21:16):
So it's quite a detailed process. Progressing around the wingtips
to the right main gear, he bent down and scanned
the tire rubber for cuts, low pressure, all those types
of things is what he was actually what he was
looking for. Checking the propeller for knicks, and then the
polished cone in front of the propeller known as the spinner,
(21:39):
to make sure it was attached tightly and had no
play in that as well. He checked for oil eaks
on the propeller, on the nose or everything like that,
the nosewheel had the correct tire inflation. Basically every aspect
of the aircraft needs to be checked by the pilot
before he can then take off, so that's quite a
(22:02):
process to go through and check all of that. So
it was five point fifty five and he was already
past his planned takeoff time and he was getting impatient
to be on his way. The sun was getting lower
on the western horizon, it's long shadows slanted across the
field from the buildings, and the sun would set at
(22:25):
six point forty eight pm, so daylight fading basically, and
he had planned to takeoff at five point thirty five
according to his flight plan, with an estimated time of
arrival at King Island some sixty five minutes later at
six forty but for some unknown reason he had been
(22:47):
delayed and he hadn't actually taken off until six nineteen pm,
some forty four minutes later. So he was already behind schedule,
which was perhaps not great on your first flight over
water when you were trying to probably make the best
of everything and make the most of the conditions. Because
(23:07):
the weather that night was perfect. It was absolutely still clear,
cloudless day, so it was a really, really good night
to go out on this trip. And so whatever it
was that delayed him also probably caused him to forget
another crucial thing that he needed to do, which was
to arrange for the runway lights to be turned on
(23:30):
at King Island. He would be landing there well after
the sun had set, and twilight landings night landings anywhere
of the potential for danger. But he had forgotten this
important detail. So he was flying down to King Island
and he'd forgotten and King Island Airport there is no
(23:51):
major airport, basically a little airfield, and he had to
put in a request to get the lights turned on
on the landing strip. Otherwise no lights. So his little plane,
a little Cessna one eight two l VHDSJ, would have
been landing without lights. So there were a number of
(24:15):
reasons for a delayed takeoff. It's possible that he was
delayed while being served in a in returning to the
airfield in traffic, he may have been delayed by a
greater than usual amount of air traffic using the field,
so there were also there are all sorts of reasons
why that he why he could have been, why he
(24:36):
could have been delayed. So it's he was just not
quite really setting himself up for the best outcome from
the outset, whether it was not entirely his fault either,
like circumstances arise and perhaps he could have maybe even
(24:57):
postponed the flight, but that was probably unlike because he
was really really keen, too keen to do that, so
he'd taken the plant, so he'd basically taken delivery of
the plane, sat in the cockpit during the fueling, took
time to notice the activity going on around him, and
(25:20):
he Raven's considered to be one of the busiest sort
of you know, non commercial airfields in the country. So
it's a lot of smaller planes coming and going, not
a big bunch of big jumbos or air buses. It's
just the smaller, smaller freight companies and private pilots. But
if you've ever been in Melbourne around around that area,
(25:41):
the planes are coming and going all the time, and
especially on the weekends. I've got the touch and go landing,
so people who are learning to fly, it really is
absolutely a really busy, busy place. So the refueling didn't
take very long of the plane and after signing the
pink fuel delivery form, he watched as the fuel truck
(26:01):
drove away. Now he was ready to go, so he
would have adjusted his seat belt just before takeoff, pulled
back on the control wheel, pushed it in fully forward
to make sure it had a full range of travel,
doing all those little checks that he needed to do
once he was actually in the aircraft. So he was
(26:21):
really just getting through those final parts of being ready.
So by now it was six fifteen PM and the
sun was low on the western horizon, but it was
still bright and the sky was perfectly clear, but it's
starting to get into dusk. So and he chose this
(26:45):
plane because it was his favorite plane. He'd flown it
many times and he knew the plane very very well.
So that's another thing in his favor that even though
he was leaving late, he was actually in the plane
that he knew that he was comfortable and confident in.
So with that he basically took off and he was
heading heading basically down down the peninsula. So Melbourne has
(27:13):
got the big bay and pilots can take off and
then they can sort of start heading down. So it
was actually it's really quite quite a good area to
fly because there's a lot of visuals Up in the air.
He can quite clearly see the bay, he can see
the eastern suburbs around the bay, and he can also
(27:34):
once he's up in the air, he's got a lot
greater visibility. He can see right across Port Philip Bay,
across to the western side, down towards Geelong and capeop
Way where he was heading to. So by six nineteen
he was climbing into the sky and back at Flight
(27:57):
Service Unit of Melbourne's main airfield, Tolerant Airport. Another key
character in this adventure Steve Roby, who was thirty one
years old manning the radio and radar facility for the
Flight Services Unit. Now the Flight Services Unit is they're
the guys who talked to the pilots. There's not e
(28:18):
air traffic control slightly different. They give them information, they
check in when they report to their various turning locations
in the sky and things like that. And they crucially
also help to troubleshoot. So I've just got a quick
picture here of Steve. That's him in his older days.
(28:41):
I have met him personally and he is an absolutely fantastic,
fantastic gentleman. And I've just got a couple of more
photos here. Also there's Fred. He's not with DSJ in
that particular photo, but that's the type of plane that
he was lie your little cessnas that are that are
(29:02):
quite common. And this is him also dressed up in
his sort of air cadet uniform at that time. And
I've also got some more photos that's air Cadet Fred.
And these are some more personal photos that you're not
really going to find online. These photos have come from
(29:23):
interviews that we did with Ronda Rushton, his fiance, and
these photos are a little bit rarer. So this is
Fred obviously at home and also riding a dirt bike,
a nineteen seventy eight dirt bike. And these are the
less common pictures that just aren't out there of what
the young man was like. This is Fred and his
(29:45):
girlfriend Ronda, and a couple of pictures of them with
some friends. So have they had quite quite a regular,
normal social life. There's Ronda and this is a picture
of Fred's far Guido, who passed away in the year
two thousand. But he never ever really got over the
(30:08):
disappearance of his son, and I think he was absolutely
really hoping and praying that he had actually been taken
by by a UFO and was living safely in some other,
some other way. It so very very interesting.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
So by six.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Nineteen he was climbing into the sky, flying out over
the bay, which at that on that day would have
been absolutely incredible, really really really good. And he tracked
his way out and cut across the bay and started
heading down towards k pot Way. And at this stage
(30:51):
there's really nothing wrong with anything with his plane with
he's been keen to get up there all day and
he's finally he's finally finally got up to into the
sky where he's really really happy. But things do change
in a very very unfortunate way. So he flies down
(31:14):
and a Capote Way there is a lighthouse and this
is it's quite a beautiful lighthouse and it's a great
reference point for pilots. So Fred was flying at four
and a half thousand feet, so he wasn't flying very
high he was just so he could quite easily clock
a visual of that as he. In fact, sometimes pilots
(31:39):
on that run would actually even they would sort of
do a little shortcut. They'd come down to that vicinity
and rather than fly directly over the the lighthouse, they
could do it. They could perform a little shortcut and
save a bit of time and keep on and keep
on going. So but at seven oh six, so by
(32:04):
this stage his bipe, he's gone past the capop Way
lighthouse and he's now out over the open water. It
still would have been up at that elevation. There still
would have been some dying daylight, a bit darker on
the ground, but he was still probably just on the
dying cusp of.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
That.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
And this is where things get really really unusual and
the case becomes extremely interesting. So I'm going to read
through the transmission and then I'm going to play a
really good reconstruction of it for you. So I have
(32:48):
actually heard the original recording, and the original recording is
absolutely fascinating, and Fred's voice is can't measured. He's concerned, perplexed,
but there's not any sign of fear or perhaps panic
(33:18):
through any of this conversation. That I'm about to read
through for you, and I want to read it through
because it's important to get a gist of what was
going on up there in the air, and then I'll
play the reconstruction for you. So the original tape is
not available for public for the public to listen to,
(33:39):
so basically it's Department of Transport property. The original tape
has apparently been lost, but I don't believe that there
are copies of the tape out there in various people's hands,
because the family has has has a has a copy,
which I believe is just Fred's voice, not Steve Roby's.
