The Pilot Who Disappeared in the Sky

Frederick arrived at Victoria's Morabin Airport Saturday late afternoon on October twenty first, nineteen seventy eight. He told officials that he was going to pick up some friends on King Island and then he went on his way, But he told his girlfriend and family a different story. He told him he was going to pick up crayfish at King Island. His girlfriend was supposed to go with him on that flight, but something came up at the last minute and she canceled. Either way, his destination was King Island. It would have been a one hour flight if everything had gone right. He got on a Cessna one eighty two to l at six nineteen pm and took off. The Cesna is a common commercial plane. It's small and has four seats. He was very familiar with this kind of plane. Actually, the majority of his training hours were completed on a Sesna. Everything seemed to be going fine, at least until six forty three pm. As Frederick headed southeast for King Island, he radioed Melbourne Air Flight Service. Air traffic controller Stephen Roby answered his call. Frederick had noticed something that concerned him. Is there any known traffic below five thousand feet? No? Non traffic. I am seems to be a large aircraft below five thousand What type of aircraft is it? I cannot affirm it is for bright It seems to me like landing lights. The aircraft had just passed over me at least one thousand feet above. Stephen grew concerned. Frederick didn't sound like he was panicking, but he did sound confused and worried about what he was seeing. Roger, and it's a large aircraft. Confirm or unknown? Due to the speed it's traveling. Is there any air force aircraft in the vicinity? No known aircraft in the vicinity. It's approaching right now from due east toward me. It seems to me that he's playing some sort of game. He's flying over me two three times at a time at speeds I cannot identify. Roger, what is your actual level? My level is four and a half thousand, four five zero zero. He was almost at five thousand feet in the air. According to RAAF officials, Frederick was an accident waiting to happen, But even so, Stephen believed Frederick, so he tried confirming what fred was seing. He tried getting more details and confirm you cannot identify the aircraft. Affirmative Roger, stand by, it's not an aircraft. It is The details Frederick gave seemed too real to have been made up. It worried Stephen. Can you describe the aircraft as it's flying past? It's a long shape. Cannot identify more than that. It has such speed. It is before me right now, Melbourne. And how large would the object be? It seems to be like it's stationary. What I am doing right now is orbiting and the thing is just orbiting on top of me. Also, it's got a green light and sort of a metallic it's all shiny on the outside. It's just vanished. Would you know what kind of aircraft I've got? Is it military aircraft? Confirmed? The aircraft just vanished. Say again, is your aircraft still with you? It's now approaching from the southeast. The engine is is rough idling. I've got it set at twenty three twenty four and the thing is then Frederick Valentiche gave his last message, Roger, what are your intentions? My intention than Zara to go to King Island, Melboyn. That strange aircraft is hovering on top of me. Again. It is hovering. It is hovering, and it's not an aircraft. Those were Frederick's last words. In this episode, we'll explore the mysterious disappearance of Frederick Valantage. My name is Edwin and here's a horror story. Frederick went missing while flying from Melbourne to King Island in Australia. His last calls to air control give me chills. But before we get into that, let's talk about who Frederick was. He was born on June ninth in nineteen fifty eight. He was not a very studious kid, even though he tried very hard. He got by with just d's and f's, except for physical education, he was the one class he excelled in. He was a big picture kind of person and overlooked small details all the time. He was a kind of guy to stay calm and collected during an emergency. He was quiet until you got to know him, and then he wouldn't stay quiet. He had a great sense of humor. There was not a lot he took seriously until the situation called for it. He loved his younger twin sisters, his parents, and his girlfriend. Frederick and his father shared a love for UFOs. He loved to study them, read up on all UFO news and even kept a small amount of UFO newspaper clippings in his room. He was a hobby that they shared together and though they both loved UFOs, Frederick's father, Guido, maintained that Frederick was not the kind of person to make up stories. They were both firm believers by all accounts. He was responsible, didn't drink or do drugs, and he was very determined. He tried to enlist in the Royal Australian Air Force after high school, but he was rejected twice. He didn't meet their educational requirements, but that didn't stop his dream to fly. He joined the Royal Australian Air Force Training Program. This helps younger people prepare for the RAAF. Despite having been rejected for the Air Force, Frederick was still determined to become a pilot. He wanted to fly commercially. It was his dream and still it was difficult for him. He failed all five commercial license exam subjects twice. Just one month before his disappearance, he failed again. At that time it was only three subjects, not five. He also wasn't the best pilot, not that you have to be the best to fly, but he made a lot of mistakes. He flew into a cloud on per twice. He also flew into restricted airspace in Sydney. He was given a