Fred Valentich fact or hoax

To my mind the Valentich case is a historical, well documented and compelling example of both a pilot and his aircraft being taken in mid-flight by unidentified anomalous phenomena.

purr

Yes...and there is no actual evidence other than he claimed he saw something....many think it was a case of an inexperienced pilot who became confused and crashed in the water.

Certain stories were since the disappearance circulated, like the request for opening the destination airfield requiring to be made before take off, as well as his purported intent to get some crayfish (and so on, his drug run, supposed infatuation with UFOs, debts with drug lords, lack of flying skills, him spiraling his plane at Venus or a meteor shower resulting in desorientation and/or a deadly stall etc. etc.) all of which are rumors or theories for which no proof is available, no witnesses named, on record and under oath. With drugs involved, to make this hard it should entail a criminal investigation, including an arrest warrant for a (very much alive) fugitive on the run.

HAL, the rumors could possibly be found true. BUT THEY SHOULD NOT LEAD INVESTIGATING THE CASE.

Since this was a flight that went missing, we must approach it as possible plane crash first, missing pilot second. Logical question was and is: what are the facts of this case.



purr

Maxxhazzard and HAL, veering off along with you guys on the theoretical angle, in my mind there is the question: do we have any real world model for aircraft vanishing with all souls aboard?

In the 1970s we (the public) didn't, only speculation and fanciful ideas from science fiction.

But times are a-changing. Just before I went online here I did a YouTube search. Normally I search for great 80's music videos.   But now I typed Air Disaster Vanished as term. This is what I got:

1945 USAF Flight 19 radio'd in being "lost" over the Bermuda Triangle, then vanished along with one Mariner rescue plane, all souls aboard lost, never found.

1956 USAF B-47 Stratofortress en route from Florida to Marocco, while observed by another plane it entered a cloud (no heavy weather/thunderstorms) and never came out. The B-47 carried a nuclear payload without detonator mechanism, considered high value. After intensive search effort it remained vanished.

1962 Flying Tiger Line Flight 739 from California to Saigon vanished in flight with all souls. Never found.

2016 Indian AF Flight AN 92 vanished in mid flight with all souls, never found.

The list actually was longer with no end in sight, since I could add in planes being lost due to mid flight catastrophic failures and collisions from causes unknown. No use yet to add up nr of casualties involved, but cursory results were from this one improvised search between 500 - 1000 passengers and crew presumed dead from either VANISHING or UNEXPLAINED MID FLIGHT FAILURE.

Place all of the above in context with Naval F-18 pilot Ryan Graves' testimony under oath before Congress stating that he and his colleagues by multiple sensor observation determined that aircraft share our airspace with UAP that are technologically advanced, having object properties, which pose an immediate and grave threat to air safety, because they fly in close proximity to aircraft, don't adhere to flight safety protocols, causing significant risk of a "mid flight" [collision].

Duh... doesn't mean every plane that vanishes, crashes from unknown causes or gets found after decades automatically had an Encounter of the 3rd/4th Kind. But IF a pilot were ever to radio in an apparent UAP sighting followed by a crash or entirely disappearing... well you get my drift.

We are not alone. Especially when flying.


purr

But we try to find out more, HAL. May be the crayfish and his mindset do not compute. But these do not EXPLAIN the core problems of the Valentich case. At core we have the missing plane. A missing pilot. And the radio exchange reporting an unknown object in proximity to Valentich's flight.

purr

To be more precise, the two references, to Valentich stated intention to pick up crayfish, and to him heading for King Island to connect with friends, as well as not notifying the air field of his arrival, IF factual ought to be verifiable, sure. Yet over the 20+ years I've been reading about this case these three never were raised above rumors, misapprehensions, the anecdotal/inconsequential type remarks we all make as we pass through our daily lives, which become only momentous if for instance we unfortunately are lost without a trace on our way to such errands. (Valentich could have changed his mind / could have been misunderstood by his listeners / could have been the target of a debunking campaign to defuse the claim a mid-air UFO encounter led to the loss of both pilot and airplane.) The only 'fact' I could find in the linkable literature was the somewhat questionable finding that crayfish was out of season, he did neither collect friends at King Island air field, or made the call to get it open for landing, QUESTIONABLE due to his mid flight disappearance. If indeed a mid flight accident of sorts, this would easily account for his failure to make good on whatever his intentions were on making the sortie.

On the targeting for debunking: much has been made of Valentich failing pilot tests, yet these were for his ambition to enter the Australian Air Force, which effort seemed to meet with partial success, having failed 5 out of 5 subjects first time, failed 3 out of five second try, thus if he had lived he probably had made a third attempt to enlist. Thwarted/delayed aspirations notwithstanding, Frederich Valentich by all accounts was a licensed private pilot on a path of self betterment.

Again, HAL, these are side issues. Just like the UAP question (did he meet with some unknown object or not?). Not the essence at all. The core problem is that a pilot and his plane went missing mid flight, while in radio contact with his controller. Now THAT is a fact.

From the perspective of Flight Safety and the Law, the transcript of the exchanges between Valentich and an air traffic controller constitutes both a historic record and a potential dying declaration. Whatever Frederich Valentich said during these last moments of in flight contact may give us information on what caused the disappearance. To dismiss this final conversation a priori as hoax is bizarre. Healthy investigative rigor demands that we at least consider the option of a pilot encountering a physical UAP, with airplane and unknown object on close proximity trajectories.

From the testimonies by Ryan Graves and David Fravor before Congressional Committee we know this is a real possibility in Earth skies.

I trust you've already checked out the wording of the actual exchange with the air controller in one of my previous posts in this thread. I have read it several times. I've also compared it with its various meteorological / astronomical explanations, as well as debunkings. None of them fit the factual, sequential details of the text, and for this reason I consider the Valentich disappearance as yet UNSOLVED.

purr

Purr - "From the perspective of Flight Safety and the Law, the transcript of the exchanges between Valentich and an air traffic controller constitutes both a historic record and a potential dying declaration. Whatever Frederich Valentich said during these last moments of in flight contact may give us information on what caused the disappearance. To dismiss this final conversation a priori as hoax is bizarre. Healthy investigative rigor demands that we at least consider the option of a pilot encountering a physical UAP, with airplane and unknown object on close proximity trajectories."


I agree Purr. The man put his last words on it. Unless he was known to suffer from strong delusions in life, I would lean towards him having an actual encounter of some kind. The discrepancies in flights logs, or his reasoning for being up there could vary but likely has a simple answer; for example due to laziness which tends to be the most likely culprit, or he was smuggling something, or etc. Because the correspondence is valid, the flight did actually occur, and that is what is important.