(34:01):
Copies were sent to America, so there's copies. There are
copies of that tape, but there's nothing online that is
the real deal. So but this one I'm going to
play a little bit later is actually it's quite good.
It's quite good as far as a reconstruction goes, even
(34:21):
down to the static, So that's a good thing. But
I am going to play the mysterious noise that comes
on at the end of the tape that is real.
So when we play that a little bit later in
the episode, that is the actual scend. The strange sound
that is from that actual recording. So just after seven
o'clock Fred Radio is in Melbourne. This is Delta Sierrara Juliette.
(34:45):
Is there any known traffic below five thousand and Steve
Roby replies, Delta Sierra Juliette, No known traffic, Delta Sierra Juliette.
I am seems to be a large aircraft below five
thousand and they always prefix it with Delta Sierra Juliette
to identify the aircraft. Discussion between pilot and air services.
(35:11):
So Fred says he's seeing a large aircraft aircraft below
five thousand feet, Delta Sierra Juliette. What type of aircraft
is it? Steve Roby comes back with and Fred says,
I cannot affirm it's for bright It seems to me
like landing lights. Steve Roby says, Delta, Delta Sierra Juliette, Melbourne.
(35:39):
This is what Fred says, Delta Sierra Juliette. The aircraft
has just passed over me at least a one thousand
feet above thousand feet three hundred meters, so it's pretty close,
pretty close, And Steve Roby says Roger, and is it
a large aircraft? Confirm Fred says unknown due to the
(36:02):
speed it's traveling. And he asked the question is there
any air force activity in the vicinity, and Steve Roby replies,
no known aircraft in the vicinity. Fred replies with Melbourne.
It's approaching now from due east towards me. Delta Sierra
(36:23):
juliet dsj the open microphone for two seconds and Fred says,
it seems to me. It seems to me that he's
playing some sort of game. He's flying over me two
three times at a speed that I could not identify.
(36:43):
Steve Roby at Telmarine Airport is really confused by this stage.
He says, Roger, what is your actual level? And Fred replies,
my level is four and a half thousand, four five
zero zero, and Steve asks and confirm you cannot identify
(37:06):
the aircraft. Fred says affirmative. Steve Roby says Delta Sierra Juliette.
Roger standby. So in Tolmarene already trying to figure out
what's going on. There's nothing on radar, and Fred's not
on radar. He's below radar level, so he's not getting
(37:27):
picked up on the radar, and nor has anything else
being picked up. And Fred replies Delacier Juliet. It's not
an aircraft. Interesting statement. It's not an aircraft. Young cadet
would still be familiar with what an aircraft is, and
probably a lot of military jets and other sorts of
(37:49):
things like that. And Steve Roby says to him, can
you describe the aircraft? And he says, Fred says, del
Toasier Juliet. As it's flying going past. It's a long shape.
I cannot identify more than that. It has such speed.
It's before me right now, Melbourne. Steve Roby asks Roger,
(38:12):
and how large would the object be? And Fred replies, Melbourne,
it seems like it's stationary. The thing is orbiting on
top of me. Also, it's got a green light and
sort of metallic. It's all shiny on the outside, so
(38:32):
it's metallic. It's got a green light, probably reflective delta
Sierra Juliet. It's just vanished, and so they're still puzzling
over what it is. You know, what is this thing?
(38:53):
The aircraft's just vanished? Say again, is the aircraft still
with you? Asks Steve Roby, and Fred replies no, It's
now approaching from the southwest, so it's zooming over him,
back and forth, orbiting above him, behaving in a very
very strange and moving very fast. He can't really give
(39:15):
him a lot of identification as to what he's actually
that's what's going on. But now he says, the engine
is rough idling. I've got it set at twenty three
twenty four and the thing is coughing. His engine is coughing.
And Steve Raby asks Roger, what are your intentions? And
Fred replies, my intentions are to go to King Island, Melbourne.
(39:38):
The strange object is hovering on top of me. Again,
it's hovering and it's not an aircraft. Delta Sierra Juliette
Deltacier Juliet, Melbourne. And that's the last word, Fred says, Melbourne.
And then the strange pulsating noise is heard. That's the
(39:58):
end of this eerie, eerie conversation between Fred and Steve Roby.
So I'll play this pretty good reconstruction of it, and
then I'll play the sound.
Speaker 3 (40:19):
This is Delta Sierra Juliet.
Speaker 4 (40:21):
Is there any known traffic below five thousand feet?
Speaker 2 (40:25):
No?
Speaker 3 (40:26):
No on traffic.
Speaker 4 (40:28):
Seems to be a large aircraft below five thousand seats,
what type of aircraft is it? I cannot concern its
fall bright seacy like landing life. The aircraft has just
passed over me at at least a thousand feet above.
Speaker 3 (40:43):
Is there any air force aircraft in the vircinity? No? None,
aircraft in the vicinity seasonally playing some sort of game.
He's flying over me, Weier, Juliet.
Speaker 4 (40:55):
That's not an aircraft.
Speaker 3 (40:57):
Can you describe the aircraft as its flying past? It's
a wrong shape and I identify it has such bees.
Speaker 4 (41:08):
It's before me right now, Melbourne.
Speaker 3 (41:10):
How large would the object be? Seems like it's stationary.
What it's doing right now is orbiting.
Speaker 4 (41:17):
The thing is just orbiting on top of me.
Speaker 3 (41:19):
It's also got a green light and a sort of
metallic like it's shiny on the outside. It's just vanished.
Speaker 4 (41:28):
That's strange aircraft holpling on top of me.
Speaker 3 (41:30):
Again, it's coloring and it's not an aircraft.
Speaker 2 (41:46):
So that really is an amazing, amazing transmission. It's just so.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
Eerie.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
It really is eerie. And in the original tape there's
a lot more space between those comebacks, between between the
two men. It's there. There's a lot more static that
The replies are a lot more broken out across the
whole transmission. And I interviewed Steve Roby a few years
(42:19):
ago and he said to me at that time that
that that transmission was released by the dot Department of
Transport was one hundred percent accurate. He said, that is
the actual transcript of what he said. He said, it's
not edited, there's nothing, there's nothing taken out of it.