warning for that, and officials considered prosecuting him for straying into a controlled zone. Even when he wasn't at pilot school, he was training. He made friends with older and experienced pilots, and on weekends outside of his regular training hours, that's where you could find him. He often took his twin sisters with him and took care of them, all while trying to learn. By October of nineteen seventy eight, Frederick had already flown one hundred and fifty hours. He had a Class four instrument rating, a permit that allowed him to fly at night as weather conditions permitted it. He also had to check in with air Control regularly, something licensed pilots don't have to do as often. All communication with Frederick ceased at seven to twelve p m that night of his disappearance. The last part of the call lasted seventeen seconds. Stephen Roby later described it as a pulsing drone. Others have said it sounded like a clicking sound. Stephen put out an alert on the Cessna, but quickly progressed it to the distress phase. The distress phase kicked off the official search and rescue for Frederick Balantych and the missing Cessna. Fred's dad was listening to the radio news at eleven thirty pm when he heard that there was a missing airplane. At midnight, there was a knock at his door. Two officers had arrived to inform him that his son had disappeared. There was a rescue operation under way. A sea and air search began. The Royal Australian Air Force deployed a Lockheed P three Orion aircraft and eight civilian airplanes that joined the search. Over one thousand square miles near Frederick's last known location was searched, but there was no sight of him or the plane. After four days ended, all efforts to find him were officially conclined on October twenty fifth, nineteen seventy eight. The official incident report is over two hundred and fifty pages long, and it took the Australian government years to release. Several theories appeared just days after his disappearance. Some people really believe that he was taken by aliens. Others think that he faked disappearance and started a new life somewhere else. In nineteen eighty two, they said that the final conclusion from the government was released. It is as follows, the reason for the disappearance of the aircraft has not been determined. They presented the possibility of fred becoming disoriented and crashing accidentally. When pilots are flying, it's difficult to feel what's going on gravity wise, It's possible he could have flipped over, and the green light he reported seeing that could have been a reflection from his own plane. Still, the report strongly eluded that Frederick Valentich crashed his plane on purpose. His friends and family can He disagreed with a report Frederick may have been struggling with his studies, but he loved them too much to just disappear or leave them behind. A close childhood friend of his went on record after the report was released, and he said that fred was far too close to his family, girlfriend, and friends to contemplate such actions. Just a month before disappearing, Frederick and his girlfriend were out during the night when he spotted something in the sky. She didn't see it, but he believed that it was a UFO and what's strange is that the week before he disappeared, he told her if a UFO landed in front of me now I would go in, but never without you. Everyone refused to believe that he would willfully disappear. The official report may have offered some explanations, but it didn't explain everything. And I'll have more for you right after this, stay with me. On October twenty one, nineteen seventy eight, the night that Frederick was last seen, law enforcement received several calls from people reporting UFO sightings. On that same night, just as fred was talking to air traffic Control, there was a family on the ground. The man wishes to stay anonymous, but he reported seeing a green light in the sky just like Fred mentioned. The family was returning from an outing when they noticed that there was something going on above them. The man said he looked up and saw a long green light two thousand feet above them. The green light appeared to be getting closer to the plane, and so they continued to drive and did not see the Cessna crash. Others saw a green light moving erratically in the sky. At one point, the green light looked like it took a steep dive in due Long, Frankston and Cape Outway. Other nearby coast towns. There were at least three reports of UFO sightings three hours before Frederick's disappearance. After the news of the missing pilot hit local channels, a farmer in Adelaide came forward. Adelaide is seven hundred and thirty four kilometers for Melbourne and it's just over eight hours by car, and if you're flying, it's just one hour and twenty minutes away. On the morning of October twenty second, nineteen seventy eight, the farmers saw something very strange. He saw an aircraft hovering over his property. There was a plane that appeared to be stuck onto the side of this craft. The small plane was leaking oil. He reported this, but he faced some ridicule and never shared any more. A UFO action group in Australia is still trying to find him to see if he's willing to speak. Decades later, six weeks after the disappearance, an amateur photographer came forward with even more strange evidence. On the evening of the twenty first, Roy Manifold was trying to capture the perfect sunset with his camera. He was at Cape Otway, which was directly under Frederick's flight path. He had his camera on automatic exposure and took six pictures of the sun disappearing into the