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Transcript

Frederick Valentich Pt. Two · The Path Went Chilly

0:28
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Path Went Chile for part two
0:31
Speaker 1: of our series about the disappearance of Frederick Vlentage. Robin,
0:35
Speaker 1: do you want to catch everyone up on what we
0:37
Speaker 1: talked about in our previous episode?
0:39
Speaker 2: Well, this is a special Halloween themed episode because part
0:42
Speaker 2: one just happened to be released on October the thirty first,
0:44
Speaker 2: and we decided to cover it because it has a
0:47
Speaker 2: UFO angle to it. And the case also took place
0:50
Speaker 2: on October the twenty first, nineteen seventy eight, which just
0:53
Speaker 2: happens to be my birth date, so it probably means
0:55
Speaker 2: I was prettydestined to grow up with an interest in
0:58
Speaker 2: unsolved mysteries. But it takes place in Australia and Frederick
1:02
Speaker 2: Valenticho was a twenty one year old pilot who lived
1:04
Speaker 2: in Melbourne and was going on a trip across Bass
1:08
Speaker 2: Strait on a Sezna one eighty two aircraft before he
1:11
Speaker 2: suddenly vanished without a trace, and during his final radio
1:14
Speaker 2: transmission with an air traffic controller, his last words work
1:19
Speaker 2: quote it's hovering and it's not an aircraft, which was
1:22
Speaker 2: followed by these strange metallic sounds, and after that Valentage
1:25
Speaker 2: vanished without a trace. So since they gotta find him
1:29
Speaker 2: or his plane. Speculation started to run wild that perhaps
1:32
Speaker 2: he could have been kidnapped by a UFO because there
1:35
Speaker 2: were other sightings from independent eyewitnesses in the area that
1:38
Speaker 2: night who reported seeing strange lights in the sky, and
1:41
Speaker 2: there was even a photographer who thought that he captured
1:44
Speaker 2: an unidentified flying object on camera flying around in the
1:48
Speaker 2: area where Valentage went missing. So they've analyzed this case
1:52
Speaker 2: for the past forty years and there's been speculation that
1:56
Speaker 2: if Valentage was suicidal or something, he could have staged
1:59
Speaker 2: his disappear apearance in order to make anyone believe that
2:02
Speaker 2: he was abducted by the UFO. But to this day,
2:05
Speaker 2: they've never found him or any plane wreckage to prove
2:08
Speaker 2: that he crashed. So he's officially still considered to be
2:11
Speaker 2: missing and we don't know what happened to him. Well,
2:14
Speaker 2: like I just said, since this is the first UFO
2:16
Speaker 2: case we've ever covered on the path with Chile, this
2:18
Speaker 2: is going to be an interesting analysis. It would be
2:21
Speaker 2: so easy to just cry out aliens as the explanation
2:24
Speaker 2: for Valentage's disappearance and leave it at that, but that's
2:28
Speaker 2: not what this podcast is about, so we're going to
2:30
Speaker 2: try and figure out the most logical explanation for what happened.
2:34
Speaker 2: Of course, one of the biggest obstacles you'll face when
2:36
Speaker 2: researching UFO stories or anything paranormal for that matter, is
2:40
Speaker 2: figuring out how reliable the sources are. When you delve
2:44
Speaker 2: into this case. Online, you're going to find some articles
2:46
Speaker 2: which one hundred percent believed that Valentage was abductive by
2:49
Speaker 2: a UFO, and some of the theories are pretty out there.
2:54
Speaker 2: One of the craziest stories I found, which was on
2:56
Speaker 2: a blog, which claimed that in nineteen eighty two, Apsole
3:00
Speaker 2: was discovered near the Soviet Union China border containing a
3:04
Speaker 2: plate with a written message from Frederick Valentich who said
3:07
Speaker 2: he had been captured by aliens so they could recruit
3:09
Speaker 2: him to become a pilot for one of their aircrafts. Okay, then, well,
3:14
Speaker 2: if this story was true, then those aliens must have
3:16
Speaker 2: had some pretty rotten luck with selecting their candidates, because,
3:20
Speaker 2: as we're about to share with you, Frederick Valentiche was
3:23
Speaker 2: a pretty mediocre pilot at best, so they probably would
3:26
Speaker 2: have been better off abducting someone a lot more qualified.
3:29
Speaker 2: Needless to say, there are no credible official sources out
3:33
Speaker 2: there for this story about the capsule and the plate,
3:36
Speaker 2: so I'm just going to ignore it. But the big
3:38
Speaker 2: advantage with analyzing this case as opposed to many other
3:42
Speaker 2: UFO stories is the discovery in twenty twelve of the
3:45
Speaker 2: digital version of the government file on Valentage's disappearance and
3:49
Speaker 2: the National Archives of Australia. It's pretty much been a
3:53
Speaker 2: godsend for researchers as it contains official documentation and original
3:57
Speaker 2: newspaper articles about the case. So we have lots of
4:00
Speaker 2: credible stories which can simply focus on the facts rather
4:03
Speaker 2: than wild conspiracy theories.
4:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, unless you have this idea of this plate in
4:08
Speaker 3: the capsule that's actually in that digital version of the
4:11
Speaker 3: government file, I would also have to disregard something that
4:15
Speaker 3: sounds a little bit crazy, the fact that they would say, hey,
4:19
Speaker 3: you know, this is Frederick and I've been captured so
4:23
Speaker 3: that I can be a pilot for this alien spacecraft.
4:26
Speaker 3: I'm assuming you didn't see pictures of this or that's
4:29
Speaker 3: not documented in the government file.
4:30
Speaker 2: Correct, No, I read the whole thing when I covered
4:33
Speaker 2: this on the Trail and Cold years ago. There is
4:35
Speaker 2: nothing about that in there, and the only source is
4:37
Speaker 2: this blog.
4:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll disregard that too, then, But when you do
4:41
Speaker 3: talk about this case, one of the things that I've
4:43
Speaker 3: been thinking about since we recorded part one was that
4:46
Speaker 3: there were so many bizarre things that happened in this case,
4:50
Speaker 3: which I'm sure we'll dive back into in part two.
4:52
Speaker 3: But one of the things that blows my mind is
4:54
Speaker 3: that he really is on a radio transmission at the
4:58
Speaker 3: time he disappears, that he saw this spacecraft, and that
5:02
Speaker 3: it's not an aviation vehicle, it's not something like that,
5:06
Speaker 3: it's a bizarre flying object. And then it just goes silent,
5:12
Speaker 3: and I might question it except for the fact that
5:16
Speaker 3: there's other people who validate this experience as well. They
5:19
Speaker 3: say they saw this object floating in the air. And
5:23
Speaker 3: then you have to look at Frederick's other parts of
5:26
Speaker 3: the story, where he is supposed to be on this
5:30
Speaker 3: flight to a certain destination, but the destination never knew
5:33
Speaker 3: he was coming. He was also supposed to meet his
5:35
Speaker 3: wife in a time that would not have allowed him
5:37
Speaker 3: to make the trip he said he was going to make,
5:40
Speaker 3: and so there's so many conflicting stories. UFO is exciting
5:45
Speaker 3: and interesting and very intriguing because of that radio transmission.
5:50
Speaker 3: But then there's some other storylines that I'm hoping we
5:53
Speaker 3: get into in part two because they've been on my mind.
5:55
Speaker 3: Where was he going? Why didn't he tell the truth
5:58
Speaker 3: in the first place? Why didn't an anyone really know
6:00
Speaker 3: the plan? I'm dying to find those things zone.
6:04
Speaker 1: And if this was a setup? Like what kind of
6:07
Speaker 1: luck did he have that other people would have seen
6:10
Speaker 1: this unidentified flying object in the air at the same
6:14
Speaker 1: time that he was on the radio with radio operator
6:18
Speaker 1: and calling it in, Like, what are the chances that
6:21
Speaker 1: that would happen if you were planning to leave your
6:24
Speaker 1: life and start a new life or something that you
6:26
Speaker 1: would just happen upon luck like that?
6:28
Speaker 2: That is true. I mean, this story might not have
6:30
Speaker 2: had the same impact if it wasn't for the independent
6:33
Speaker 2: eyewitnesses who reported seeing lights in the sky that night.
6:36
Speaker 2: And Ashley is correct that this has several mysteries within
6:40
Speaker 2: a mystery, because even if you disregard his disappearance, there's
6:44
Speaker 2: a lot of things about Valentage's story which don't add
6:46
Speaker 2: up because he said he was flying to a certain airport,
6:49
Speaker 2: even though they claimed they had no idea he was
6:51
Speaker 2: coming and did not even turn the lights on that night,
6:54
Speaker 2: and like, he promised to meet his girlfriend, even though
6:57
Speaker 2: if you time the amount of time it would take
6:59
Speaker 2: for him who fly to this location and fly back,
7:02
Speaker 2: there's no way he would have made it in time
7:04
Speaker 2: to meet her at their scheduled points. So it still
7:07
Speaker 2: makes you wonder, like, what more is there to this
7:10
Speaker 2: story and why did he go out there that night?