There's no secret agendas there. They played it exactly as
(42:40):
what it was. And so now I'm just going to
play for you this strange sound that came at the
end of that when Fred says, you know, it's hovering
above me. It's not an aircraft, Melbourne. This is a
very strange sort of slund and there's been various theories
(43:00):
about what it actually is, whether it's just microphone clicking
or banging or something like that. It's a real strange,
metallicy sort of a sound. So yeah, absolute absolute mystery
as to as to what that was. And a scene
as search rescue was undertaken, and that included ships, a
(43:23):
rapt Lockheed P three Iryan aircraft that could penetrate the
water with its radar, eight civilian aircraft. They searched over
a thousand square miles or twenty six hundred square kilometers,
and the official search ended on about the twenty fifth,
but people kept looking for weeks afterwards. They found a
bit of an oil slick out there, but it was
(43:44):
determined to be marine diesel, not aircraft fuel. So the
investigation was done by the Department of Transport and they're
unable to determine a cause of death and it was
presumed fatal for Fred Valentiche. And five years after he disappeared,
(44:06):
an engine cow flap was found washed ashore on Flinders Island,
so and in July nine and eighty three, the Bureau
of Air Safety Investigation asked the Royal Australian Navy Research
Laboratory about the likelihood that the cow flat might have
traveled to its ultimate position where the aircraft was found
(44:30):
and the part. The Bureau noted that the part had
been identified as having come from Assessna one eight two
aircraft between a certain range of serial numbers and which
did include Fred Valentich's aircraft. So what was some of
the other theories. There were all sorts of theories out
there as to what possibly could have happened. But before
(44:51):
I just stuck into that. I'll talk a little bit
about Roy and Brenda Manifold. They this is them in
their in their retirement. They were down at Crayfish Bay
at the same time when Fred was flying over, and Roy,
who's a plumber, was a bit of a photographer, so
he set up his camera on a tripod and took
a series of photos of the sunset at the right time,
(45:14):
in the right place, and he took six photographs, and
in the sixth photo, this bit trigger happy. Today this
object appeared and so this sort of circular top type object,
and off to the left there was this sparkling you
(45:34):
might be able to just see it. There sparkle effects
coming off to the left and a cloud coming off
from the right, and they estimated that that was over
a mile away at the time. This is another shot
of it which might be a little bit clearer. So
to the left you can see some sparking type of
stuff and then a bit of a cloud off to
the right of what this looks like a spinning top
(45:55):
type of an object. And it was sent away and
they looked at it and I said it was It
wasn't identified as some type of error or emulsion error
or something like that, that was determined that that was
actually in the picture, but Roy didn't see anything at
the time, which is always interesting because you'd get a
lot of UFO photographs that come up and there's nothing
in them. You know, they're not seen when the photographs
(46:18):
are taken at the time. So and that was a
particularly a particularly poignant part about the about this particular incident.
It was about six weeks later that Roy came forward
and this is back in the day of film that
you put in the camera. This is not digital photography
in nineteen seventy eight, so you had to take it
off to get a process that took time. By the
time you got it back. None of that happened happened overnight,
(46:42):
So so it added another dimension to Fred's disappearance. Here's
Fred having that strange conversation with that weird metallic sound,
and then you got Roy taking photographs down at Cape
Otway on the same night. That is that that's the
same sun set that Fred was looking at on that night,
and you can see it was a really beautiful night,
(47:04):
so very very interesting, extremely extremely interesting with that, and
then beyond that, there was additional witnesses came out that
was also strange. A local man and his two young
nieces who were never publicly identified, later reported that that
(47:27):
they had seen lights near a Polo Bay driving home
along Barnham River Road after a rabbit shooting trip. These
witnesses claimed to have seen a set of lights like
those of a small plane with a second green light
hovering above. Fred spoke about a green light hovering above.
These people are in their car seeing a little plane,
(47:50):
and the man thought the site was remarkable enough that
he pulled the car over so they could watch more carefully.
And the lights were moving from right to left with
the down trajectory, and it took about ninety seconds before
they disappeared from view behind the tree line. And in
nineteen ninety three, this particular witness appeared on an episode
(48:12):
of Robert Stack's Unsolved Mysteries, So that sort of really
brought it out into the into the public, into the
public domain. And then those witnesses were lost again, and
then they were rediscovered around the year two thousand by
Paul Norman, senior researcher for the Victorian UFO Research Society,
(48:34):
and he read recontacted or been able to make recontact
with them, and in a Herald Sun article Melbourne's main paper.
They saw both the lights of a small aircraft on
a very large green light traveling directly above it. And
this new information about Blantich's location and direction of flight
sort of brought up some more theories about about where
(48:57):
he may have ended up. So that's really really interesting.
And this is where those witnesses were. I'll show you
this picture, so this is coming down in that area,
so that where that red arrow is. They were on
this road here and they could look out right across
that vast, vast ocean to see what to see what
(49:20):
was to see in the sky that and I have
actually Google map walked that road and it is it
does get obscured by dunes and things, so at some
point in time they would have so that does check out.
They would have actually not seen him travel all the
way down sort partially for it for that period of time.
(49:40):
And this is a photo of the cowling that washed
up on Flinders Island. Now Flinder's Island is at the
opposite end of Bastrait. So when we talk about this
piece of cowling traveling from king Island to Flinders Island
on currents under the water over a five year period.
(50:01):
It's still a fairly big ask. But who can say,
who can say it's just not it's just not that
clear cut. Was that possible that that that that could
have happened? You know, it's just a real big unknown
and and I think to everyone's knowledge that that who
knows where that cowling is now? So it matched the
(50:25):
one eight two model. It was found on the May sixteen,
three hundred and twenty kilometers from Cape Otway so and
it was found by the Flinders Island Airport manager, Arthur
Withers's son who found the cow opposite the northern runway,
washed up on a beach at Perry's Bay. And there
(50:48):
were another two cessners of that type which lost similar
parts during takeoff prior to nineteen eighty three. So it's
really quite possible that that maybe this part was discovered
more logically belongs to two planes that had disappeared, were
not disappeared, but planes that had lost parts flying out
(51:09):
of Flinder's Flinder's Island. But yeah, again nothing, nothing can
be can be confirmed at this point in time. So
it's really really really disappointing that that's the case. Now
there's a tribute to Fred which is down at Cape Otway,
and every year his family would return to pay their
(51:31):
respects and look out over the ocean to try and
process what had happened to their to their son and
brother and boyfriend. So at the heart of this story,
it really is a very sad tale that a young
man is lost in his prime doing what he loves,
(51:52):
flying his aircraft, and there's no sign of him. I mean,
logic would dictate that he must have ended up in
the water, because bastratit's a big area. If they didn't
find any evidence, if the plane had have crashed, he
would have gone down, you know, and the plane would
have floated for a while or broken up, and there
would have been parts of the plane, parts of things
(52:15):
from within the cockpit floating on the water because they
started looking for it very quickly, so if there was
anything there, they were certainly going to find it. And
the last photo that I want to show is the
actual aircraft itself. And this is a fairly rare picture
as well. And this is not Fred on the with
(52:37):
the plane. This is this is just another woman. But
this is the actual aircraft that Fred was flying on
that day, and you can read on the tail section
there vh DSJ that is the Cessna that he was
flying in, So it kind of helps to give you
a good picture of the actual aircraft. Where is it now?
(52:59):
We'd all love to know that answer. Where is that
plane and where is where is the pilot? But so
many years have gone by, but this has really only
been a touching, simple, bare bones introduction to the disappearance
of Fred Valantage, something that's that fascinates me deeply and
(53:19):
has for many many years. And every twenty first of
October of each year, I sort of have a private
memory of Fred. You know that he actually did disappear
on that date. So in a future episode, I'll bring
in another researcher who's done a lot of work on
this case, and I just want to give you give
you all a bit of background to what this case
(53:41):
is about. So in this episode number nine, episode nine,
that we've that we've had a brief introduction to the
Fred Valantage case. And I could do five shows on
the Fred Valantage case no worries at all. So I
just wanted to sort of weet your appetite with it.
If you're unfamiliar with this case, if you are familiar
with that, I wanted to give you the opportunity to
(54:03):
re kindle it again inside you that this really is
a great Australian UFO and aviation mystery. And I will
definitely be having another episode with another researcher and we
will discuss his theories. And there are some developments that
have occurred since all of this came out so many
years ago. So I really really look forward to seeing
(54:27):
you on the next episode. And thank you so much
for joining me again today because as ever, I just
really enjoy bringing out Australian cases for you and I
look forward to seeing you again next week. Bye for now.