sea. Once he developed the pictures, though, he noticed something odd above the water, in the clouds. There was something there. At first he thought it was some sort of developing error, but there was no dirt or damage on the negative. And just in case you don't know, before the digital era and fancy phones, cameras captured images on film, and that film had to be developed first, so while it could pass before you could see how your pictures came out. That's why it took Roy so long to realize that he had taken pictures the moment that the pilot had disappeared. He didn't get his pictures until six weeks later. The negatives were sent to the United States for lab analysis by its team of UFO researchers. The analysis concluded that this strange mark really was in the picture. It appeared to be a solid metallic object. It also seemed to be inside of a cloud of exhaust a mile away from Roy. Roy did not see or hear anything that night. He had already taken thousands of photographs and had never seen anything like that smudge on any of his other pictures. There were reports before and after Fred's disappearance, all in the same area, like, for example, this one in Apollo Bay, about one hundred miles from where the incident took place, but one week earlier there were more odd occurrences. Mister Hanson and his two nieces were out shooting rabbits on October twenty first, nineteen seventy eight, around sunset. They were heading home on their four wheeler. He was driving in the left front seat, his niece Tracy, was in the right front seat, and his other niece was in the back, going thirty miles per hour on the left lane. Tracy was the first to see something strange. She asked, what is that light in the sky? Mister Hanson kept driving, but he turned to see what she was pointing at. He told her it was only the lights from the plane, but she said no, quote the other large green light above it. He turned around again, and this time he saw them two separate sets of lights in the clear sky. He slowed down a bit so they could continue looking at the lights, but they continued to drive home. The area where Frederick took his last flight. Is known as Bass Strait and there is a long UFO history tied to it, so even call it the Bas Straight Triangle. There's a long history of disappearing vessels in this region, ships and planes included. In eighteen fifty eight, HMS Sappho, a British ship, vanished in Bas Strait. In nineteen twenty, the SS Amelia also vanished, but before it did, strange lights appeared in the sky. A military search began, but the military search aircraft went missing as well. On October nineteenth, nineteen thirty four, the Miss Hobart airliner vanished. There were twelve passengers on board, seven men, two women, and a small child. At ten twenty am, pilots sent out the message over Verdondo All's well, but it was never heard from again. A number of ships and planes joined the search for the plane, but it was impossible there were no traces of Miss Hobart. The search was called off four days later. Now this may be just a creepy coincidence, but almost forty four years later to the day is when Frederick Valentiche would go missing. In October nineteen thirty five, a private plane with nine passengers traveled over the bas Strait from Melbourne to Tasmania, and right before it was supposed to begin descending, the plane went silent. A search was conducted and this time the wreckage was actually found, but there were more questions and answers. You see, three of the plane's chairs dislodged during the crash. They were found in a twisted, bizarre manner. A portion of the oil tank was also twisted in the same way. A small piece of the plane's floor was found, and there was evidence of a localized fire. Only a small patch of the floor appeared to be charred. Three passengers and two pilots were never found. The rest of the passengers never spoke a word about what happened that day. If all of that isn't mysterious enough, in this same region, one of the biggest UFO cases ever took place on the morning of April sixth, nineteen sixty six. The students and teachers of West Hall High School all saw the same thing, a huge gray disc shaped object in the sky. It passed over them and many students even tried to run after it, and just moments later it disappeared behind the trees, but then it came back into view. This only lasted seconds because then it soared into the sky at a high speed and vanished. We may never know what he saw that day, if it really was an alien abduction or a tragic accident. Guido Fred's father remains hopeful that his son is somewhere in the skies. If aliens took him, it means he's still alive somewhere out there. And when you look at the details of the disappearance, things just don't add up. When he went on his flight. None of Fred's four life vests were ever found floating in the open sea, and will the missing sesna ever be found? But maybe the truth is right here in front of us, that the existence of extraterrestrial beings capturing a person in love with the skies is the answer. But then if that's the case, are they still above us, waiting observing us? All we have left to answer? The mystery of his whereabouts might be his last words, It is hovering and it's not an aircraft. If you want to get in touch, head on over to horror story dot com or reach out to me at edwin Cove. That's e ed Wi nCoV on TikTok and Instagram. This episode of Horror Story was researched by Don, with pre production and script by Christina Lumaghi. He was hosted and produced by me Edwin Kovarubias. Thank you very much for listening. Keep its carey everyone, See you soon.