Frederick Valentich Disappearance 1978

On October 21, 1978, 20-year-old pilot Frederick Valentich was flying his Cessna 182 over Bass Strait to King Island when he radioed Melbourne Flight Service to report an unidentified craft orbiting his aircraft at 4,500 feet altitude. During a six-minute radio exchange with Flight Service Officer Steve Robey, Valentich described the craft as long, metallic, shiny, with a green light, traveling at high speed. He reported his engine beginning to rough up and then failed. His final transmission was 17 seconds of unidentified metallic scraping sound before silence. Neither Valentich nor his aircraft was ever found despite the largest air-sea search in Victorian history. Australian Transport Safety Bureau investigators found no explanation. The case produced one of the most dramatic direct-communication records in UAP history — the full radio transcript documents a live encounter in real time. A photograph taken the same evening by Roy Manifold near the coast shows an unusual object above the water. The case remains officially unsolved.