Australia, the sixth largest country on Earth. An ancient, rugged
and unforgiving land with abundant animal life, both beautiful and
deadly found within its awe inspiring landscapes and natural beauty.
(00:29):
Exists a deep history of unexplained mysteries for anyone with
the courage to investigate them. Tonight we join Ben on
a journey across this vast island continent in search of
(00:50):
answers to events that have reshaped the lives of so
many that have been exposed to Unexplained phenomena. As with
your host, Ben.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Hi, and welcome to episode nine of Unexplained Phenomena Australia.
Whether it's your first or the ninth episode, we've already
taken a good look at a lot of truly incredible
and interesting UFO events that have occurred here in Australia,
and there is none more well known than tonight's episode.
The disappearance of Fred Valentich, which occurred on the twenty
(01:36):
first of October nineteen seventy eight. Now, this event made
international headlines in the days and the weeks after Fred's
disappearance in truly mysterious circumstances, there was worldwide interest as
for the first time a plane and its pilot had
(01:56):
completely disappeared. It was an absolutely astonishing event. And what
makes it even more interesting was all the while Fred
was talking live to air Services at Melbourne's Tullamarine Airport
in Melbourne, he managed to disappear totally and completely and
(02:16):
was never to be seen again. And on this episode
we're going to have a really really good in depth
look as much as we can in the next hour
about Fred's about Fred's encounters, and we're going to have
a look at who was Fred, the events, what actually happened,
and that'll be a fairly big focus of this week's episode.
(02:41):
We'll have a look at a photograph that was taken
on the same day as he disappeared at the same time,
and we'll have a little bit of a look at
the search and the theories about what happened to him
and generally the aftermath of Australia's greatest civil aviation mystery. Now,
this event was unlike a lot of other UFO encounters
(03:03):
that resulted in outright disappearance. Fred never came back to
tell us what happened, what led to him not returning
to Melbourne. His disappearance was absolutely devastating to his family
and his girlfriend Ronda. The final moments of his conversation
showed that he was being buzzed by something unknown. We
(03:24):
were left with him stating his plane was coughing and
he could not identify what was up there with him.
There was a sense of helplessness and nothing could be
done to assist Fred. There was no known aircraft in
the area at the time. An air air controller, Steve Roby,
was perplexed and trying very very hard to support and
(03:47):
assist Fred. Everyone in that controlled tower building was listening
and searching for answers in the lifetime that Fred was
talking about what was going on, and the incident played
out very quickly, but not instantly either. There was time
for troubleshooting conversation between Fred and Steve, and it was
(04:09):
plainly obvious that the Civil Aviation Authority had no protocol
for this type of event. The encounter occurred at a
time of high UFO reports and it was just they
were everywhere in that month particularly and also in that
year nineteen to seventy eight, and a plumber on a
(04:32):
nearby beach took a very unusual photo at the precisely
the time Fred had started to report his situation. The
reports flooded into the media and the Victorian UFO Research Society.
It all became very big, very very quickly, so it
was an absolute sensation at the time. It made headlines
(04:53):
absolutely everywhere. Incredible, a pilot disappears and a UFO is
reported in close proximity to him while he's having that,
while he's flying in the air, So it was really
unbelievable and there was great interest. So who was Fred.
He was a twenty one year old young man basically
(05:15):
of Italian heritage. His family consisted of his father Guido,
his mother alberta younger brother, Richard, who was about twelve
at the time, and two younger twin sisters who were
Olivia and Lara, and they were both four years old
at the time. So as you can appreciate, it was
a really difficult and tragic for his family to lose
(05:37):
him and his girlfriend Ronda as well, so his disappearance.
His disappearance had a huge effect on all their lives.
So Fred was hard working, family focused and determined to
become a commercial pilot and he was well on his
(05:58):
way to achieving this goal when fate really had other
plans for him. His disappearance took away all his hopes
and dreams, devastated everybody around him, and they basically have
all recovered and struggled struggled to recover from the events
of the twenty first of October nineteen seventy eight. So
(06:19):
just before we start, I'll give you a bit of
an idea on where it all happened. So this is
This is Australia and on the left hand side it's
vectoring down to where King Island was and that's where
Fred was flying to on that day when he left
Tullamarine Airport. He was heading down to a small island
that's between Victoria and Tasmania, which is further down and
(06:42):
the picture on the right basically shows you the shape
of King Island, so it's just a fairly small area
and this map gives you a bit of a better idea.
So he's taken off from Moraban Airport in Melbourne and
his head out over Port Phillip Bay and come all
the way down to Cape Otway where a lighthouse and
he's turned into oblivion and completely disappeared somewhere en route
(07:06):
between Cape Otway and King Island. So it's a very
strange stretch of water Bass Straight, It's it's shallow, it
can be very very violent in storms. Many ships and
planes have been lost there over the years. And there's
probably another episode on Bass Straight alone, which I think
(07:28):
I might do down the track as well. And this
is Fred, so as you can see, he was very
clean cut and straightforward, sort of a young man who
was focused on his career. And I'll show a few
more photos of him as we as we go through
as well. So I sort of really wanted to focus on,
(07:49):
you know, what happened on that day, you know, what happened,
how did his day begin, what led up to him
actually disappearing, So we get a full understanding of what
of what happened with Fred. And this is such a
well known case that some of you may know a
lot about it, and other people listening may know nothing
about it. So I'm going to try and hit it
(08:11):
with a reasonable amount of detail as much as I can,
and I'm probably not going to have enough time in
an hour to do it justice. So on the twenty
first of October, Fred awoke at about seven to fifteen
am in the morning. He got up showered, shaved, dressed
into a pair of jeans and an open neck blue
shirt and he came into the kitchen in good humor
(08:32):
his father, Guido had recalled on the day. He sat
down at the kitchen table and about eight am, and
he had two pieces of toast with cheese and a
chocolate drink and he did not have to he did
not have to beat his work, which was about five
miles away until about nine o'clock in the morning. And
after eating, he went back into his room and picked
up two hundred dollars that he had received from the
(08:54):
Royal Australian Air Force offices at Victoria Barracks in Melbourne,
and the officer that had asked him to buy crayfish
because he was flying down to King Island for his
first night flight, his first flight over water, open water.
He'd never done it before, so this was his first
time to actually leave during daylight, fly down to King
(09:16):
Island land, collect crayfish and possibly passengers if anyone was
wanting to go back. And he was doing this and
his return was definitely going to be at night, and
it was going to get pretty dark even by the
time he was reaching reaching King Island, so it was
his first nighttime flight over water, so that has to
(09:37):
be kept in mind as well, that he is a
trainee pilot, a good pilot by all accounts from everybody
that I've spoken to, but this was still his first
flight out over open water. And so his friends at
the barracks had asked him to buy as many crayfish
as he could from the fisherman on King Island, and
(10:01):
he was pocketing that money, so he had it on
him to do that when he got down there, and
according to his father Guido, Fred also bought He had
an interest in UFOs and he had a scrap book
with him and he bought it out as he came
out of his room, and it was basically just an
old school exercise book in which he had pasted and
taped clippings from newspapers and magazines. And his father couldn't
(10:26):
remember if if Fred had read many books on the subject,
but he knew that he had read some Von Daniken
and Emmanuel Vilosky, and that he'd also recently had seen
the Close Encounters of the Third Kind movie. This is
nineteen seventy eight, so it would have been fairly fairly
new at that time so it was obviously it was
a hit around the world and it was here too,
(10:48):
so quite clearly Fred was interested in the subject of
UFOs and the family would have discussions about it from
time to time. And he'd gone and spent some time
as a cadet at the raft base in East Sale,
which is up near where I am, about an hour
from where I live. And he'd spent two weeks in
training at the air base in August of nineteen seventy eight,
(11:09):
so just a few months prior to his prior to
his disappearance, and he came back and he said to
the family that he was convinced that UFOs existed. So
but nobody knows what he was exposed to at the
Sale raft base at that time, being a trainee, probably
not a lot, but the discussion was probably came up
in conversation, if not in instruction down there. And at
(11:33):
eight thirty that morning he left his family's yellow brick
home at Avn Avenue in Avondale Heights. This is roughly
northwest of the center of Melbourne for anyone who knows
Melbourne who might be listening in Victoria. And he got
into his little fee at fifteen hundred mark three nineteen
sixty six car and he drove it. He was basically
(11:56):
heading off to work, and so he worked in huckle
Street Mooney Pond's, and he worked at the Aussie Disposals
and which is army supply store, so you know they
have a lot of ex army army things and camping
supplies that that type of thing. So you know, the
stores will still exist today in Australia, so they're very
(12:17):
they're still very popular. And his boss, Dick Williams, greeted
Fred on that morning and he liked Fred because he
was so reliable and because if he had a pleasant personality,
it was a little quiet, a little bit shy sometimes.