7:13
Speaker 1: So before we delve into any theories, we need to
7:16
Speaker 1: provide some backstory about Frederick Valentich's aviation career. Long story short,
7:21
Speaker 1: it was not great. It sounds like flying was Valentage's
7:24
Speaker 1: number one passion and that he really didn't want to
7:27
Speaker 1: do anything else. But unfortunately for him, he was just
7:30
Speaker 1: not very adept at it. He'd applied to enlist in
7:33
Speaker 1: the Royal Australian Air Force on two separate occasions, but
7:37
Speaker 1: was rejected because of inadequate education qualifications. Becoming a commercial
7:42
Speaker 1: airline pilot was his backup plan, but he wasn't having
7:45
Speaker 1: much luck at that either. On two separate occasions, he
7:48
Speaker 1: failed all five commercial license examination subjects. Just one month
7:53
Speaker 1: before he went missing, he failed three more commercial license
7:57
Speaker 1: exam subjects, and it turned out the Valentage had been
8:00
Speaker 1: lying to his family, girlfriend, and several other people about
8:03
Speaker 1: passing these exams. If that wasn't enough, Valentage had some
8:07
Speaker 1: black marks on his flying record, as he'd received a
8:10
Speaker 1: warning on one occasion for flying into a controlled zone
8:13
Speaker 1: in Sydney. Not only that, but there were two separate
8:17
Speaker 1: incidents in which Valentage deliberately flew into a cloud, an
8:21
Speaker 1: offense so egregious that he was potentially facing criminal prosecution.
8:26
Speaker 1: Since Valentage's prospects of an aviation career seemed to be
8:30
Speaker 1: going down in the toilet, there was a lot of
8:32
Speaker 1: speculation that he could have staged his disappearance in order
8:36
Speaker 1: to go off and start a new life somewhere, or
8:38
Speaker 1: even staged a very elaborate suicide by deliberately crashing his
8:42
Speaker 1: plane into the water. Due to Valentage's well documented fascination
8:46
Speaker 1: with UFOs, it was easy for some people to believe
8:49
Speaker 1: that his final radio transmission could have been a hoax
8:52
Speaker 1: for the purposes of making the world believe that he'd
8:54
Speaker 1: been abducted by aliens.
8:57
Speaker 3: I was wondering that too when we talked about Frederick's intro.
9:00
Speaker 3: It wasn't just aviation. He had an obsession with UFOs,
9:04
Speaker 3: and I believe he had even told a friend or
9:06
Speaker 3: talked about this idea that it would be wild to
9:09
Speaker 3: be abducted by an alien, or that he was welcoming
9:13
Speaker 3: a trip to meet aliens. And so if that is
9:16
Speaker 3: the case, it does seem very bizarre that you know, yes,
9:21
Speaker 3: he would be someone who's open to it, So could
9:23
Speaker 3: that open a portal to access him? Maybe, But it's
9:27
Speaker 3: almost as bizarre as if you know, you look at
9:29
Speaker 3: us and we do a homicide podcast and god forbid,
9:33
Speaker 3: one of us ended up murdered. It's like, what are
9:35
Speaker 3: the chances that someone with such an isolated passion ends
9:39
Speaker 3: up a victim of that or engaged in that. It's
9:42
Speaker 3: just very odd. Part of me wondered was this something
9:46
Speaker 3: to make him a big deal in the UFO realm
9:49
Speaker 3: because he was so fascinated with it.
9:52
Speaker 2: It is interesting that he had such a fascination for
9:55
Speaker 2: the subject, because I've seen so many stories about people
9:57
Speaker 2: who acclaimant who have seen a UFO or a close
10:00
Speaker 2: encounter with a UFO, would claim. Before this incident happened
10:03
Speaker 2: to me, I was a complete skeptic. I did not
10:05
Speaker 2: believe that UFO's Raeliens existed, but this whole event changed
10:09
Speaker 2: my mind. But Valentiche is pretty much the polar opposite
10:12
Speaker 2: of that, where he had a devout interest in UFOs,
10:15
Speaker 2: and we even talked on a last episode that six
10:18
Speaker 2: days he went before he went missing, he told his girlfriend,
10:20
Speaker 2: if the UFO landed right in front of me, I
10:22
Speaker 2: would not go in without you, which was intended to
10:25
Speaker 2: be romantic. So it is weird that this would happen
10:28
Speaker 2: just so soon after he expressed this fascination about leaving
10:32
Speaker 2: the planet with aliens. The fact that Valentis was clearly
10:36
Speaker 2: lying about the details of his trip to King Island
10:38
Speaker 2: also added more fuel to this stage disappearance theory. He
10:42
Speaker 2: told conflicting stories about why he was making this trip
10:45
Speaker 2: and never told King Island Airport about his arrival, which
10:48
Speaker 2: seemed to suggest that Valentaice never had any intention of
10:51
Speaker 2: landing there. At the time of Valentage's final transmission, he
10:54
Speaker 2: would have had enough fuel in his tanks to travel
10:57
Speaker 2: an additional eight hundred kilometers oh it was in his
11:00
Speaker 2: flight plan. There's still some debate about whether Valentage was
11:03
Speaker 2: actually near Cape Otway when he went missing, as this
11:06
Speaker 2: was uncontrolled airspace, so his plane didn't actually show up
11:09
Speaker 2: on radar. There was also a lighthouse keeper in Cape
11:13
Speaker 2: Outway at that time who should have been directly under
11:16
Speaker 2: Valentage's flight path, but he did not recall seeing or
11:19
Speaker 2: hearing any aircraft that night. But as intriguing as the
11:22
Speaker 2: stage disappearance theory is this case generated so much publicity
11:26
Speaker 2: that if Valentage was alive, I think some sort of
11:29
Speaker 2: evidence would have surfaced to support that during these past
11:32
Speaker 2: four decades. And even if Valentice himself managed to disappear successfully,
11:37
Speaker 2: what happened to the Cessna one E two? Unless he
11:40
Speaker 2: somehow deliberately crashed the plane into the water and swam
11:43
Speaker 2: to safety. I just don't know how he could have
11:45
Speaker 2: destroyed an aircraft so thoroughly that no trace of it
11:48
Speaker 2: has ever been found. This seems like a lot of
11:51
Speaker 2: complicated planning for a twenty year old who no insult intended,
11:55
Speaker 2: was not exactly known for being a super genius.
11:58
Speaker 3: And you have to remember he's not actually noted as
12:00
Speaker 3: being a great pilot either, So a water landing in
12:03
Speaker 3: a small plane, it seems like the risk of death
12:06
Speaker 3: would be so significant that could he really master a
12:11
Speaker 3: water landing and then make it to sure. It seems
12:15
Speaker 3: very odd that no one would see him. Seems very
12:18
Speaker 3: odd he wouldn't die in that attempt. It also seems
12:20
Speaker 3: bizarre that if he did land elsewhere, that no one
12:24
Speaker 3: saw a plane landing at that time at any given
12:27
Speaker 3: airport or airstrip. So I just don't think, given his
12:31
Speaker 3: aviation background, that he would have that ability to do
12:35
Speaker 3: a water landing, successfully get the plane to disappear, and
12:40
Speaker 3: successfully swim to Shora just seems a little bit too elaborate.
12:46
Speaker 1: All that being said, however, we wouldn't be one hundred
12:49
Speaker 1: percent against the idea of Valentage fabricating the details about
12:53
Speaker 1: the hovering object during his final radio transmission. Remember, this
12:58
Speaker 1: incident was only a year removed from the release of
13:01
Speaker 1: Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind, one of
13:04
Speaker 1: the biggest Hollywood blockbusters of all time, so UFOs were
13:08
Speaker 1: definitely a hot topic. In fact, Star Wars also came
13:11
Speaker 1: out the previous year, so sci fi in general was
13:14
Speaker 1: red hot at that time. Several years ago, the Skeptoid
13:18
Speaker 1: podcast released an episode about this case, and the host,
13:21
Speaker 1: Brian Dunning played audio from a very famous scene in
13:24
Speaker 1: Close Encounters of the third kind, where an air traffic
13:27
Speaker 1: controller speaks with some commercial airline pilots who believe they've
13:31
Speaker 1: encountered a UFO. When you compare the dialogue in that
13:35
Speaker 1: scene to Valentich's conversation with Steve Robi, there are a
13:38
Speaker 1: lot of similarities. It's been established that Valentie you did
13:42
Speaker 1: see Close Encounters, So if he wanted to give off
13:45
Speaker 1: the false impression that he was being abducted by a UFO,
13:48
Speaker 1: perhaps he harkened back to his memories of that scene
13:51
Speaker 1: in order to decide what to say. If Valentice really
13:54
Speaker 1: was planning on suicide and he felt that creating an
13:57
Speaker 1: impression was the best possible way to go out in
14:00
Speaker 1: a blaze of glory, as the mystery surrounding his disappearance
14:03
Speaker 1: would ensure that he'd be remembered forever. I know that
14:07
Speaker 1: they've conducted an extensive investigation into Valentic's background, and everyone
14:12
Speaker 1: who knew him did not believe that he ever would
14:14
Speaker 1: have considered suicide. But it's fairly common for people who
14:17
Speaker 1: show no obvious suicidal tendencies to shock everyone by going
14:21
Speaker 1: through with it. If Valentage's failure to achieve his dream
14:25
Speaker 1: of becoming a successful pilot was too much for him.
