The pilot who disappeared

Frederick Valentich vanished while flying over Bass Strait to King Island, Tasmania, on October 21, 1978. At 7.06pm he contacted air traffic control in Melbourne to report a strange object travelling above him at speed.

“What I am doing right now is orbiting and the thing is just orbiting on top of me also,” said Frederick, 20. “It has a green light and sort of metallic.”

“It’s not an aircraft,” were his last words before radio contact was lost. He was never found despite extensive searching.

George Simpson, an investigator with Victorian UFO Action, saw the plane fly over his home near Moorabbin Airport that evening. A few years ago, he heard of a South Australian farmer who’d r reported d a strange incident, perhaps related.

“He said he’d been bailing near a town called Keith the morning after Frederick disappeared,” says George. “He heard a screeching noise, then he felt he was in shadow. He saw a “saucer” hovering above him, 30m across with a rotating ring around the edge. He ran clear and looked up. He saw a plane stuck against the object like a cross. The wings were against the side and the tail over the edge. There was engine oil running down.”

The plane’s registration number was on the wing and the farmer scratched it into his tractor with a nail. The number was that of the missing Valentich aircraft.