And a friend of Fred's called Gary Gracie was quoted
as saying that he had a very stable personality, happy
(12:39):
family life, nice girlfriend, and was doing what he loved
to do, which was flying, and he enjoyed life so
much that there would be no reason for him to
willingly want to kill himself. And we'll discuss that later
when we look at the theories as to what happened
and motivations and all that sort of thing. So Fred
and his boss talked about sports that morning, and from
time to time as Fred checked the stock on the
(13:00):
shelves so customers and swept up. So it was just
a regular day at work. But his boss said that
at the same time, Fred had been also had little periods,
have been a little bit quiet that morning as well,
and he mentioned something about flying over to King Island,
and he seemed he seemed pretty excited to his boss,
Dick Williams, and he said that he'll never forget his
(13:23):
last words. As he walked outside, Fred looked up at
the clear blue sky and said, it's going to be
a nice day to go flying. Well, that's a great statement,
and I'm sure at the time that he and no
one else had any any idea that that's got the
ramifications of what that statement really is. So he basically
(13:45):
finished his shift with see you, lader, Dick, and he basically,
you know, he hopped in his car. So he would
have been consumed all day about the thoughts of his
first night flight over water, and he would have been
thinking through each step of the flight to come that evening.
(14:05):
So even though he was working that day, he probably
still had that flight information going around his head, and
he'd flown the same route before during daylight hours and
as far as katee Otway on several other occasions, so
he'd sort of done that route in the past during
the day, so for more than half to three quarters
(14:29):
of the trip, he was already familiar with the airspace
and the procedure that he would have to that he
would have to go through, so and had he possibly
could have been thinking about the other night flight, which
he'd done one previous previous night flight, and this was
his first one over open water. He'd flown between Melbourne
(14:51):
and Banilla, which is in the northeast of Victoria, and
there's quite a little arrow club up that part of
the world, and he didn't have any difficulties on that,
so he had done he had done one night flight
over land, totally different to overwater, as anyone who's a
pilot or understands aviation would completely understand. And flying over land,
(15:14):
you've got you can see towns and highways and lights
and things like that. You've got a lot more to
guide you. When you're over land, you're over open water
at night, you just got to rely on the instruments.
Possibly the moon might help you if you're lucky. And
Fred spent three years as a cadet in the Royal
Australian Air Training Call in West Melbourne, and he was
(15:36):
just really obsessed with wanting to become a pilot and
he was really there was nothing that was going to
stop him from doing that, and he was really only
a couple of modules away from achieving that goal. So
the whole, the whole disappearance was really really something that
was very very tragic for him. So the store of
(16:00):
mini ponds and he was driving to a meteorology class
at the Meraban Airfield, which is from where he left.
So he had to go to an afternoon class which
he was going to complete and then go take the flight.
So at about twelve thirty five pm he pulled his
(16:22):
car into the parking lot at the building in which
his class met. And as I said, he only had
two more academic courses to complete for his commercial Pilot's
license meteorology and Airport Legislation. His class did not start
until one thirty and he used the time to read
his assigned texts dealing with the vitally important subject of meteorology,
(16:48):
the study of weather very important for pilots, and he
was about halfway through the twelve session series that he
had to complete, and he was one of fifteen students
who was enrolled at that time, and the class was
organized and presented by personnel of a firm known as
Nimbus Coaching Meteorolitic meteorological educators quite quite a mouthful, and
(17:09):
their offices were located at the main airport, Tallamarine Field,
and this firm provided meteorology classes for prospective commercial and
senior commercial pilots. And Fred's instructor was a man called
mel Glower, an experienced and dedicated teacher. He talked for
many years, and he took the subject seriously and he
(17:33):
did not recall at all having heard Fred speak about
an interesting unidentified flying objects. And a lot of people
have sort of sort of really gone on about Fred's
interest in UFOs. He was a UFO nut blah blah
blah blah blah. But at the end of the day,
to become a pilot, you've got to pass the real
world tests and have the nerve and the personality traits
(17:58):
that are needed to become a sex for pilots, So
you can have an interest in UFOs. But you know,
I think that has perhaps been over emphasized over the years.
You know, he kept a journal on UFOs he'd seen films.
He discussed an interesting topic that to me seems perfectly okay.
So when the class broke up at five pm, so
(18:20):
he was in that class from one thirty to five,
he chatted with some friends for a few minutes before
leaving to file his flight plan, which he submitted at
five point twenty to the briefing officer at the Mehrabian Airfield.
And with his flight plan filed, Tread more than likely
drove off to McDonald's for an evening meal, as was
(18:42):
his usual habit apparently, and then returned to the airfield
to fuel his aircraft and perform all his normal pre
flight checks that he would have done, and he had
studied the aircraft's operating manual so many times and he
did not feel that he needed to get it out
of the aircraft for the exterior spec He would have
unlocked the cabin door, got in, turned on the master
(19:04):
switch on the center instruments panel, noted that the ignition
switch was off, visually checked the two quantity gauges which
showed the wing tanks were not full and would need
to be topped up, and after turning off the master switch.
He removed the locking device from the control wheel shaft,
which prevents the control surfaces from moving in gusty winds
(19:24):
on the ground, and placed it in the gloved compartment.
The next step was to pull out the carburet a
fuel strain at drain knob getting quite technical here, located
at the bottom edge of the instrument panel just to
the left of the microphone, an action that drains water
and sediment that may have collected in the lower sump.
So Frederick knew that he would have to repeat this
after refueling, but he felt a little comfort in carrying
(19:47):
out this action at this time. Since the tanks had
not been topped off by the previous pilot, there could
have been some water lying there inside the tanks, ready
to cause the engine to cough or stop completely in flight.
That's interesting because later on his engine actually does cough
when he encounters the strange objects. One of the problems
(20:09):
that he had when rented because he was renting the aircraft,
he didn't actually own the aircraft. And when a problem
when you're renting an aircraft is not always knowing if
the previous users have conscientiously followed each and every maintenance
item that would be inconvenient, I would imagine, So the
thought must have occurred to Fred how he'd like to
own his own plane, But that would be a long
(20:31):
wait for a young man working in an army supply
store in western suburbs of Melbourne. So the next part
of his normal walk around, or the pre flight check,
was that the tail of the aircraft. He got out
and removed the rudder lock of the tail like the
control lock. This helped keep the rudder from swinging in
(20:53):
the wind. And then he checked the hingebolts. Grasping the
rudder gave it a gentle push back and forth to
see if there were any abnormal play or looseness, And
since he wasn't yet ready to fly, he let the
rear tie down connected and continued on around to the
trailing edge of the right wing, where he checked the
aery long, huge hinge pins and flap hinges for security.