14:28
Speaker 1: Who's to say that that wouldn't have motivated him to
14:30
Speaker 1: take his own life.
14:32
Speaker 3: Or could he have been struggling with some kind of
14:34
Speaker 3: mental health issue because he gets in this plane and
14:36
Speaker 3: is flying. He's doing reckless things earlier on in his career,
14:40
Speaker 3: where he's flying into a cloud where he's not he's
14:44
Speaker 3: flying into controlled areas without permission, all these different things
14:48
Speaker 3: that kind of show this instability and irresponsibility when he's.
14:51
Speaker 1: Flying impulse control issues.
14:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, So I'm wondering is it possible that he
14:57
Speaker 3: gets in this plane, he has this plan where he's
14:59
Speaker 3: going to he doesn't contact anybody because he's irresponsible, and
15:04
Speaker 3: then he's just having this kind of mental health breakdown
15:07
Speaker 3: in the middle of it, saying that he experiences that
15:10
Speaker 3: he's in the middle of this movie basically that he's
15:13
Speaker 3: just seen and then really does go down and is deceased.
15:17
Speaker 3: Maybe intentional or not intentional, but he could have been
15:21
Speaker 3: delusional at the time and kind of putting himself in
15:25
Speaker 3: that movie scene as reality because I've seen that before
15:28
Speaker 3: with mental health breakdowns, or someone's creating a false reality
15:32
Speaker 3: putting themselves in some parallel world that they've witnessed before,
15:35
Speaker 3: and so that's the possibility as well.
15:38
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And you can see the pattern of deceit where
15:42
Speaker 1: he's telling his level ones, he's lies as well, and
15:46
Speaker 1: that can belendicative. Obviously we're not diagnosing him, but it
15:49
Speaker 1: could be indicative of like a cluster B disorder, some
15:51
Speaker 1: type of personality disorder, or it could just be I mean,
15:55
Speaker 1: I'm not saying he's a pathological liar. I don't know
15:58
Speaker 1: his behavior and other circumstances, but I mean actually brought
16:02
Speaker 1: that up, that he's doing things that are reckless and
16:05
Speaker 1: things that are definitely showing poor impulse control, which could
16:09
Speaker 1: be a hallmark of many different disorders. I have bipolar
16:13
Speaker 1: two and ADHD. Both of those have poor impulse control
16:18
Speaker 1: patterns associated with them. So there's a lot of others
16:21
Speaker 1: as well. But I think it's a very valid point
16:24
Speaker 1: that you bring up, Ashley. It's very possible that it
16:26
Speaker 1: wasn't just like, oh, I've decided that I'm going to
16:29
Speaker 1: end my own life. It could be predicated by him
16:32
Speaker 1: suffering from some type of mental health disorder. How old
16:36
Speaker 1: was he again, Robin twenty years old, I mean that
16:39
Speaker 1: could be right in line with what could be a
16:42
Speaker 1: typical onset of a lot of different psychiatric disorders. I mean,
16:46
Speaker 1: if it was like a cluster B disorder, this would
16:48
Speaker 1: have been far earlier. But we don't know all of
16:51
Speaker 1: that information, so that's really interesting.
16:55
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and this is nineteen seventy eight in Australia,
16:57
Speaker 2: so they're probably not going to be diagnosing things like that.
17:00
Speaker 2: And you're right, it could have been a non planned
17:03
Speaker 2: thing where he just impossibly went on a decided to
17:05
Speaker 2: go on a flight because he may have known that
17:07
Speaker 2: I could lose my license, my days of being able
17:09
Speaker 2: to fly your numbers, So let's go on this joy
17:12
Speaker 2: ride and maybe look for some UFOs or something, and
17:15
Speaker 2: then something wound up going horribly wrong. The one red
17:19
Speaker 2: flag you really cannot ignore is Valentage's personal obsession with UFOs.
17:24
Speaker 2: Like I said earlier, I've seen a lot of interviews
17:26
Speaker 2: with people who claim to have had a UFO encounter,
17:28
Speaker 2: and they'law often say they used to be a complete
17:30
Speaker 2: skeptic and never believed in UFOs until they personally saw one.
17:34
Speaker 2: But that philosophy wouldn't apply to Valentage. Hypothetically, if aliens
17:38
Speaker 2: did come to Earth and abducted Valentage, it seems like
17:41
Speaker 2: one hell of a coincidence that they managed to select
17:44
Speaker 2: someone with a devout interest in the subject, who mentioned
17:47
Speaker 2: the possibility of encountering a UFO to his girlfriend only
17:50
Speaker 2: six days earlier. Remember he told her quote, if a
17:54
Speaker 2: UFO landed in front of me right now, I would
17:56
Speaker 2: go in it, but never without you. End quote. I
17:59
Speaker 2: think think he actually thought that was some sort of
18:01
Speaker 2: romantic line. So it's easy to see why a guy
18:05
Speaker 2: like this might be compelled to fabricate a hoax. But
18:08
Speaker 2: unlike many other famous incidents where people claim to have
18:11
Speaker 2: been abducted by extraterrestrials, Biledgage disappeared and never returned. So,
18:16
Speaker 2: assuming he wasn't planning suicide, could Bledgig have staged the
18:19
Speaker 2: radio transmission because he was planning to disappear for a
18:22
Speaker 2: few days before he returned to share a fantastic story
18:26
Speaker 2: about how he'd been abducted by aliens. If this was
18:29
Speaker 2: his attention, something could have gone wrong and caused his
18:31
Speaker 2: plane to crash, so he never got a chance to
18:34
Speaker 2: make it that far. Well. In Beledgig's defense, Steve Roby
18:38
Speaker 2: has always maintained that he thought Valentage sounded genuinely perturbed
18:41
Speaker 2: during his final radio transmission and did not believe he
18:45
Speaker 2: was orchestrating a hoax. And the reason you can't be
18:48
Speaker 2: wanted to persent skeptical about the UFO angle is because
18:51
Speaker 2: there are independent eye witnesses who could corroborate seeing strange
18:55
Speaker 2: things in the area that night. Of course you'll see
18:58
Speaker 2: differing accounts from different sources. Is about whether people were
19:01
Speaker 2: seeing things in the sky before or after Baluntache's disappearance
19:05
Speaker 2: made the news, But it sounds like a lot of
19:08
Speaker 2: these witnesses reported seeing a fast moving white light, and
19:11
Speaker 2: during newspaper articles from that time period, the Mount Stromlow
19:15
Speaker 2: Observatory confirmed this was a peak time period for a
19:18
Speaker 2: meteorite storm and that they were averaging ten to fifty
19:21
Speaker 2: meteorite sightings that night. So maybe this is what many
19:25
Speaker 2: of the witnesses actually saw.
19:27
Speaker 3: That's one of the things I was going to ask,
19:29
Speaker 3: is when you have these people coming forward and saying, hey,
19:31
Speaker 3: we also saw this hovering craft that didn't seem like
19:35
Speaker 3: an airplane.
19:36
Speaker 2: Was it?
19:37
Speaker 3: After the disappearance and after this was a big story
19:40
Speaker 3: because while there's multiple family members validating it in one case,
19:45
Speaker 3: and you have other people coming forward as well. If
19:48
Speaker 3: it was after this story hit the news, it's very
19:51
Speaker 3: possible that these people wanted to be part of the story,
19:54
Speaker 3: and whether they genuinely saw something or not, they were
19:57
Speaker 3: kind of informed via the news of what they had
20:01
Speaker 3: seen or possibly seen, and once that idea got in
20:04
Speaker 3: their head, oh this could have been a UFO. While
20:06
Speaker 3: we saw a UFO. Wow, we're going to be part
20:08
Speaker 3: of this case. It kind of takes on a life
20:10
Speaker 3: of its own. If the reports came after his disappearance
20:14
Speaker 3: hit the news, well.
