{"id":13011,"date":"2024-07-03T10:41:18","date_gmt":"2024-07-03T10:41:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/used82.com\/?p=13011"},"modified":"2024-07-03T10:41:18","modified_gmt":"2024-07-03T10:41:18","slug":"pilot-went-missing-moments-after-reporting-ufo-following-him-to-air-traffic-controllers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/used82.com\/?p=13011","title":{"rendered":"Pilot went missing moments after reporting UFO following him to air traffic controllers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pilot Frederick Valentich had reported seeing an object with four bright ‘landing lights’ before his disappearance<\/h2>\n

Decades after his disappearance, the final minutes of pilot Frederick Valentich still fascinate people.<\/strong><\/p>\n

20-year-old Valentich had been flying from King Island off\u00a0Australia’s<\/a>\u00a0south coast to Moorabbin, located south west of Melbourne, when he sent out a\u00a0strange<\/a> transmission to the airport traffic control tower.<\/p>\n

The Australian pilot claimed that there was a mysterious aircraft flying above him ‘playing some sort of game’.<\/p>\n

Shortly after his final conversation with the tower, Valentich vanished.<\/p>\n

Following his disappearance, there have been many\u00a0theories<\/a>\u00a0about what may have happened to the young pilot.<\/p>\n

Among them, of course, are conspiracy theorists who believe that Valentich had been abducted by\u00a0aliens<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But what really happened on that night in 1978?<\/p>\n

\n
\"Frederick<\/div>\n

Frederick Valentich disappeared in 1978. (Australian Department of Transportation)<\/cite><\/div>\n

Valentich had been hoping to become a full-time pilot, but found himself rejected from both the Australian Air Force and commercial training.<\/p>\n

It also wasn’t his first incident, with Valentich having received warnings on previous occasions.<\/p>\n

The 20-year-old had planned to mark an anniversary with his\u00a0girlfriend<\/a>\u00a0on October 21, 1978.<\/p>\n

The evening before Valentich informed her that he was going on a flight to King Island and they planned to meet when he returned.<\/p>\n

He took off in a Cessna 182L light aircraft in the evening.<\/p>\n

“It is hovering and it’s not an aircraft”<\/strong><\/h2>\n

While flying over the ocean Valentich reported to ground control that he was being followed by another aircraft, but they confirmed that there was not another aircraft in his vicinity.<\/p>\n

He claimed that there were four bright ‘landing lights’ circling above him.<\/p>\n

Speaking with the tower, Valentich said: “It seems to me that he’s playing some sort of game he’s flying over me three times at a time at speeds I could not identify.<\/p>\n

\n
\"A<\/div>\n

A Cessna light aircraft similar to the one Valentich was flying. (Arpingstone \/ Wiki)<\/cite><\/div>\n

“The thing is just orbiting on top of me also it’s got a green light and sort of metallic [like] it’s all shiny [on] the outside.”<\/p>\n

Finally, he added: “That strange aircraft is hovering on top of me again. It is hovering and it’s not an aircraft.”<\/p>\n

What really happened to Valentich?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

There are a number of theories as to what may have happened to the pilot.<\/p>\n

One was that Valentich became disoriented in the dark and had been flying upside down, with the lights actually being his own lights reflected in the sea.<\/p>\n

However, this explanation was dismissed as his aircraft used a gravity fed fuel system, so couldn’t sustain flying upside down for long.<\/p>\n

A review of the evidence in 2013 suggested that Valentich had been confused by an illusion of a tilted horizon, where you think the plane is not level but it is.<\/p>\n

This meant he tried to compensate when there was no need to and mistakenly sent the plane into a downward spiral called a ‘graveyard spin’.<\/p>\n

In some cases, a ‘graveyard spin’ can even make a pilot think that they are spinning the other way when they correct.<\/p>\n

As for the ‘bright lights’ orbiting above him, these may have been the\u00a0planets<\/a> Mars, Venus, and Mercury, and the star Antares.<\/p>\n

A search and rescue operation failed to find the pilot, but in 1983 a fragment of aircraft bearing a serial number in the range of Valentich’s was discovered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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