(21:16):
So it's quite a detailed process. Progressing around the wingtips
to the right main gear, he bent down and scanned
the tire rubber for cuts, low pressure, all those types
of things is what he was actually what he was
looking for. Checking the propeller for knicks, and then the
polished cone in front of the propeller known as the spinner,
(21:39):
to make sure it was attached tightly and had no
play in that as well. He checked for oil eaks
on the propeller, on the nose or everything like that,
the nosewheel had the correct tire inflation. Basically every aspect
of the aircraft needs to be checked by the pilot
before he can then take off, so that's quite a
(22:02):
process to go through and check all of that. So
it was five point fifty five and he was already
past his planned takeoff time and he was getting impatient
to be on his way. The sun was getting lower
on the western horizon, it's long shadows slanted across the
field from the buildings, and the sun would set at
(22:25):
six point forty eight pm, so daylight fading basically, and
he had planned to takeoff at five point thirty five
according to his flight plan, with an estimated time of
arrival at King Island some sixty five minutes later at
six forty but for some unknown reason he had been
(22:47):
delayed and he hadn't actually taken off until six nineteen pm,
some forty four minutes later. So he was already behind schedule,
which was perhaps not great on your first flight over
water when you were trying to probably make the best
of everything and make the most of the conditions. Because
(23:07):
the weather that night was perfect. It was absolutely still clear,
cloudless day, so it was a really, really good night
to go out on this trip. And so whatever it
was that delayed him also probably caused him to forget
another crucial thing that he needed to do, which was
to arrange for the runway lights to be turned on
(23:30):
at King Island. He would be landing there well after
the sun had set, and twilight landings night landings anywhere
of the potential for danger. But he had forgotten this
important detail. So he was flying down to King Island
and he'd forgotten and King Island Airport there is no
(23:51):
major airport, basically a little airfield, and he had to
put in a request to get the lights turned on
on the landing strip. Otherwise no lights. So his little plane,
a little Cessna one eight two l VHDSJ, would have
been landing without lights. So there were a number of
(24:15):
reasons for a delayed takeoff. It's possible that he was
delayed while being served in a in returning to the
airfield in traffic, he may have been delayed by a
greater than usual amount of air traffic using the field,
so there were also there are all sorts of reasons
why that he why he could have been, why he
(24:36):
could have been delayed. So it's he was just not
quite really setting himself up for the best outcome from
the outset, whether it was not entirely his fault either,
like circumstances arise and perhaps he could have maybe even
(24:57):
postponed the flight, but that was probably unlike because he
was really really keen, too keen to do that, so
he'd taken the plant, so he'd basically taken delivery of
the plane, sat in the cockpit during the fueling, took
time to notice the activity going on around him, and
(25:20):
he Raven's considered to be one of the busiest sort
of you know, non commercial airfields in the country. So
it's a lot of smaller planes coming and going, not
a big bunch of big jumbos or air buses. It's
just the smaller, smaller freight companies and private pilots. But
if you've ever been in Melbourne around around that area,
(25:41):
the planes are coming and going all the time, and
especially on the weekends. I've got the touch and go landing,
so people who are learning to fly, it really is
absolutely a really busy, busy place. So the refueling didn't
take very long of the plane and after signing the
pink fuel delivery form, he watched as the fuel truck
(26:01):
drove away. Now he was ready to go, so he
would have adjusted his seat belt just before takeoff, pulled
back on the control wheel, pushed it in fully forward
to make sure it had a full range of travel,
doing all those little checks that he needed to do
once he was actually in the aircraft. So he was
(26:21):
really just getting through those final parts of being ready.
So by now it was six fifteen PM and the
sun was low on the western horizon, but it was
still bright and the sky was perfectly clear, but it's
starting to get into dusk. So and he chose this
(26:45):
plane because it was his favorite plane. He'd flown it
many times and he knew the plane very very well.
So that's another thing in his favor that even though
he was leaving late, he was actually in the plane
that he knew that he was comfortable and confident in.
So with that he basically took off and he was
heading heading basically down down the peninsula. So Melbourne has
(27:13):
got the big bay and pilots can take off and
then they can sort of start heading down. So it
was actually it's really quite quite a good area to
fly because there's a lot of visuals Up in the air.
He can quite clearly see the bay, he can see
the eastern suburbs around the bay, and he can also
(27:34):
once he's up in the air, he's got a lot
greater visibility. He can see right across Port Philip Bay,
across to the western side, down towards Geelong and capeop
Way where he was heading to. So by six nineteen
he was climbing into the sky and back at Flight
(27:57):
Service Unit of Melbourne's main airfield, Tolerant Airport. Another key
character in this adventure Steve Roby, who was thirty one
years old manning the radio and radar facility for the
Flight Services Unit. Now the Flight Services Unit is they're
the guys who talked to the pilots. There's not e
(28:18):
air traffic control slightly different. They give them information, they
check in when they report to their various turning locations
in the sky and things like that. And they crucially
also help to troubleshoot. So I've just got a quick
picture here of Steve. That's him in his older days.
(28:41):
I have met him personally and he is an absolutely fantastic,
fantastic gentleman. And I've just got a couple of more
photos here. Also there's Fred. He's not with DSJ in
that particular photo, but that's the type of plane that
he was lie your little cessnas that are that are
(29:02):
quite common. And this is him also dressed up in
his sort of air cadet uniform at that time. And
I've also got some more photos that's air Cadet Fred.
And these are some more personal photos that you're not
really going to find online. These photos have come from
(29:23):
interviews that we did with Ronda Rushton, his fiance, and
these photos are a little bit rarer. So this is
Fred obviously at home and also riding a dirt bike,
a nineteen seventy eight dirt bike. And these are the
less common pictures that just aren't out there of what
the young man was like. This is Fred and his
(29:45):
girlfriend Ronda, and a couple of pictures of them with
some friends. So have they had quite quite a regular,
normal social life. There's Ronda and this is a picture
of Fred's far Guido, who passed away in the year
two thousand. But he never ever really got over the
(30:08):
disappearance of his son, and I think he was absolutely
really hoping and praying that he had actually been taken
by by a UFO and was living safely in some other,
some other way. It so very very interesting.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
So by six.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Nineteen he was climbing into the sky, flying out over
the bay, which at that on that day would have
been absolutely incredible, really really really good. And he tracked
his way out and cut across the bay and started
heading down towards k pot Way. And at this stage
(30:51):
there's really nothing wrong with anything with his plane with
he's been keen to get up there all day and
he's finally he's finally finally got up to into the
sky where he's really really happy. But things do change
in a very very unfortunate way. So he flies down
(31:14):
and a Capote Way there is a lighthouse and this
is it's quite a beautiful lighthouse and it's a great
reference point for pilots. So Fred was flying at four
and a half thousand feet, so he wasn't flying very
high he was just so he could quite easily clock
a visual of that as he. In fact, sometimes pilots
(31:39):
on that run would actually even they would sort of
do a little shortcut. They'd come down to that vicinity
and rather than fly directly over the the lighthouse, they
could do it. They could perform a little shortcut and
save a bit of time and keep on and keep
on going. So but at seven oh six, so by
(32:04):
this stage his bipe, he's gone past the capop Way
lighthouse and he's now out over the open water. It
still would have been up at that elevation. There still
would have been some dying daylight, a bit darker on
the ground, but he was still probably just on the
dying cusp of.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
That.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
And this is where things get really really unusual and
the case becomes extremely interesting. So I'm going to read
through the transmission and then I'm going to play a
really good reconstruction of it for you. So I have
(32:48):
actually heard the original recording, and the original recording is
absolutely fascinating, and Fred's voice is can't measured. He's concerned, perplexed,
but there's not any sign of fear or perhaps panic
(33:18):
through any of this conversation. That I'm about to read
through for you, and I want to read it through
because it's important to get a gist of what was
going on up there in the air, and then I'll
play the reconstruction for you. So the original tape is
not available for public for the public to listen to,
(33:39):
so basically it's Department of Transport property. The original tape
has apparently been lost, but I don't believe that there
are copies of the tape out there in various people's hands,
because the family has has has a has a copy,
which I believe is just Fred's voice, not Steve Roby's.