20:16
Speaker 2: We do know that most of the reports came out
20:19
Speaker 2: after his disappearance made the news, And in a moment,
20:21
Speaker 2: we're going to talk about a guy named Ken Hansen
20:23
Speaker 2: who did not come forward until years after the fact, which,
20:27
Speaker 2: on what hand, could cause you to question his credibility,
20:29
Speaker 2: but on the other hand, makes it sound like he's
20:31
Speaker 2: not someone who wanted to get immediate attention and notoriety
20:35
Speaker 2: about the whole thing. But I'm sure there were some
20:38
Speaker 2: people who may have seen it and forgotten about it
20:40
Speaker 2: and just did not realize the significance because maybe by
20:44
Speaker 2: the time Bilnta's disappearance made the news. They had forgotten
20:47
Speaker 2: about what they saw, and not to.
20:50
Speaker 1: Be pedantic, but what do we think are the chances
20:54
Speaker 1: that these people are going to be able to conflate
20:57
Speaker 1: a UFO citing that they say is hovering with a meteorite,
21:01
Speaker 1: like a meteorite is going to move it like with
21:04
Speaker 1: a very specific trajectory and it's not going to hover.
21:08
Speaker 2: That is true, like the siding from ken Hansen talks
21:11
Speaker 2: specifically about a green light hovering, and I don't think
21:14
Speaker 2: many meteorites are going to look like a green light.
21:18
Speaker 1: However, the one sighting which needs to be addressed is
21:21
Speaker 1: the one that Robin just mentioned from ken Hansen, because
21:24
Speaker 1: he specifically claimed that he saw green light in the sky,
21:27
Speaker 1: which would match the description the Valentage gave during his
21:30
Speaker 1: radio transmission. It's true that Hanson never went public with
21:34
Speaker 1: this sighting until years after Valentich's account of the green
21:37
Speaker 1: light was already public knowledge, But apparently on the morning
21:41
Speaker 1: after the incident, Hanson mentioned the green light to his coworkers,
21:45
Speaker 1: and at that point the details of Valentiche's radio transmission
21:48
Speaker 1: had not been yet made public. Hanson's co workers were
21:51
Speaker 1: skeptical of his story, which is why he just decided
21:54
Speaker 1: to drop the subject and never mentioned it again for years.
21:58
Speaker 1: If Hanson really did mention the green light that morning,
22:01
Speaker 1: then this lends credence to the idea that he actually
22:03
Speaker 1: saw it and wasn't just recalling the light years after
22:06
Speaker 1: the fact. It seems likely that Hanson and his family
22:10
Speaker 1: are not making up the story about their sighting because
22:12
Speaker 1: Hanson has always kept his real name out of the spotlight,
22:15
Speaker 1: so it doesn't seem like he's seeking publicity. In fact,
22:19
Speaker 1: when Hanson appeared in an Unsolved Mystery segment about the story,
22:22
Speaker 1: which aired in nineteen ninety three, he would not show
22:25
Speaker 1: his face on camera and was interviewed in silhouette. While
22:29
Speaker 1: we're on the subject, here's an interesting piece of trivia
22:31
Speaker 1: about the Unsolved Mystery segment. During the reenactment where Hanson
22:36
Speaker 1: and his family see the green light, one of the
22:38
Speaker 1: nieces played by Lisa mccoon, who went on to become
22:41
Speaker 1: a pretty famous actress in Australia after starring in the
22:44
Speaker 1: police drama TV series Blue Healers. So I guess this
22:48
Speaker 1: is pretty much the Australian equivalent of when Matthew McConaughey
22:51
Speaker 1: started off his career by acting in an Unsolved Mysteries reenactment. Anyway,
22:56
Speaker 1: the alternative explanation which has been pushed forward for Hanson's
23:00
Speaker 1: is that valentici Is Cessna had a green navigation light
23:04
Speaker 1: on his right wing tip. So i Valentage was flying
23:07
Speaker 1: through the air with his right wing tip up and
23:09
Speaker 1: Hanson was looking at it from a distance, it could
23:12
Speaker 1: have appeared to him that there was a separate green
23:14
Speaker 1: light from another aircraft flying above Valentage's Cessna. But the
23:18
Speaker 1: counterpoint to this is that Hanson lived near an airstrip
23:21
Speaker 1: and constantly saw airplanes taking off at night, so he
23:25
Speaker 1: was fairly knowledgeable about them. If the green light was
23:28
Speaker 1: nothing more than the navigation light from Valentice's wingtip, there's
23:31
Speaker 1: a good chance that he would have been able to
23:33
Speaker 1: spot that.
23:34
Speaker 3: It is very interesting too that he is in a
23:37
Speaker 3: silhouette in his interview and that he uses a different name,
23:41
Speaker 3: and that he might have told people the morning of
23:44
Speaker 3: and then almost ridicule at the time, because if you're
23:47
Speaker 3: talking about UFOs, especially back when this case occurred, you
23:51
Speaker 3: would have people say like, are you crazy, man, Like
23:54
Speaker 3: you're absolutely crazy, and they'd be mocking him and ridiculing him,
23:58
Speaker 3: and so I think some of that does lend credence
24:01
Speaker 3: to the fact that his sighting could be legitimate, and
24:05
Speaker 3: there were multiple people in the car that agreed that
24:07
Speaker 3: they had also seen that green light. Could it have
24:10
Speaker 3: been a plane light, of course, and like you said,
24:14
Speaker 3: given the position, it might not have looked like the
24:17
Speaker 3: light on the wingtip. But it's hard to say what
24:20
Speaker 3: occurred because you did have Valentage sitting there and describing
24:26
Speaker 3: a green light as well. So these stories do line up.
24:28
Speaker 3: It was the same night, and you have some one
24:30
Speaker 3: familiar with airplanes who says it wasn't that I saw
24:34
Speaker 3: something different at the time. I didn't come forward because
24:37
Speaker 3: everybody kind of teased me and shut me down. I
24:39
Speaker 3: don't want to be recognized for this story, but I
24:42
Speaker 3: do want to validate what this man was saying.
24:45
Speaker 2: And yeah, it does seem like too much diffical incidence
24:47
Speaker 2: that he would mention seeing the green light, even though
24:50
Speaker 2: Blentage said he saw a green light on the radio
24:52
Speaker 2: transmission at approximately the same time. So I Valentage is
24:56
Speaker 2: telling the truth. It's very unlikely that he is looking
24:59
Speaker 2: for looking at the light from his own wingtip of course,
25:03
Speaker 2: the UFO theory gained a lot more credence when Roy
25:06
Speaker 2: Manifold took that strange photograph at Cape Otway featuring an
25:09
Speaker 2: unexplained black mark. I know that ground Saucer Watch analyzed
25:13
Speaker 2: the photo and determined that it was likely a large
25:15
Speaker 2: object flying in the sky, but you have to keep
25:18
Speaker 2: one thing in mind. These guys were a UFO research group,
25:22
Speaker 2: so you can't rule out the possibility that there was
25:24
Speaker 2: some confirmation bias present, and they reached this conclusion because
25:28
Speaker 2: they were just seeing what they wanted to see. During
25:30
Speaker 2: the Unsolved Mystery segment, it was mentioned that a second
25:33
Speaker 2: analysis was performed on the photo years later, and they
25:36
Speaker 2: thought the black mark was probably nothing more than a
25:38
Speaker 2: developing error. I couldn't really find out much information about
25:42
Speaker 2: this second analysis or who actually performed it, But if
25:45
Speaker 2: this analysis is from a credible source, then I'm willing
25:49
Speaker 2: to believe the simple explanation that it's all just an error. Honestly,
25:53
Speaker 2: if it wasn't for Hanson's eyewitness account and Manifold's photograph,
25:57
Speaker 2: it would be a lot easier to discredit the UFO
25:59
Speaker 2: abduction theory. But I also personally think it's difficult to
26:02
Speaker 2: one hundred percent debunk either of these pieces of evidence.
26:06
Speaker 2: So this does add an extra level of intrigue to
26:08
Speaker 2: the story.
26:10
Speaker 3: It's interesting because you see this with bigfoot sightings and
26:13
Speaker 3: UFO sightings and all kinds of things, where you have
26:16
Speaker 3: two different camps. One that's the experts in that field
26:19
Speaker 3: who want to see a UFO, a bigfoot, a YETTI,
26:24
Speaker 3: and they say, look, here's proof right here. And then
26:26
Speaker 3: you have an entirely different group who looks at the
26:28
Speaker 3: same piece of evidence and says, this is proof that
26:31
Speaker 3: it doesn't exist, This is a hoax, that this is
26:33
Speaker 3: not real. And so that's almost what's going on here.
