The Disappearance of Frederick Valentich
A 20-year-old pilot told Melbourne air traffic control that something was orbiting above his Cessna, said it was not an aircraft, and went off the air in 17 seconds of metallic noise on October 21, 1978. Neither he nor the plane has been found.
Field Guide Entry
October 21, 1978
Frederick Valentich, 20, took a Cessna 182L registered VH-DSJ out of Moorabbin for King Island, across Bass Strait. At around 7pm he reported Cape Otway in sight. Then he told Melbourne Flight Service there was an aircraft roughly 1,000 feet above him.
The transcript is the artifact, and it is short. He described four bright lights, said the thing was orbiting above him, reported his engine running rough, and then said it was not an aircraft. The transmission ended in 17 seconds of a metallic scraping sound. Flight Service never heard from him again.
The search, and the cowling
Air and sea search covered Bass Strait for days and turned up nothing. No wreckage, no oil slick, no body.
Five years later an engine cowling flap from a Cessna 182 washed up on Flinders Island. The serial range was consistent with a small number of aircraft, VH-DSJ among them, and it was never confirmed as his.
What the Department of Transport concluded
The official finding was that the cause could not be determined. Departmental officials were openly skeptical of the UFO reading, and one line of speculation was that Valentich had become disoriented, possibly inverted, and was seeing his own lights reflected off the water or lights along the coast.
The quieter readings are aviation ones. He was a young pilot with limited hours, over open water, at dusk, in an aircraft he had to hand back that evening, and Bass Strait is unforgiving of all four.
He had told people he believed in UFOs. That fact is used as evidence in both directions.
Visiting Information
Cape Otway Lightstation is the landmark he named in his last routine call, and it is open daily, roughly 9am to 5pm with last entry at 4:30pm, closed on Christmas Day. Adult entry runs around $11, concession $10, children $5, and a family ticket $28.
Worth checking before you build a day around it: the lighthouse tower itself is closed while heritage restoration is prepared, so there are no tower climbs at present and the wider precinct is running on discounted entry.
The precinct is at the end of Lighthouse Road off the Great Ocean Road, and it holds the telegraph station, the lightkeepers' cottages and a radar bunker from the Second World War. The water Valentich was crossing begins at the cliff below, and the wind on that headland is close to constant.
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