(34:01):
Copies were sent to America, so there's copies. There are
copies of that tape, but there's nothing online that is
the real deal. So but this one I'm going to
play a little bit later is actually it's quite good.
It's quite good as far as a reconstruction goes, even
(34:21):
down to the static, So that's a good thing. But
I am going to play the mysterious noise that comes
on at the end of the tape that is real.
So when we play that a little bit later in
the episode, that is the actual scend. The strange sound
that is from that actual recording. So just after seven
o'clock Fred Radio is in Melbourne. This is Delta Sierrara Juliette.
(34:45):
Is there any known traffic below five thousand and Steve
Roby replies, Delta Sierra Juliette, No known traffic, Delta Sierra Juliette.
I am seems to be a large aircraft below five
thousand and they always prefix it with Delta Sierra Juliette
to identify the aircraft. Discussion between pilot and air services.
(35:11):
So Fred says he's seeing a large aircraft aircraft below
five thousand feet, Delta Sierra Juliette. What type of aircraft
is it? Steve Roby comes back with and Fred says,
I cannot affirm it's for bright It seems to me
like landing lights. Steve Roby says, Delta, Delta Sierra Juliette, Melbourne.
(35:39):
This is what Fred says, Delta Sierra Juliette. The aircraft
has just passed over me at least a one thousand
feet above thousand feet three hundred meters, so it's pretty close,
pretty close, And Steve Roby says Roger, and is it
a large aircraft? Confirm Fred says unknown due to the
(36:02):
speed it's traveling. And he asked the question is there
any air force activity in the vicinity, and Steve Roby replies,
no known aircraft in the vicinity. Fred replies with Melbourne.
It's approaching now from due east towards me. Delta Sierra
(36:23):
juliet dsj the open microphone for two seconds and Fred says,
it seems to me. It seems to me that he's
playing some sort of game. He's flying over me two
three times at a speed that I could not identify.
(36:43):
Steve Roby at Telmarine Airport is really confused by this stage.
He says, Roger, what is your actual level? And Fred replies,
my level is four and a half thousand, four five
zero zero, and Steve asks and confirm you cannot identify
(37:06):
the aircraft. Fred says affirmative. Steve Roby says Delta Sierra Juliette.
Roger standby. So in Tolmarene already trying to figure out
what's going on. There's nothing on radar, and Fred's not
on radar. He's below radar level, so he's not getting
(37:27):
picked up on the radar, and nor has anything else
being picked up. And Fred replies Delacier Juliet. It's not
an aircraft. Interesting statement. It's not an aircraft. Young cadet
would still be familiar with what an aircraft is, and
probably a lot of military jets and other sorts of
(37:49):
things like that. And Steve Roby says to him, can
you describe the aircraft? And he says, Fred says, del
Toasier Juliet. As it's flying going past. It's a long shape.
I cannot identify more than that. It has such speed.
It's before me right now, Melbourne. Steve Roby asks Roger,
(38:12):
and how large would the object be? And Fred replies, Melbourne,
it seems like it's stationary. The thing is orbiting on
top of me. Also, it's got a green light and
sort of metallic. It's all shiny on the outside, so
(38:32):
it's metallic. It's got a green light, probably reflective delta
Sierra Juliet. It's just vanished, and so they're still puzzling
over what it is. You know, what is this thing?
(38:53):
The aircraft's just vanished? Say again, is the aircraft still
with you? Asks Steve Roby, and Fred replies no, It's
now approaching from the southwest, so it's zooming over him,
back and forth, orbiting above him, behaving in a very
very strange and moving very fast. He can't really give
(39:15):
him a lot of identification as to what he's actually
that's what's going on. But now he says, the engine
is rough idling. I've got it set at twenty three
twenty four and the thing is coughing. His engine is coughing.
And Steve Raby asks Roger, what are your intentions? And
Fred replies, my intentions are to go to King Island, Melbourne.
(39:38):
The strange object is hovering on top of me. Again,
it's hovering and it's not an aircraft. Delta Sierra Juliette
Deltacier Juliet, Melbourne. And that's the last word, Fred says, Melbourne.
And then the strange pulsating noise is heard. That's the
(39:58):
end of this eerie, eerie conversation between Fred and Steve Roby.
So I'll play this pretty good reconstruction of it, and
then I'll play the sound.
Speaker 3 (40:19):
This is Delta Sierra Juliet.
Speaker 4 (40:21):
Is there any known traffic below five thousand feet?
Speaker 2 (40:25):
No?
Speaker 3 (40:26):
No on traffic.
Speaker 4 (40:28):
Seems to be a large aircraft below five thousand seats,
what type of aircraft is it? I cannot concern its
fall bright seacy like landing life. The aircraft has just
passed over me at at least a thousand feet above.
Speaker 3 (40:43):
Is there any air force aircraft in the vircinity? No? None,
aircraft in the vicinity seasonally playing some sort of game.
He's flying over me, Weier, Juliet.
Speaker 4 (40:55):
That's not an aircraft.
Speaker 3 (40:57):
Can you describe the aircraft as its flying past? It's
a wrong shape and I identify it has such bees.
Speaker 4 (41:08):
It's before me right now, Melbourne.
Speaker 3 (41:10):
How large would the object be? Seems like it's stationary.
What it's doing right now is orbiting.
Speaker 4 (41:17):
The thing is just orbiting on top of me.
Speaker 3 (41:19):
It's also got a green light and a sort of
metallic like it's shiny on the outside. It's just vanished.
Speaker 4 (41:28):
That's strange aircraft holpling on top of me.
Speaker 3 (41:30):
Again, it's coloring and it's not an aircraft.
Speaker 2 (41:46):
So that really is an amazing, amazing transmission. It's just so.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
Eerie.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
It really is eerie. And in the original tape there's
a lot more space between those comebacks, between between the
two men. It's there. There's a lot more static that
The replies are a lot more broken out across the
whole transmission. And I interviewed Steve Roby a few years
(42:19):
ago and he said to me at that time that
that that transmission was released by the dot Department of
Transport was one hundred percent accurate. He said, that is
the actual transcript of what he said. He said, it's
not edited, there's nothing, there's nothing taken out of it.