26:36
Speaker 3: You have a group that's confident and what they see,
26:39
Speaker 3: and you have a group who's counteracting this claim and
26:41
Speaker 3: saying that's not what's on this film. It's an error.
26:44
Speaker 3: And so it's one of those things that almost depends
26:47
Speaker 3: on what camp you're in. Do you want it to
26:48
Speaker 3: show a UFO, do you want it to be an error.
26:52
Speaker 3: I'd love to know more about the second analysis, because
26:55
Speaker 3: it was probably done years later and with better equipment,
26:59
Speaker 3: and I would lean more towards there being an error
27:01
Speaker 3: on the film than the original analysis being more accurate
27:05
Speaker 3: than a more recent one.
27:06
Speaker 1: I thought in Part one we established that the second
27:09
Speaker 1: analysis was done pretty quickly after.
27:12
Speaker 2: Let me just double check it here.
27:14
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure you said that in part one because
27:17
Speaker 1: we were wondering if there was better equipment. But you
27:19
Speaker 1: said that it was done in like a couple of
27:21
Speaker 1: years after or something.
27:22
Speaker 2: It just said many years later, So I don't know
27:25
Speaker 2: what that means. I mean, the incident happened in nineteen
27:27
Speaker 2: seventy eight and the Unsolved Mystery segment aired in nineteen
27:30
Speaker 2: ninety three, so I don't know how much closer it
27:33
Speaker 2: was to seventy eight than ninety three. It doesn't give
27:35
Speaker 2: a specific date.
27:36
Speaker 1: It would be so great if we could get somebody
27:38
Speaker 1: to analyze it today.
27:40
Speaker 2: That's true. I'm surprised nobody has tried to do that
27:42
Speaker 2: with modern equipment, because with that level of equipment, it
27:44
Speaker 2: would probably be much easier to determine if it really
27:47
Speaker 2: was just a developing error.
27:49
Speaker 1: You would think with all the UFO fans out there,
27:52
Speaker 1: I guess maybe you need to have access to the original,
27:55
Speaker 1: but I would think with all you know, the alien officionaudos,
27:58
Speaker 1: they would be looking at into this, and like Ashley said,
28:02
Speaker 1: you could have confirmation bias depending on which lens you're
28:05
Speaker 1: looking through. You may want to see that this is genuine,
28:09
Speaker 1: or you might want to see that this is a hoax,
28:11
Speaker 1: and so that could influence your perception of exactly what
28:15
Speaker 1: you're seeing. The biggest piece of unexplained evidence in this
28:19
Speaker 1: story is the metallic scraping sounds at the end of
28:22
Speaker 1: Valentage's radio transmission. We mentioned during our last episode that
28:26
Speaker 1: while transcripts of Valentage's final transmission are available, the actual
28:30
Speaker 1: recording has never been released publicly, though it has been
28:34
Speaker 1: reported that it may have been broadcast once on Australian
28:37
Speaker 1: radio shortly after Valentic's disappearance, before it was confiscated by
28:42
Speaker 1: the authorities. In nineteen seventy nine. A copy of the
28:45
Speaker 1: recording was provided to Valentich's father so he'd be able
28:48
Speaker 1: to hear his son's last words, but he was under
28:51
Speaker 1: the strict instructions not to release it well. A few
28:54
Speaker 1: years later, he did make a copy of the recording
28:57
Speaker 1: for a NASA research scientist, Richard Haynes, said Analyze, and
29:01
Speaker 1: when Haines was interviewed on the TV show The Unexplained
29:03
Speaker 1: Files years later, they were granted permission to play seventeen
29:07
Speaker 1: seconds of the actual audio of the metallic scraping sounds.
29:11
Speaker 1: After his analysis of the recording, Haines published his findings
29:15
Speaker 1: in an article of the Journal of UFO Studies, and
29:18
Speaker 1: he expressed his opinion that Valentage could have produced the
29:21
Speaker 1: metallic sounds by king his microphones pressed to talk switch
29:24
Speaker 1: very quickly. I'm not sure if he would have done
29:27
Speaker 1: this on purpose, but Valentage apparently did have a habit
29:30
Speaker 1: of clicking the microphone button after transmitting. He often neglected
29:34
Speaker 1: to put the microphone back on the rack and had
29:37
Speaker 1: a tendency to activate it by mistake, which meant that
29:40
Speaker 1: whoever was listening on the other end might hear sounds
29:43
Speaker 1: they weren't supposed to hear. Valentage would also sometimes place
29:46
Speaker 1: the microphone on his lap, so the metallic noises simply
29:50
Speaker 1: simply could have been the sound of him moving his
29:52
Speaker 1: seat forward in conclusion as possible, though seventeen seconds of
29:57
Speaker 1: noise might be completely mundane, but because Volentage was never
30:01
Speaker 1: heard from again, their creepiness wound up being amplified.
30:05
Speaker 3: Oh for sure, it leaves you wondering what the heck happened,
30:08
Speaker 3: is something occurring to the plane to Valentage himself what's
30:13
Speaker 3: going on? But we when we look back at his
30:16
Speaker 3: aviation record and how we look at the way he
30:19
Speaker 3: was quote irresponsible and really didn't follow the rules of
30:23
Speaker 3: the air. He was known for clicking his microphone and
30:26
Speaker 3: leaving it off the rack and things like that. I mean,
30:28
Speaker 3: you can easily explain away the metal scrapings, but then
30:32
Speaker 3: what happened. Could the metal scrapings be him going down?
30:36
Speaker 3: Could it be him hitting the water or trying to
30:40
Speaker 3: make a landing. But you would think he would say
30:42
Speaker 3: something into the mic at that point, like may day,
30:44
Speaker 3: I'm going down or you know something's about to take me.
30:49
Speaker 3: I just feel like there would have been more radio
30:51
Speaker 3: correspondence at the end of that if he knew what
30:54
Speaker 3: was occurring in this camp where I'm defaulting to more
30:58
Speaker 3: of a mental health crisis where he took off with
31:00
Speaker 3: a plan in his mind that was not fully thought
31:03
Speaker 3: out because he wasn't in his right mind at the time.
31:07
Speaker 2: I mean, if he wasn't in his right mind at
31:08
Speaker 2: the time, he could have done the metallic sounds intentionally,
31:11
Speaker 2: just like maybe scratch the microphone or hit the click
31:14
Speaker 2: or something like that, just so he could lead this
31:16
Speaker 2: like final tantalizing clue where it's like, oh, They're going
31:19
Speaker 2: to hear these sounds and think I'm being scraped against
31:21
Speaker 2: by an alien spaceship or something, and that's when he
31:24
Speaker 2: decided to break off all communication.
31:27
Speaker 1: And we might be looking like if it is that
31:30
Speaker 1: for meaning in the meaningless? Because if Ashley's theory is
31:33
Speaker 1: correct and he was experiencing mental health crisis, and maybe
31:37
Speaker 1: we don't know the depths of that and what he
31:40
Speaker 1: was truly feeling. Because if we harken back to our
31:44
Speaker 1: case that we did on Ray Rivera, the intricacies of
31:46
Speaker 1: that case and exactly what he wrote on all those
31:49
Speaker 1: little pieces of paper was analyzed to no end. And
31:53
Speaker 1: I think when somebody is potentially experiencing psychosis or their
31:57
Speaker 1: perception of reality is skewed in any type of a way,
32:01
Speaker 1: and we're trying to interpret it from the lens of
32:04
Speaker 1: our perceptions being typical or accurate because we aren't experiencing that,
32:10
Speaker 1: then we're going to be wrong or we're not going
32:12
Speaker 1: to be able to find the meaning that we desire.
32:15
Speaker 1: So I'm wondering if that is the case here it could.
32:19
Speaker 2: Be because the Ray rivera case. Even though most of
32:21
Speaker 2: us have concluded that his death probably was a suicide
32:24
Speaker 2: with no outside involvement in foul play, it does seem
32:28
Speaker 2: clear that he was suffering from mental health issues that
32:31
Speaker 2: went undiagnosed, and that was probably the reason he left
32:34
Speaker 2: behind all those cryptic writings, which probably don't make sense
32:37
Speaker 2: to anyone besides himself, so trying to analyze them may
32:42
Speaker 2: not shed any light on why he died. I guess
32:45
Speaker 2: it's possible that Valentage made all those noises himself to
32:48
Speaker 2: add a level of mysteriousness to his final transmission. But
32:51
Speaker 2: regardless of his intentions, there's one very important question which
32:55
Speaker 2: has been answered, what happened to the Cessna. Whether you
32:59
Speaker 2: believe Volentage staged his own disappearance or crashed into the water,
33:02
Speaker 2: that still doesn't change the fact that no wreckage has
33:05
Speaker 2: ever been found. The only piece of potential evidence is
33:08
Speaker 2: an engine cowl flap containing one of the cessna's serial numbers,
33:12
Speaker 2: but it was never conclusively identified as belonging to Valentage's plane. Personally,
33:17
Speaker 2: I've always been on the fence about this one. I
33:20
Speaker 2: know that the current at Bastrait was very strong, and
33:22
Speaker 2: it's plausible that all the wreckage could have flown away
33:25
Speaker 2: so far that it was never found by the search teams.
