The Valentich Abduction/Disappearance : 40th Anniversary

originally posted by: Cauliflower
a reply to: Sublant

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

Harold's case is another enduring mystery but my theory is shark attack as we have monsters around the southern shore of Oz (Mako or Great White) and swimming in the ocean there is done at your own risk. It was tragic as he was really well liked by the populace - the spear fishing Prime Minister.

originally posted by: stormcell
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).

He was in contact with Air Traffic Control just seconds before the strange sound came over the radio and all contact was lost. Isn't it highly implausible that he just suddenly fell asleep seconds later and crashed?

a reply to: mirageman

Metallic voices is a somewhat common theme in some encounters with high strangeness though MM..??

a reply to: pigsy2400

The actual sounds recorded by air traffic control at Melbourne before contact was completely lost are played here on the Youtube video earlier in the thread.

Whether you can describe that as metallic voices I am not sure.

His girlfriend thought it might be;

.... his habit to release the seat and to push it rearward... She was of the opinion that the ‘metallic noise’ mentioned in the newspaper could have been the seat sliding rearward, with the microphone transmitting..

It just adds further to the mystery.

a reply to: mirageman

Very nice anniversary thread MM and this case always did remind me of the flight of pilot Jose Pagan Santos in June, 1980 where his Mayday call describes a close proximity UFO as 'weird' and 'strange' and states that it made them change course about three different times - he and his copilot were never heard from again (also an interesting NICAP archive file at link entitled "A "Valentich" Type Of Case Off Puerto Rico").

The Disappearance of flight N3808H


Pilot transmission: - last words of pilot Jose Pagan Santos:

Location. Mona Channel, Caribbean Ocean near Puerto Rico

Date: June 28 1980

At 1810 Jose Antonio Maldonado Torres and his friend, Jose Pagan Santos, took off from Las Americas International Airport in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic in an Ercoupe aircraft marked N3808H.
The Ercoupe was owned by Santo’s father Jose Pagan Jimenez, an Aero
Police officer in Puerto Rico. They were bound for home in Puerto Rico. At 2003 the Las Mesas radar site and several aircraft picked up radio transmissions from N3808H:


“Mayday, Mayday, Ercoupe ocho cero, eight zero, zero, Hotel. We can see a strange object in our course, we are lost, Mayday, Mayday.”

An Iberia Airlines flight IB-976 en route from Santo Domingo to Spain responded to the Mayday and received a reply:

“Ah we are going from Santo Domingo to ah San Juan International but we found ah a weird object in our course that made us change course about three different times we got it right in front of us now at one o’clock, our heading is zero seven zero degrees…our altitude one thousand six hundred a zero seven zero degrees…our VORs got lost off frequency…”

Iberia Flight IB-976 then relayed a message from San Juan Center asking N3808H to turn on their transponder.
N3808H replied that the Ercoupe was not equipped with a transponder. At 2006 Iberia IB-976 asked for their call sing and estimated position and received this reply:

“Right now we are supposed to be a about thirty five miles from the coast of Puerto Rico but we have something weird in front of us that make us lose course all the time I changed our course a second (unintelligible) our present heading right now is three hundred we are right again in the same stuff sir.”

They were not heard from again. At 2012 the Atlantic Fleet Weapons Range verified the last radar position of N3808H as thirty five miles west of Puerto Rico. A search that included Santos’s father was then mounted which centered on this last radar position. It was discontinued after two days when no trace had been found. No trace was ever found.

link

This radar confirmed case from Mexico in 1975 also has its parallels although the 3 close proximity disc shaped objects eventually flew off and the pilot managed to land the aircraft.

Cheers.

Let's hope he didn't wind up here -