There's no secret agendas there. They played it exactly as
(42:40):
what it was. And so now I'm just going to
play for you this strange sound that came at the
end of that when Fred says, you know, it's hovering
above me. It's not an aircraft, Melbourne. This is a
very strange sort of slund and there's been various theories
(43:00):
about what it actually is, whether it's just microphone clicking
or banging or something like that. It's a real strange,
metallicy sort of a sound. So yeah, absolute absolute mystery
as to as to what that was. And a scene
as search rescue was undertaken, and that included ships, a
(43:23):
rapt Lockheed P three Iryan aircraft that could penetrate the
water with its radar, eight civilian aircraft. They searched over
a thousand square miles or twenty six hundred square kilometers,
and the official search ended on about the twenty fifth,
but people kept looking for weeks afterwards. They found a
bit of an oil slick out there, but it was
(43:44):
determined to be marine diesel, not aircraft fuel. So the
investigation was done by the Department of Transport and they're
unable to determine a cause of death and it was
presumed fatal for Fred Valentiche. And five years after he disappeared,
(44:06):
an engine cow flap was found washed ashore on Flinders Island,
so and in July nine and eighty three, the Bureau
of Air Safety Investigation asked the Royal Australian Navy Research
Laboratory about the likelihood that the cow flat might have
traveled to its ultimate position where the aircraft was found
(44:30):
and the part. The Bureau noted that the part had
been identified as having come from Assessna one eight two
aircraft between a certain range of serial numbers and which
did include Fred Valentich's aircraft. So what was some of
the other theories. There were all sorts of theories out
there as to what possibly could have happened. But before
(44:51):
I just stuck into that. I'll talk a little bit
about Roy and Brenda Manifold. They this is them in
their in their retirement. They were down at Crayfish Bay
at the same time when Fred was flying over, and Roy,
who's a plumber, was a bit of a photographer, so
he set up his camera on a tripod and took
a series of photos of the sunset at the right time,
(45:14):
in the right place, and he took six photographs, and
in the sixth photo, this bit trigger happy. Today this
object appeared and so this sort of circular top type object,
and off to the left there was this sparkling you
(45:34):
might be able to just see it. There sparkle effects
coming off to the left and a cloud coming off
from the right, and they estimated that that was over
a mile away at the time. This is another shot
of it which might be a little bit clearer. So
to the left you can see some sparking type of
stuff and then a bit of a cloud off to
the right of what this looks like a spinning top
(45:55):
type of an object. And it was sent away and
they looked at it and I said it was It
wasn't identified as some type of error or emulsion error
or something like that, that was determined that that was
actually in the picture, but Roy didn't see anything at
the time, which is always interesting because you'd get a
lot of UFO photographs that come up and there's nothing
in them. You know, they're not seen when the photographs
(46:18):
are taken at the time. So and that was a
particularly a particularly poignant part about the about this particular incident.
It was about six weeks later that Roy came forward
and this is back in the day of film that
you put in the camera. This is not digital photography
in nineteen seventy eight, so you had to take it
off to get a process that took time. By the
time you got it back. None of that happened happened overnight,
(46:42):
So so it added another dimension to Fred's disappearance. Here's
Fred having that strange conversation with that weird metallic sound,
and then you got Roy taking photographs down at Cape
Otway on the same night. That is that that's the
same sun set that Fred was looking at on that night,
and you can see it was a really beautiful night,
(47:04):
so very very interesting, extremely extremely interesting with that, and
then beyond that, there was additional witnesses came out that
was also strange. A local man and his two young
nieces who were never publicly identified, later reported that that
(47:27):
they had seen lights near a Polo Bay driving home
along Barnham River Road after a rabbit shooting trip. These
witnesses claimed to have seen a set of lights like
those of a small plane with a second green light
hovering above. Fred spoke about a green light hovering above.
These people are in their car seeing a little plane,
(47:50):
and the man thought the site was remarkable enough that
he pulled the car over so they could watch more carefully.
And the lights were moving from right to left with
the down trajectory, and it took about ninety seconds before
they disappeared from view behind the tree line. And in
nineteen ninety three, this particular witness appeared on an episode
(48:12):
of Robert Stack's Unsolved Mysteries, So that sort of really
brought it out into the into the public, into the
public domain. And then those witnesses were lost again, and
then they were rediscovered around the year two thousand by
Paul Norman, senior researcher for the Victorian UFO Research Society,
(48:34):
and he read recontacted or been able to make recontact
with them, and in a Herald Sun article Melbourne's main paper.
They saw both the lights of a small aircraft on
a very large green light traveling directly above it. And
this new information about Blantich's location and direction of flight
sort of brought up some more theories about about where
(48:57):
he may have ended up. So that's really really interesting.
And this is where those witnesses were. I'll show you
this picture, so this is coming down in that area,
so that where that red arrow is. They were on
this road here and they could look out right across
that vast, vast ocean to see what to see what
(49:20):
was to see in the sky that and I have
actually Google map walked that road and it is it
does get obscured by dunes and things, so at some
point in time they would have so that does check out.
They would have actually not seen him travel all the
way down sort partially for it for that period of time.
(49:40):
And this is a photo of the cowling that washed
up on Flinders Island. Now Flinder's Island is at the
opposite end of Bastrait. So when we talk about this
piece of cowling traveling from king Island to Flinders Island
on currents under the water over a five year period.
(50:01):
It's still a fairly big ask. But who can say,
who can say it's just not it's just not that
clear cut. Was that possible that that that that could
have happened? You know, it's just a real big unknown
and and I think to everyone's knowledge that that who
knows where that cowling is now? So it matched the
(50:25):
one eight two model. It was found on the May sixteen,
three hundred and twenty kilometers from Cape Otway so and
it was found by the Flinders Island Airport manager, Arthur
Withers's son who found the cow opposite the northern runway,
washed up on a beach at Perry's Bay. And there
(50:48):
were another two cessners of that type which lost similar
parts during takeoff prior to nineteen eighty three. So it's
really quite possible that that maybe this part was discovered
more logically belongs to two planes that had disappeared, were
not disappeared, but planes that had lost parts flying out
(51:09):
of Flinder's Flinder's Island. But yeah, again nothing, nothing can
be can be confirmed at this point in time. So
it's really really really disappointing that that's the case. Now
there's a tribute to Fred which is down at Cape Otway,
and every year his family would return to pay their
(51:31):
respects and look out over the ocean to try and
process what had happened to their to their son and
brother and boyfriend. So at the heart of this story,
it really is a very sad tale that a young
man is lost in his prime doing what he loves,
(51:52):
flying his aircraft, and there's no sign of him. I mean,
logic would dictate that he must have ended up in
the water, because bastratit's a big area. If they didn't
find any evidence, if the plane had have crashed, he
would have gone down, you know, and the plane would
have floated for a while or broken up, and there
would have been parts of the plane, parts of things
(52:15):
from within the cockpit floating on the water because they
started looking for it very quickly, so if there was
anything there, they were certainly going to find it. And
the last photo that I want to show is the
actual aircraft itself. And this is a fairly rare picture
as well. And this is not Fred on the with
(52:37):
the plane. This is this is just another woman. But
this is the actual aircraft that Fred was flying on
that day, and you can read on the tail section
there vh DSJ that is the Cessna that he was
flying in, So it kind of helps to give you
a good picture of the actual aircraft. Where is it now?
(52:59):
We'd all love to know that answer. Where is that
plane and where is where is the pilot? But so
many years have gone by, but this has really only
been a touching, simple, bare bones introduction to the disappearance
of Fred Valantage, something that's that fascinates me deeply and
(53:19):
has for many many years. And every twenty first of
October of each year, I sort of have a private
memory of Fred. You know that he actually did disappear
on that date. So in a future episode, I'll bring
in another researcher who's done a lot of work on
this case, and I just want to give you give
you all a bit of background to what this case
(53:41):
is about. So in this episode number nine, episode nine,
that we've that we've had a brief introduction to the
Fred Valantage case. And I could do five shows on
the Fred Valantage case no worries at all. So I
just wanted to sort of weet your appetite with it.
If you're unfamiliar with this case, if you are familiar
with that, I wanted to give you the opportunity to
(54:03):
re kindle it again inside you that this really is
a great Australian UFO and aviation mystery. And I will
definitely be having another episode with another researcher and we
will discuss his theories. And there are some developments that
have occurred since all of this came out so many
years ago. So I really really look forward to seeing
(54:27):
you on the next episode. And thank you so much
for joining me again today because as ever, I just
really enjoy bringing out Australian cases for you and I
look forward to seeing you again next week. Bye for now.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.