33:28
Speaker 2: But Flinders Island is still three hundred and twenty kilometers away.
33:32
Speaker 2: Since the flat was found in close proximity to an
33:34
Speaker 2: airport and it wasn't uncommon for planes to lose parts
33:37
Speaker 2: in the water while taking off, there is a plausible
33:40
Speaker 2: alternate explanation for the flap washing up there. But if
33:43
Speaker 2: Valentage did not crash the plane intentionally and was one
33:46
Speaker 2: hundred percent genuine about what he was seeing during the
33:49
Speaker 2: radio transmission, how could the cessna have wound up in
33:52
Speaker 2: the water well. One of the most discussed theories is
33:55
Speaker 2: that Valentage became so disoriented that he was flying upside
33:59
Speaker 2: down during his time on the radio, and the mysterious
34:02
Speaker 2: object he thought he saw flying overhead was actually nothing
34:05
Speaker 2: more than a reflection of his own plane's lights in
34:08
Speaker 2: the water when the object was hovering over him. This
34:12
Speaker 2: may have been because he was moving closer to his reflection,
34:15
Speaker 2: and he eventually crashed into the water, cutting off his
34:18
Speaker 2: radio transmission well right from the outset. Many experts disagreed
34:22
Speaker 2: with this theory, as they believed that the aircraft would
34:25
Speaker 2: only be capable of flying upside down for about a
34:28
Speaker 2: minute or a minute and a half. This is because
34:31
Speaker 2: the fuel tanks were situated in the wings and relied
34:33
Speaker 2: on gravity to feed the motor. And since Flegich's conversation
34:37
Speaker 2: lasted six minutes, it seems impossible that the plane could
34:40
Speaker 2: have stood flying upside down for that length of time.
34:44
Speaker 3: Okay, well, if experts say that that seems impossible, I'm
34:48
Speaker 3: going to default with the experts on aviation. However, it
34:53
Speaker 3: is interesting because this kind of disorientation. Maybe it wasn't
34:56
Speaker 3: six minutes, but the idea of him being disoriented feeds
35:00
Speaker 3: into what we were talking about, a mental health break
35:03
Speaker 3: or some kind of disorientationalised in the air, and it
35:06
Speaker 3: could have led to a plane crash. Again, Like you said, though,
35:10
Speaker 3: where did the plane go? Not a single piece of
35:14
Speaker 3: the plane was found, and if it was found, it's
35:17
Speaker 3: some kind of three hundred and twenty kilometers away. It
35:21
Speaker 3: just seems like a really big stretch that that's how
35:25
Speaker 3: far it would go. There wouldn't be someone who sighted
35:28
Speaker 3: the plane crashing, that there wouldn't be some kind of
35:32
Speaker 3: proof that there is a piece of the plane somewhere.
35:35
Speaker 3: All we know is on that wing that was recovered
35:38
Speaker 3: that flap, there was one number that would match the
35:41
Speaker 3: serial number to his plane, but that's one number that's
35:45
Speaker 3: part part of a lot of serial numbers. So I
35:48
Speaker 3: don't know. I'm so confused as to where his plane
35:51
Speaker 3: went without anyone knowing and without any sign of it
35:55
Speaker 3: ever surfacing.
35:57
Speaker 1: This is the one part that leaves the door open
35:59
Speaker 1: for the UFO conspiracy theories.
36:02
Speaker 2: And it does seem surprising that if his plane crashed,
36:04
Speaker 2: if he was flying upside down and with disoriented, and
36:07
Speaker 2: he crashed a short time after his conversation with Steve Roby,
36:11
Speaker 2: it is surprising that nothing would be heard on the radio,
36:13
Speaker 2: not screaming or the sound of crashing, but just an
36:16
Speaker 2: abrupt cutoff. That's always what bothered me about this whole thing.
36:21
Speaker 3: And they did an investigation shortly after the radio went dead,
36:24
Speaker 3: and so the fact that nothing was found, even with
36:27
Speaker 3: people searching right away and looking into this case right away,
36:31
Speaker 3: that's very bizarre.
36:33
Speaker 1: However, one of the most logical theories for Valentage's disappearance
36:37
Speaker 1: was provided by author Joe Nickel, who's known for being
36:40
Speaker 1: one of the most prominent skeptics in the world, so
36:43
Speaker 1: debunking UFO stories is pretty much his thing. In twenty thirteen,
36:47
Speaker 1: Nicol teamed up with the retired US Air Force pilot
36:50
Speaker 1: named James mcgaha to provide a thorough review of the
36:54
Speaker 1: Valentage case and come up with a logical explanation for
36:57
Speaker 1: what might have happened to him which should not involve UFOs.
37:01
Speaker 1: They concluded that the overhead lights Valentage believed he saw
37:04
Speaker 1: might have actually been the planet's venus, Mars, and Mercury,
37:08
Speaker 1: along with the bright star Antaras these planets would have
37:11
Speaker 1: resembled the diamond shape in the sky and could have
37:14
Speaker 1: easily been mistaken for lights from a UFO. Valentage was
37:17
Speaker 1: probably so distracted by the so called UFO lights that
37:21
Speaker 1: he started suffering from spatial disorientation and was deceived by
37:25
Speaker 1: the illusion of a tilted horizon. In response, he inadvertently
37:29
Speaker 1: turned the plane downward and caused it to go into
37:31
Speaker 1: what's called a graveyard spiral. This would decrease the fuel
37:35
Speaker 1: flow and the rough idling of the engine, which Valentige
37:38
Speaker 1: mentioned during his transmission. Eventually, he would lose all control
37:41
Speaker 1: of the aircraft and crash into the water. Spatial disorientation
37:45
Speaker 1: was also determined to be the cause of the fatal
37:48
Speaker 1: plane crash which took John F. Kennedy Junior's life in
37:51
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety nine, as he lost control of his aircraft
37:54
Speaker 1: and suffered a fatal descent into the Atlantic Ocean. These
37:58
Speaker 1: types of crashes generally happened at night or during the
38:01
Speaker 1: early evening, and the Lunage didn't have much experience flying
38:04
Speaker 1: at night, as his class or instrument rating did not
38:08
Speaker 1: authorize him to fly at night only in visual meteorological conditions. Well,
38:13
Speaker 1: October twenty first was a very clear night with perfect weather.
38:17
Speaker 1: Luentage was still a very inexperienced pilot who already had
38:20
Speaker 1: multiple infractions on his record, and well, as we're about
38:24
Speaker 1: to discuss in a moment, he was probably pretty distracted
38:28
Speaker 1: during this flight.
38:30
Speaker 3: He also didn't plan well for this flight, so it
38:32
Speaker 3: does seem very chaotic. He's not notifying airstrips where he's
38:35
Speaker 3: supposed to land, he's not keeping accurate communication with his
38:39
Speaker 3: loved ones about where he's going or how long he's
38:41
Speaker 3: going to be, and so this idea that he would
38:44
Speaker 3: get up there and become disoriented. It's not a stretch
38:48
Speaker 3: either because he's struggling with some kind of his you know,
38:51
Speaker 3: his faculties aren't all there, or he just simply is
38:54
Speaker 3: so chaotic and irresponsible that it leads to him also
38:58
Speaker 3: being you know, caught off guard in the air or
39:01
Speaker 3: disoriented in the air. So I think that's a very
39:04
Speaker 3: big possibility. Was the upside down when experts say that's
39:08
Speaker 3: not likely. Probably not, But to lose sight of the
39:11
Speaker 3: horizon or to be you know, kind of disoriented as
39:14
Speaker 3: to where you're located and where you're going, I think
39:17
Speaker 3: that's a very big possibility.
39:20
Speaker 2: I have to say, well, the spatial disorientation theory is
39:23
Speaker 2: a one hundred percent perfect there's a lot about it
39:26
Speaker 2: which makes sense. It's also worth noting that Joe Nichol
39:29
Speaker 2: and James mcgaha were the ones who proposed the idea
39:32
Speaker 2: that the green light that Ken Hansen and his family
39:34
Speaker 2: saw in the sky was actually the navigation light on
39:38
Speaker 2: the cessna's wingtip. I'm not sure I find that part
39:41
Speaker 2: of the theory to be plausible, and I don't think
39:43
Speaker 2: there's ever really been a convincing alternate explanation for the
39:46
Speaker 2: green light. One part of their analysis, which I find
39:49
Speaker 2: particularly interesting, is there explanation for Valentage's trip that night.
