The Valentich Abduction/Disappearance : 40th Anniversary

He definitely seemed to be acting cagily about his flight plans with people and not asking for airfield illuminations on King Island after dusk is a big give away that something was not right. It hints that he was either heading some place else or contemplating suicide.

Perhaps he was planning to vanish and really did see what he perceived to be a UFO? Then lost control trying to cope with the stress of everything on his mind. Plunging into the sea in a fatal accident.

Could it be that he didn't want to be seen as a failure? But his inability to pass his commercial pilot exams after repeated attempts was preying on his mind. So maybe this was a planned suicide attempt as was the UFO story so his family and friends would not suspect his inner turmoil. Although the lack of closure to the case probably only made things worse.

I think we all have to make our own mind up on what happened to Valentich. It could go a number of places. Sadly his family and friends still have no real closure on his disappearance some 40 years later.

a reply to: mirageman

A great thread MM, the Valentich case will remain a mystery untill his plane is found.

This is one of my most favorite, interesting incidents. Have seen a couple of programs on some of the Science Channel's excellent shows and programs including this subject. Everything I have seen or heard said Valentich was not suicidal. Plus you have a number of unexplained and witnessed
ufo sightings on the day of or near his disappearance, and then and lastly that bizarre recording of the last minutes in the plane cockpit of whatever the hell that was.....just makes the hair on the back of my head stand up every time I hear that, you can't rule out in my opinion he was abducted. That is my thought on this fascinating subject.

originally posted by: bally001
a reply to: mirageman

My thoughts are, he was flying upside down. Inverted dive. Saw reflection and lights in the water of Bass Strait looming towards him.

An infrequent experience in small planes but I know of similar accidents. Pilot or instrument error?

My personal thoughts are yes.

Kind regards,

Bally

You can see from the photo showing the blob that the weather was clear below 5000 ft that evening. If we were talking about low cloud cover then becoming inverted could be an explanation. 7pm in October would still be enough light to distinguish water from sky as you can also see in that photo. In order to see the reflection of his lights off the sea surface he would have to be low over the water and his altitude indicator would have shown that.

When I look at this I don't see a new pilot that got disoriented. I see a guy who wanted to disappear. I suspect he put the plane down in the water off his original flight path. Then he escaped in a life raft to shore and changed his life.
That's one possibility but the other just as likely one is that he intentionally crashed into the ocean to kill himself.

It all seems too elaborate for suicide. And if he intended to disappear and start a new life, there would also be far less elaborate ways of achieving that, presuming he sought as little attention as possible.

Those two explanations seem a bit of a stretch.

The sighting of planets is a possibility, perhaps even a cloud formation. The metallic scraping sound is damn strange, particularly as it's the last thing we hear... can't quite get my head around it.

a reply to: ConfusedBrit

Engine trouble?

It doesn't have to be an exotic explanation.

As for FAKING suicide, I wonder if his wife had a big policy
on him.. that's the sort of info we could really use.

Kev

a reply to: ConfusedBrit

It all seems too elaborate for suicide. And if he intended to disappear and start a new life, there would also be far less elaborate ways of achieving that, presuming he sought as little attention as possible.

This is why you'll have to make your own mind up. Although his failure to ask for illumination for his landing after dusk on King Island Airfield is suggestive that he never intended landing there. Add that to telling his family he was collecting crayfish whilst telling the Air officials he filed his flight plan he was collecting friends. Something didn't add up before he even got on the plane.

The metallic scraping sound is damn strange, particularly as it's the last thing we hear... can't quite get my head around it.

Reading comprehension test! Try reading this part of the OP again. I am not saying his girlfriend has the answer. But it does seem like a possibility.

a reply to: ConfusedBrit

Some people go out of their way to end their lives without others knowing. Don't ask me for stats because I'm going from anecdotal accounts by people I've known in the counselling profession. The dead can't talk, but people with the Samaritans might tell you about phone clients and the elaborate plans they have to take their own lives. There are depressed people who want to die without bringing shame, blame or hurt to loved ones.

Either way it's all academic now as we'll never know unless Mr Valentich is alive and returns to tell his story.

I took the Valentich recording between him and air traffic control.

His last verbal altitude check on the recording happened long before the end of the recording.

I added the silence gap time to the speech time between Valentich and the ATC employee.

His model of aircraft could have descended to the ocean in that amount of time, easily.

This adds to the evidence of conventional explanation in my opinion. I don't think he was upside down, based on descriptions, I'd actually assume he was at an angle. Either way, it's not impossible and it's a more likely explanation than "aliens".

This guy crashed, likely at a sharp sideways angle, into the ocean. The impact would have ripped everything to shreds and destroyed most hopes of finding wreckage.

a reply to: mirageman

it certainly does.

I'd like to present this link on the issue of missing planes:

en.wikipedia.org...

It's certainly nothing exotic that a plane goes missing
and no hint of it is discovered again. And this list is
just a partial list according to the link.

And of course there are many cases, where a plane has been
lost, but after many years it is indeed found.

For example Amelia Arheart's plane disappeared in 1937',
but it's thought her remains have been discovered now in
2018.

Though I suppose that some people would say,
"well those people were abducted by UFOs too!".

Of course that's not impossible.. just very improbable.
It's a huge reach.. when no reach is warranted.

