The Unexplained Files

Narrator: There are global phenomena

that science cannot explain

true stories that defy rational explanation.

Pilot Fred valentich and his plane

disappear from the bright blue skies of Southern Australia,

his last communication

seemingly an encounter with a menacing, unknown craft.

It's hovering! I - it's not an aircraft!

The ramblings of a disoriented pilot under stress?

It's just vanished!

Or could this be first contact?

I think he encountered a ufo.

Narrator: On the other side of the world,

livestock in Texas are drained of their blood

by an elusive predator.

Carter: What is th oh, man!

Narrator: Is the American Southwest

harboring a dangerous new species?

Hot damn! That thing is going fast!

Riedel: It wasn't a coyote, and it wasn't a wolf.

I've never seen anything like it.

Do you know what this is? Because I don't.

Narrator: New investigations question

unexplained happenings and otherworldly events.

Man: The eyes were gone. The tongue was gone.

Why is there no blood?

Who's doing this?

Narrator: Firsthand testimony and fresh evidence

build new possibilities.

Man: Never seen anything like that in my life.

And it just disappeared into thin air.

It wasn't from this planet.

My arms were just on fire.

Narrator: Rethink everything you think you know.

Captions paid for by Discovery Communications, LLC.

Sync & Corrected by iscol

the southeast coast of Australia

is home to one of the great mysteries of aviation.

Pilot Fred valentich and his aircraft disappear

from the face of the earth, leaving no trace.

What happened that day?

How could an airplane simply vanish?

And what could explain Fred's terrifying final moments

captured by the control tower?

It's hovering! I-it's not an aircraft!

I, every now and then, think about what could have happened,

and I still draw to the same concl

I just don't know.

Narrator: Fred valentich is 20 years old

and certified with a private pilot's license.

Richard: That was his whole passion, flying. He loved it.

The last years of his life, that's all he did.

He dedicated everything to flying.

Narrator: But could his relative lack of experience

have contributed to what he sees that fateful day?

October 21, 1978.

It's 6:20 P.M.

Fred climbs aboard a rented cessna 182 single-engine plane

for a routine cargo flight.

Today's task fly an hour away

and pick up an order of crayfish along the coast.

Conditions are good, visibility clear,

and the plane recently serviced.

His route will take him over the outskirts of Melbourne

past cape otway to king island in the bass strait.

It's a simple freight mission,

one of many that Melbourne flight officer Steve robey

will monitor that day.

Well, he just made a standard position report

over cape otway with an estimate for king island.

I think he said he was operating below 5,000, and that was it.

Narrator: But 47 minutes into the flight,

their conversation takes an unexpected turn.

Frederick said, "Melbourne, this is delta Sierra Juliet.

Is there any known traffic below 5,000?"

I said...

Delta Sierra Juliet, no known traffic.

It seems to me there's a large aircraft below 5,000.

I, uh, got him to describe the aircraft.

"It has four bright it seems to me like landing lights."

then he said, "The aircraft has just passed over me

at least 1,000 feet above."

he was describing it doing some fairly strange things.

Fred: Delta Sierra Juliet.

It seems to me that he's playing some sort of game.

"He's flying over me two, three times

at speeds I could not identify."

Frederick then said...

Delta Sierra Juliet. The engine is rough idling.

I've got it set at 23-24, and it's just coughing.

Narrator: Rough idling means the engine has mechanical problems,

potentially fatal above the sea.

Just listening to him

I can still remember it distinctly

he definitely sounded as if he was under stress,

and I could just picture him sort of in the aircraft

looking around for this object in the sky.

Narrator: Moments later, Fred stops talking

and strange metallic noises crackle across the airwaves.

Before robey can ask Fred what they are,

the line goes dead.

Delta Sierra Juliet, Melbourne. Come in. Over.

Narrator: Fred never arrives at king island.

My mom come in, and she was crying,

and she said, "Fred's been in an accident."

narrator: A full-scale search-and-rescue mission

is launched.

Aircraft are deployed, authorities comb the shoreline,

and vessels crisscross the ocean.

Most of that day, I remember, the news reports

saying that they were searching for a pilot

that had ditched into the sea.

Narrator: But after seven days,

no trace of Fred or his plane is recovered.

I cried for three days. I think I'd never stop crying.

It really it really gutted me that he disappeared, you know?

It was a big hole in my life.

Narrator: The unsettling circumstances of Fred's disappearance

shock his community,

triggering questions that continue to reverberate.

What caused the disappearance of the pilot and the aircraft?

And why is no debris of the aircraft ever found?

Investigator George Simpson

has harbored a lifelong obsession with the event

because of a chance sighting that day.

I've always felt that I was one of the last people

to see the plane in the air.

I was waiting for my girlfriend, who was coming over for dinner,

and it had just gone 6:00, and she was a little bit late,

and I'd just come out here to the post here to wait for her.

And I saw a plane flying over. It was a cessna.

I remember the angle it was on exactly,

and if you look at a map and you check that angle,

that's directly to cape otway.

I've thought for years that it's a mystery that needs solving.

Narrator: George is baffled by the many unexplained details

the odd noises, the absence of crash debris,

and, in particular, the bright lights of another craft.

Could these lights be the key

to the mystery of the plane's disappearance?

Four bright it seems to me like landing lights.

Several newspapers at the time

suggest that the lights Fred sees

are the reflection of his own cessna aircraft in the water

as he tumbles toward the sea upside down and disoriented.

The crash, it is claimed, is due to pilot error.

George has come to meet pilot Roger merridew.

Well, this is a cessna 182.

A veteran of the skies with more than 40 years of experience,

Roger has closely studied

the same type of airplane that Fred flew that day.

So, there have been theories

that have been put forward by various people

that Frederick might have become disoriented

and been flying upside down in the aircraft flying inverted.

How would that affect the running of the aircraft?

The tanks are up here in the wings just above our head.

Then, the fuel, of course, drains down into the fuel system

through pipes that run down the door frame.

In the case of the cessna,

if you go upside down, because of the gravity feed,

fuel-tank system just won't run upside down.

So the engine would stop within about 20 seconds.

20 seconds it'd stop?

Yeah. It would stop.

How long could he stay in the air after that if that's happened?

The airplane isn't a good glider upside down,

so I would say three minutes or so before he's in the water.

Narrator: The strange conversation

between Fred and flight service operator Steve robey

takes place over seven minutes

double the estimated time he could glide upside down

before hitting the water.

There's no way that he could have been flying inverted,

'cause the engine would have stopped,

the plane would have fallen out of the sky.

I don't even know if he ever hit the water.

So it's very difficult to get your head around it

other than he reported this unusual object

flying around him, and that was it.

He and his aircraft vanished without a trace.

Narrator: If not pilot error,

then what caused the bright lights

that led to Fred's disappearance?

The answer may lie in the unidentifiable sound

that pervades Fred's final moments.

Come in. Over. Delta Sierra Juliet, Melbourne.

Narrator: Investigator George Simpson

has spent 20 years analyzing the strange circumstances

surrounding the disappearance of Fred valentich.

It's certainly a great mystery in Australian aviation.

Narrator: George has ruled out pilot error

and turns to the next logical explanation.

Could Fred have orchestrated his disappearance deliberately?

Jones: G'day, George. How are you?

Pleased to meet you. Looking well.

Let's go for a walk. Let's go for a walk.

Brian Jones was the flight service officer

responsible for the airstrip on king island,

Fred's destination.