39:54
Speaker 2: There's been so much speculation about why Valentage would lie
39:57
Speaker 2: about his reasons for traveling to King Island, and how
40:00
Speaker 2: the evidence suggests he never intended to go there in
40:02
Speaker 2: the first place. Will Nichol and Magaha believed that Valentage
40:06
Speaker 2: took the Cessana out that night for the express purpose
40:10
Speaker 2: of searching for a UFO, which is a fairly plausible explanation.
40:15
Speaker 2: Going UFO hunting would have been an ideal way for
40:17
Speaker 2: Valentage to accumulate hours for his flying time, but since
40:21
Speaker 2: there's no chance in hell he was going to tell
40:23
Speaker 2: his superiors or his family about this, he concoct in
40:26
Speaker 2: a false story about traveling to King Island. There's no
40:29
Speaker 2: way of knowing Valentage's exact flight path or how long
40:32
Speaker 2: he was planning to search that night, but given that
40:35
Speaker 2: he was facing possible criminal prosecution for the incidents in
40:38
Speaker 2: which he flew through a cloud, there was a distinct
40:41
Speaker 2: possibility he could lose his pilot's license in the near future,
40:44
Speaker 2: so he might have figured this would have been one
40:46
Speaker 2: of his only opportunities to go on a UFO hunt.
40:50
Speaker 2: Given Valentage's inexperience at flying at night, if he was
40:53
Speaker 2: preoccupied with finding a UFO and became distracted, you could
40:57
Speaker 2: see how this might wind up as a recipe for disaster.
41:01
Speaker 2: I was initially skeptical about the theory that Balentage could
41:03
Speaker 2: have seen some planets and a star and confused them
41:06
Speaker 2: for lights from UFO, as I found it unlikely that
41:09
Speaker 2: a professional pilot would make that mistake. But then I
41:12
Speaker 2: said to myself, it's unlikely a professional pilot who wasn't
41:16
Speaker 2: obsessed with UFOs would make that mistake. If the entire
41:20
Speaker 2: purpose of Alnage's flight was to find a UFO, then yes,
41:24
Speaker 2: I can understand how someone in that frame of mind
41:26
Speaker 2: might wind up seeing what they wanted to see and
41:28
Speaker 2: jump to that conclusion. So it's very plausible that Blentage
41:32
Speaker 2: saw something non extraterrestrial but was so certain it was
41:36
Speaker 2: a UFO that he radioed in his sighting. However, he
41:40
Speaker 2: became so preoccupied that it began to suffer from spatial disorientation,
41:44
Speaker 2: went into a graveyard spiral, and crashed into the water.
41:48
Speaker 3: You know, when you talk about it being a professional pilot,
41:50
Speaker 3: it seems like, yes, he's trained in aviation, but he's
41:55
Speaker 3: very young, very new to this. He's not very responsible
41:59
Speaker 3: when it comes to flying and so professional. I wouldn't
42:03
Speaker 3: want to be in the plane with him. And when
42:05
Speaker 3: you look at this, I'm with you. He could have
42:08
Speaker 3: very well been in a place where it's almost like
42:11
Speaker 3: people who want to see a ghost and they welcome
42:14
Speaker 3: spiritual you know, activity around them, and so as you
42:18
Speaker 3: open yourself up to that, they say it comes to
42:20
Speaker 3: you quicker. So he could have very much been in
42:23
Speaker 3: that mindset, I'm going to welcome these aliens to come
42:26
Speaker 3: meet with me, and don't worry, I won't go aboard
42:28
Speaker 3: without my girlfriend, but I am going to welcome them
42:31
Speaker 3: become meet me. And so he's in such a fixated
42:35
Speaker 3: mindset to go hunt for them that he does exactly
42:38
Speaker 3: what you've said. He convinces himself he's seen one. He
42:40
Speaker 3: truly believes it, and then it's almost like you start
42:43
Speaker 3: to lose control of reality and could have easily become disoriented.
42:47
Speaker 1: It's like he manifested this reality. It's like a self
42:50
Speaker 1: fulfilling prophecy. You see what you want to see, and that,
42:53
Speaker 1: like you just said, Robin is the lens that he's
42:56
Speaker 1: looking through is somebody that wants to see a UFO,
42:59
Speaker 1: because initially I felt the same way until exactly what
43:02
Speaker 1: you pointed out. If you want to go out there
43:04
Speaker 1: and see a UFO, the chances that you could misinterpret
43:07
Speaker 1: data and assume that it's a UFO, I think it's
43:11
Speaker 1: a lot higher. The reports by Hansen does leave me
43:16
Speaker 1: scratching my head with that green light because I do
43:18
Speaker 1: not believe that it's from a wingtip, but I just
43:22
Speaker 1: keep going back to it. Ashley said, I think there
43:25
Speaker 1: is a possibility that this was a mental health crisis,
43:29
Speaker 1: and there was a lot of different signs that we
43:32
Speaker 1: could attribute to that. Just the one thing that I
43:34
Speaker 1: can't get over is the fact that we don't have
43:37
Speaker 1: anything that we can attribute to the plane absolutely, because
43:41
Speaker 1: we do have that one piece, but there's only one
43:43
Speaker 1: number from a serial number, Like how many other planes
43:47
Speaker 1: does it match? One number? Two? Probably a lot.
43:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that is the problem, is that could be
43:53
Speaker 2: a piece of Alengegies plane, but they have just never
43:55
Speaker 2: found anything else. And I think if they did find
43:58
Speaker 2: some conclusive evidence that the plane crashed, then they could
44:01
Speaker 2: be able to solve this mystery. And say that he
44:03
Speaker 2: likely was disoriented and accidentally crashed. But it's like Amelia
44:08
Speaker 2: Earhart where they just can't find conclusive evidence to point
44:11
Speaker 2: towards one theory and say that this is solved. And
44:14
Speaker 2: that's why it's lived on for all these years, and
44:17
Speaker 2: because he had such a cryptic final radio transmission, it's
44:20
Speaker 2: become like a favorite story with UFOA ficionados.
44:24
Speaker 1: Now, if you're wondering why no wreckage has ever been found,
44:28
Speaker 1: just remember that even though it's assumed valentage was near
44:31
Speaker 1: kpe Otway with it when his final radio transmission took place,
44:34
Speaker 1: no one can be one hundred percent certain. He also
44:37
Speaker 1: had lots of fuel left in his Essna, so if
44:39
Speaker 1: he traveled in another direction, got lost, or went off course,
44:43
Speaker 1: or just kept flying for a long period of time
44:45
Speaker 1: after the transmission ended, he could have crashed well outside
44:49
Speaker 1: the search area, and thanks to the strong currents in
44:52
Speaker 1: Bass Strait, all the evidence might have flown away into
44:55
Speaker 1: an area where no one would find it. So while
44:58
Speaker 1: I count one hundred percent explain Ken Hansen's sightings of
45:01
Speaker 1: the green light or the strange anomaly in Roy Manifold's photograph,
45:05
Speaker 1: I do think it's most likely there were no UFOs
45:08
Speaker 1: and that Frederick Valentich and his missing sesna are simply
45:11
Speaker 1: submerged in an unknown location.
45:14
Speaker 2: All that being said, I'm pretty open minded and don't
45:17
Speaker 2: consider myself a complete skeptic when it comes to UFOs
45:20
Speaker 2: and aliens. I'd really like to find out that extraterrestrials
45:23
Speaker 2: exist and that Frederick Valentich is piloting one of their
45:26
Speaker 2: spacecrafts somewhere. But I have to follow logic here and
45:29
Speaker 2: con side that it's a lot more plausible that a
45:31
Speaker 2: pilot who had a fascination with UFOs just got so
45:35
Speaker 2: caught up in his obsession that he died in a
45:37
Speaker 2: tragic accident. Until the day he died, Frederick's father, Guido Valentage,
45:42
Speaker 2: always stated that he believed his son was abducted by UFO,
45:45
Speaker 2: and I can't blame him for thinking this, because that
45:48
Speaker 2: would mean his son was still alive. Unlike most UFO stories,
45:52
Speaker 2: you can't just be cynical and dismiss this one because
45:55
Speaker 2: there is a victim who has been missing for forty
45:57
Speaker 2: six years and he still has surviving family members who
46:00
Speaker 2: want to know what happened to him. But until conclusive
46:03
Speaker 2: evidence surfaces. I don't think we'll ever know the full truth,
46:06
Speaker 2: and I would not be surprised if the most famous
46:08
Speaker 2: event to occur on my birth date will always remain
46:11
Speaker 2: an unsolved mystery. All that being said, should you happen
46:14
Speaker 2: to have any information with Shed's light on the unsolved
46:17
Speaker 2: disappearance of Frederick Valentich, Lee's contact the appropriate authorities, Jules Ashley,
46:23
Speaker 2: any final thoughts in.