Of course if a reach is warranted.. I'd be the first person
to say, "a reach is warranted'.

Kev

originally posted by: KellyPrettyBear
a reply to: ConfusedBrit

Engine trouble?

It doesn't have to be an exotic explanation.

As for FAKING suicide, I wonder if his wife had a big policy
on him.. that's the sort of info we could really use.

Kev

If I recall correctly, in the full accident investigation report, it says the Cessna that Valentich rented had recently been serviced and checked out. Of course that doesn't mean it didn't develop engine trouble. But it reduces the likelihood.
The other point is that because of his low altitude the control tower at Melbourne were unable to confirm Valentich's reported position on radar.

He had no wife. He was 20 years old and lived with his parents. His girlfriend was 17. I think you can pretty much dismiss the 'insurance scam' idea for that reason. Although he may have had other motives we don't know of for wanting to vanish. I think even a drugs smuggling angle was looked into. But there was no evidence to support that.
It is indeed a mystery that will probably never be completely resolved.

a reply to: mirageman

Good to know.

I suppose he could have owed money to loan sharks or
something like that... but yes.. we will likely
never know.

a reply to: Dragoon01
A video with the Cessna expert in the original OP said that plane could not have flown inverted for over 3-5 minutes and that wouldn't have given him time to set it dow. Something about the position of the fuel tanks.

Also, the original OP said he left no insurance policy, so unless he had a pretty good savings, I doubt he was going to try to start a new life.

I love this story, MM. Thanks for posting. I had read it quite some time ago but had forgotten about it.

The video of the guy who saw two craft conjoined in the sky is also in the original OP link. He doesn't sound like a crazy person to me, only someone who is recounting what they saw. Also, since the radio was still on for tower to have heard that metallic sound, or electrical popping as someone called it, wouldn't the controller heard the plane hit the water? One of the experts stated that if he crashed, there would have been debris which would gave been seen with as many people and agencies looking, but if he had a controlled water landing, there would be no debris...so there's that. That's what throws me off. Other than that, "it doesn't have to be aliens, but it's aliens!."

A pilot familiar with the area could have requested the radar check before hitting the deck at 30 ft and landed here at night without detection but he would have had to change his flight identifier pretty quickly.

Maybe he was half asleep and was on a slow drift downwards. I've read other versions where they reported a ticking sound (possibly metal cooling down in cold water - a hot firebox will do that) and a grating sound (the mouthpiece floating around in water and hitting the top of the cabin).

Nothing of the man or the aircraft has been found, ever. Not a piece of wing, bone or sighting of the man, nothing. And not for a lack of looking. Whatever happened to Valetich and the Cessna he was flying, they truly disappeared. Creepy case.

a reply to: Sublant

Either an Aussie conspiracy of silence or a very sad suicide.
What happened to Prime minister Holt in 1968?

Kardinsky is quite right that suicides can be elaborate - indeed, I'm directly reminded of co-pilot Andrea Lubitz who, on 24 March 2015, deliberately crashed his Airbus aircraft into the French Alps, killing 144 passengers and six crew members. Lubitz was suicidal and declared unfit for work, but never disclosed this to his employer.

Whether this case can include such an explanation is, like other aspects of it, open to question.

originally posted by: mirageman
I am not saying his girlfriend has the answer. But it does seem like a possibility.

It's hard to substantiate her explanation without her knowledge of what such an action would sound like at the 'other end' of his transmission, but it's certainly a possibility.

It's still a 'strange' element of the story - not that it points to an 'exotic explanation' (as Kev is usually so quick to point out), rather a useful element that may explain his actions at the time if we could be SURE of its source.

I'm interested in his comment to her a week earlier that he would willingly "go" in a UFO, but never without her. It could be an innocent throwaway romantic remark without any connotations of being fed up with his lot in life. As for the use of the word "UFO", Spielberg's Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (1977) had a release date of 16th March 1978 in Australia and no doubt enjoyed a long run, possibly influencing that comment.

As to whether the film also influenced him the day of his disappearance - for whatever reason - yup, we can only guess.

Maybe Valentich got too close to one of the secret Australian bases.
Long history of recon stations there.

Operation Potshot was started on 03-September-1939

But according to the plaque..

Rear-Admiral Charles A. Lockwood Jr, U.S.N. Brigadier B. R. Klein A.I.F. Commander Joseph L. Thew U.S.N. Lieut. Col J. S. Young A.M.F. Landed Here September 11, 1942 To Carry Out The Initial Reconnaissance For The "Potshot" Venture.

Google Earth lifted censor in 2005.

Foo fighters/Ionospheric heaters in 1939?

Interesting NICAP history.

a reply to: ConfusedBrit

'UFO' experiences in Oz were numerous for a long time prior to that movie so I'd rule out any suggested influence it could have had on people in relation to use of the acronym. Tully in Queensland was something of a 'hot spot' for UFOs in '66.

I recall this event - it was huge news in the media here when it happened. Bass Strait is our own local 'Bermuda Triangle' with a history of strange occurrences, 300km of relatively shallow water where the roaring forties can whip up rogue waves but Fred was flying on a clear calm evening so the weather can be ruled out as a factor. The Cessna could be lying on the sea bed there but, until some hard evidence is discovered, all we have is theories as to what happened to it.