46:24
Speaker 3: This case, what's really sad is that this is a
46:27
Speaker 3: twenty year old kid. That's what he is. He's training
46:30
Speaker 3: to be a pilot. He's trying to log hours for flights,
46:36
Speaker 3: and he's not doing so great with it, right, He's
46:39
Speaker 3: getting into trouble, he's getting marks on his record, possibly
46:43
Speaker 3: facing criminal charges. But he's really passionate about it, and
46:46
Speaker 3: he's also really passionate about UFOs and learning more about them.
46:51
Speaker 3: And so when you look at this case, and, like
46:53
Speaker 3: you said, his father being adamant that something had to
46:57
Speaker 3: have happened, that his son had have been telling the
46:59
Speaker 3: truth and encountered a UFO, I understand why his dad
47:04
Speaker 3: feels that. Right, it gives me hope, It gives me
47:07
Speaker 3: an opportunity to think, maybe he's going to be returned
47:10
Speaker 3: to us and I'll get to see my son again.
47:13
Speaker 3: What's sad is that the more likely option is that
47:16
Speaker 3: his plane went down and just was never recovered. Makes
47:20
Speaker 3: me heartsick because a twenty year old's just starting their
47:23
Speaker 3: life and he had plans where they ironed out. Well
47:26
Speaker 3: maybe not, but he had plans for a life and
47:30
Speaker 3: to follow passions and had a girlfriend and a family
47:33
Speaker 3: who loved him and just one day went for a
47:37
Speaker 3: flight and never came back. So it's devastating. It's very
47:42
Speaker 3: intriguing because that call. While it does resemble a movie script,
47:46
Speaker 3: that call to air traffic control, it's got to give
47:50
Speaker 3: you a moment to pause and say, what did he
47:52
Speaker 3: really see? Did these people who came forward even after
47:56
Speaker 3: it hit the news, was their legitimacy to them seeing
47:59
Speaker 3: something as well? And maybe it wasn't a UFO, but
48:02
Speaker 3: it was something big enough to distract him to where
48:05
Speaker 3: he actually crashed. I'd love to know more, and the
48:07
Speaker 3: sad part is we probably won't. I'm with you, Robin,
48:10
Speaker 3: this is probably going to remain, ironically an unsolved mystery
48:14
Speaker 3: on your birth date. But to me, it's this idea
48:19
Speaker 3: that a twenty year old went up in a plane
48:20
Speaker 3: and never came back. It's eerie, it's scary, and it's
48:24
Speaker 3: one of those things that makes you go could it
48:26
Speaker 3: have been a UFO. I could never say no, one
48:28
Speaker 3: hundred percent, but I'm leaning more towards disorientation and maybe
48:32
Speaker 3: getting distracted by what he thought he saw which led
48:35
Speaker 3: to a crash.
48:38
Speaker 1: This is such a fascinating case, and the UFO element,
48:41
Speaker 1: of course, I find aliens and UFOs really interesting. I
48:46
Speaker 1: just don't really think there's too much meat on the
48:48
Speaker 1: bone here. If you want to see aliens say that
48:51
Speaker 1: a UFO took him, then I think that you could
48:54
Speaker 1: very much view this case as there's a potential for that.
48:57
Speaker 1: But I tend to lean towards the fact that it
48:59
Speaker 1: was some kind of spatial disorientation or it was a
49:04
Speaker 1: mental health crisis and he may have continued on. Much
49:07
Speaker 1: like with MH three seventy. The initial search area that
49:11
Speaker 1: they were looking for the plane, it was established later
49:14
Speaker 1: wasn't where the plane likely was when it went down.
49:18
Speaker 1: So you can look until you know the end of time,
49:21
Speaker 1: but you're not going to find any piece of that plane.
49:24
Speaker 1: And I think that might be the case, because that
49:26
Speaker 1: is the enduring mystery because when we break it all
49:29
Speaker 1: down with the metallic sounds, and we know that he
49:32
Speaker 1: isn't very good at putting his microphone back on the
49:34
Speaker 1: dock or whatever it's called, then we know that there's
49:37
Speaker 1: a potential that that sound could be from something else.
49:40
Speaker 1: He might have produced that sound on purpose. I think
49:43
Speaker 1: it's incredibly sad that his family never really and truly
49:47
Speaker 1: got the answers as to what happened to Frederick, and
49:51
Speaker 1: that this mystery is so closely connected to aliens and UFOs,
49:55
Speaker 1: because there's almost a dehumanizing element about that, and I mean,
49:59
Speaker 1: we're we're all it is a Halloween episode, and we're
50:02
Speaker 1: all kind of guilty of latching onto that, like myself included,
50:06
Speaker 1: And so you can almost forget for a moment the
50:10
Speaker 1: person that you're covering, and that that person had family members,
50:14
Speaker 1: because we're thinking about the outlandish nature of UFO abduction,
50:18
Speaker 1: but Frederick Valentich had people who loved him, and my
50:22
Speaker 1: heart truly breaks for them because, like Ash just said,
50:26
Speaker 1: I don't know if we're going to ever get the
50:28
Speaker 1: answers here.
50:30
Speaker 2: Well as you can imagine, I've had a fascination with
50:32
Speaker 2: this case for a very long time. It's one of
50:34
Speaker 2: the very first UFO stories I ever heard of, and
50:38
Speaker 2: it's the one people say to me that I ordinarily
50:40
Speaker 2: don't care about UFO stories, but this one still fascinates
50:43
Speaker 2: me because a man and his plane went missing and
50:46
Speaker 2: he left behind this cryptic final message, which is the
50:50
Speaker 2: type of thing you would only expect to find in
50:51
Speaker 2: a movie. Like Juel said, it's easy to forget the
50:54
Speaker 2: person behind this. The ironic thing is that, given his
50:58
Speaker 2: own personal obsession with you, I think that Frederick Blentich
51:02
Speaker 2: would say that if he had to die, then this
51:04
Speaker 2: is the way he would like to be remembered. That
51:06
Speaker 2: all you ever wanted to do was become a pilot.
51:09
Speaker 2: But it looked like he was not going to follow
51:10
Speaker 2: that dream, and that could have depressed him an awful lot.
51:13
Speaker 2: But I think he might have appreciated the fact that
51:17
Speaker 2: he's primarily remembered as a guy who vanished without a
51:19
Speaker 2: trait after an alleged close encounter with the UFO. But
51:23
Speaker 2: like Jules said, though, he has a family who was
51:25
Speaker 2: concerned about what happened to him, and this is him,
51:28
Speaker 2: and I'm sure they don't appreciate the fact that the
51:31
Speaker 2: whole UFO angle has overshadowed the disappearance of their son,
51:35
Speaker 2: and it's very sad that they've had to go over
51:37
Speaker 2: forty years without receiving in the answers. I mean, this
51:41
Speaker 2: is more intriguing than your average UFO case because you
51:44
Speaker 2: do have the independent eyewitnesses who claimed that they saw
51:48
Speaker 2: these green lights in the sky, which matches Valenti's final
51:51
Speaker 2: radio transmission. But even though those can't be easily explained,
51:55
Speaker 2: you can explain the nature of the final transmission that
51:58
Speaker 2: maybe it was some mental health issue, maybe it was
52:01
Speaker 2: fatial disorientation, and a short time after that transmission ended,
52:05
Speaker 2: he just wound up crashing into the water, and his
52:08
Speaker 2: remains and the wreckage have still not been found. But regardless,
52:12
Speaker 2: this is still a very enduring mystery. Maybe one of
52:14
Speaker 2: these days will have some sort of evidence wash up
52:17
Speaker 2: on shore so that we can finally get a conclusive answers,
52:20
Speaker 2: but until then it will definitely be destined to remain
52:23
Speaker 2: one of the more enduring unsolved mysteries.
52:26
Speaker 1: Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit
52:28
Speaker 1: about the Trail Went Cold Patreon?
52:30
Speaker 2: Yes, the Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three
52:32
Speaker 2: years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like
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Speaker 2: early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers
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Speaker 2: and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up
52:43
Speaker 2: with us on Patreon if you join our five dollars
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Speaker 2: tier Tier two. We also offer monthly bonus episodes in
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Speaker 2: which I talk about cases which are not featured on
52:52
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Speaker 2: and if you join our highest tier tier free the
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Speaker 2: ten dollars tier. One of the features we offer is
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Speaker 2: a audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsolved Mysteries,
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Speaker 2: up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or
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53:19
Speaker 2: the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very
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Speaker 2: the episode featuring this case. So if you want to
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53:55
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